The head of the World Trade Organization has cautioned that the booming trade in artificial intelligence-related products is obscuring the detrimental effects of tariff policies and other global trade disruptions. According to the latest WTO data, trade in AI-related goods such as semiconductors, chemicals, and industrial equipment surged by 42% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, while trade in non-AI goods grew only 7%.
"AI-related trade is masking the impact of tariffs and the various shocks facing global trade," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, stated in an interview in Geneva. She warned, "If the AI rally turns out to be a bubble, then this trade growth will not be sustainable. We need to carefully observe how long this trade growth engine can last."
The head of the International Monetary Fund remarked last month that AI investment helped the global economy withstand the energy shocks triggered by Middle East conflicts, with outcomes better than market fears. However, since then, concerns over the safety of Middle East oil exports have intensified, pushing oil prices back above $100 per barrel.
Okonjo-Iweala's comments come after top tech executives, including Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Sam Altman of OpenAI, stated that the industry must "slow down the pace of AI research and development," bringing AI safety issues into the mainstream spotlight. Bank of America Global Research estimates that large tech companies plan to invest nearly $800 billion in AI infrastructure in 2026, though recent cautious statements from the industry have raised concerns that AI investment could decelerate.
Last year, the explosive growth in AI trade caught WTO economists by surprise. The WTO initially forecast 2.5% growth for global goods trade in 2025, but the final figure reached 4.6%, a gap largely attributed to trade in AI-enabled products used to build data centers.
Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian Finance Minister, indicated that so far, this round of growth shows no signs of slowing: In the first quarter of 2026, AI-enabled goods accounted for nearly 19% of global goods trade, but the benefits of this growth are distributed very unevenly. "The gains are highly concentrated. In 2025, Asia accounted for over 60% of global AI-enabled product trade... while North America absorbed 76% of global venture capital last year," she said.
The WTO believes that as countries roll out AI regulations, this is a typical area where multilateral cooperation needs to be strengthened. The multilateral trading environment is under increasing pressure. Okonjo-Iweala this week cited economic models from the WTO's annual World Trade Report, warning that if the trading system is not modernized and reformed, global output could shrink by up to 10% by 2050. In March, at the WTO's biennial ministerial conference, trade ministers failed to reach a reform roadmap, leaving attempts to restart WTO reforms deadlocked. However, Okonjo-Iweala firmly denied that WTO reform is hopeless, stating that negotiations have resumed at the Geneva headquarters. "In my view, the change is that members now agree that reform is imperative and that maintaining the status quo is not an option," she said.