In a decade of miserable trade growth, 2019 is set to make the record books for all the wrong reasons.  Since the Great Recession, trade growth hovered around 3 percent per year, down from the 7 percent growth rates for the two decades preceding the crisis. This year world trade is expected to grow slightly above 1 percent. We find that policy uncertainty might account for almost half of the slowdown of world trade growth in 2019.

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