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If fossil fuel prices continue to soar, world trade will still grow, but much more slowly. This is the anticipation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), presented in a strong report Thursday in Geneva. Last year, despite Trump’s tariffs, trade in goods increased by 4.6%. This year, they could well be limited to growth of 1.4%.
“Rising energy prices increase risks to global trade, with potential impacts on food security and cost pressures for consumers and businesses,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned on Thursday. Friday, it was the turn of the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, to be alarmed, in the Financial Times: the volume of gas whose supply has been interrupted is twice as large as that which Europe lost from Russia in 2022 and the oil losses are greater than those caused by the oil shocks of the 1970s.
