While US President Trump’s tariffs may continue to have a major impact on trade flows, business leaders remain relatively upbeat about global trade prospects for their companies.

During the most turbulent period for global trade in decades, business leaders and finance professionals were surveyed and interviewed for a major report The outlook for global trade: perspectives from business leaders by leading global accountancy body ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants).

While 85 per cent of respondents were concerned about the impacts of tariffs on their organisations, the results show company bosses surprisingly positive about the future. The survey found optimistic views, with 56 per cent of respondents expecting their organisations to increase their amount of global trade ‘significantly’ or ‘somewhat’ in the next three to five years. While less optimistically, 23 per cent expected trade to decrease ‘somewhat’ or ‘significantly’.

A majority of C-suite executives were even more positive about the future, with 38 per cent and 29 per cent of respondents, respectively, expecting their firm’s amount of global trade to increase ‘significantly’ or ‘somewhat’.

Jonathan Ashworth, chief economist, ACCA, said: [The year]“2025 has been a monumental year for international trade, with the US raising its import tariffs to their highest level since the 1930s.

“The global economy has so far proved more resilient than expected to the disruptions in global trade, but the risk is for some slowing over coming quarters. Nevertheless, the survey results suggest that business leaders appear relatively optimistic about their enterprises’ medium-term trade prospects, and they are overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of an open global trading system.”

From our own interviews with business leaders and policy experts, it seems that they are not expecting an outright fall in global trade. However, rising protectionism and geopolitical tensions were clearly seen as important headwinds for its future growth. Rising tariffs were not viewed as the only friction in international trade, sanctions were also cited as a key issue.

Perhaps it was not surprising that ‘geopolitical tensions’, ‘international or civil conflicts/wars’ and ‘protectionist policies in advanced economies’ were viewed as the top three risks. Business leaders were equally clear on the top three opportunities as well, which may in part explain their optimism for the future. Firmly in first place, cited by half of all respondents, was to ‘use technology (eg AI) to help facilitate global trade’ followed by ‘diversifying production, investment, or location of suppliers’ and ‘gain access to new technologies’.

The major changes in US trade policy could have profound impacts on future global trade patterns and flows. The survey revealed that 60 per cent of organisations have already moved the location of some of their production, investment or suppliers in recent years, and 61 per cent say they are likely to do so in the next few years.

The research also flagged another danger: economists warn that a less open and more fragmented global trading system is likely to push up prices, and this was confirmed by the survey. Around 35 per cent of respondents report that their organisation’s costs are likely to increase by more than 10 per cent due to changes in global trade in the coming years, while 46 per cent expect them to increase by up to 10 per cent. An 11 per cent expect them to stay the same, while just 6 per cent expect them to decrease.

Read the report here

Editor’s Note

Most of the survey questions featured in the report had over 500 responses. Of these, CEOs and CFOs/finance directors generally accounted for around 45 per cent of responses, and C-suite executives as a whole almost two-thirds of responses. The largest number of responses came from the UK and mainland China with around 240 and 60 responses respectively. Multinationals accounted for over 80 per cent of responses.

About ACCA

We are ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), the only truly global professional accountancy body. Since we were founded in 1904, we’ve been breaking down barriers to the accountancy profession. Today we proudly support a diverse community of over 257,900 members and 530,100 future members in 180 countries.

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