China Council for the Promotion of International Trade: The global economic and trade friction situation is becoming increasingly severe

On March 31st, Wang Guannan, spokesperson for the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, released the Global Economic and Trade Friction Index for 2025 and January 2026 at the regular press conference in March. From the perspective of the comprehensive index, the global economic and trade friction index will remain high for 12 months in 2025, and the global economic and trade friction situation is becoming increasingly severe.

On the basis of the high operation of the economic and trade friction index in 2024, the United States has further climbed, and the monthly average of the index in 2025 has increased by 16 points year-on-year. Wang Guannan pointed out that especially since April 2025, the global economic and trade friction index has been severely "stirred up" by the US's equivalent tariff measures, which has had a serious negative impact on the stable development of the global economy. In January of this year, the global economic and trade friction index was 100, and the amount involved in global economic and trade friction measures decreased by 7.3% year-on-year and 4% month on month.

From the perspective of country indices, Wang Guannan introduced that among the 20 countries (regions) within the monitoring scope, in 2025, the United States, India, the European Union, Brazil, and Japan ranked among the top five in terms of the number of months with high economic and trade friction indices. In particular, the United States had the highest amount of economic and trade friction measures involved, with 11 months ranking first throughout the year, and its average amount of economic and trade friction measures involved was nearly four times that of the second place. In January of this year, the United States continued to top the list, while India and Russia ranked second and third.

In 2025, industries such as electronics, mechanical equipment, and transportation equipment will be the main areas causing economic and trade frictions, "said Wang Guannan. In January of this year, the electronic industry's economic and trade friction index continued to lead, and relevant enterprises in these industries should establish a normalized warning and response mechanism.

In addition, Wang Guannan stated that by 2025, among the five types of measures monitored, other restrictive measures, technical trade measures, and import and export tariff measures will rank among the top three in terms of quantity. In January of this year, 20 countries (regions) within the monitoring scope issued a total of 23 import and export tariff measures, initiated 19 trade remedy investigations, submitted 141 notifications of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) to the WTO, issued 15 import and export restrictive measures, and issued 178 other restrictive measures. Among them, the index of import and export tariff measures ranks first.