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The candidacy of Donald Trump has put trade issues front and center in the presidential election. Most of the attention, properly, is on the various proposals for tariffs – across-the-board 10 or 20 percent, on Chinese goods, and other targeted measures – and their implications for U.S. growth and inflation. But the discussion has extended to the possibility of retaliation by U.S. trading partners.

This raises the possibility of broad impacts on global trade, which, at least for Eakinomics, raised the issue of the backdrop for these developments. Put differently, what has been happening in global trade.

One part of the big picture is shown in the graph below, based on data from the World Trade Organization (WTO). The past 70-odd years consists of two distinct periods. The first, from 1950 to the financial crisis and Great Recession showed a continuous, smooth rise in the volume of global trade (measured in billions of U.S. dollars).

Since then, the trend has been up, but the year-to-year growth has been extremely choppy. Clearly, part of the story is two major global disruptions in economic activity: the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. But the decade between was hardly smooth sailing.

Indeed, beginning with the Obama Administration, the United States registered increasing discontent with the WTO dispute settlement process. Ultimately, the Trump Administration blocked appointments to the WTO’s seven-member Appellate Body – the appeals court for dispute settlement, arguing that it was guilty of serial overreach in its decisions. The Appellate Body needs a minimum of three members to function; ultimately the blocking process brought the dispute settlement process to a standstill. The Biden Administration has continued the strategy.

This raises the possibility of an intriguing scenario. China has initiated a dispute settlement against the United States, contesting “discriminatory subsidies” under the Inflation Reduction Act . As reported in the Financial Times: “‘Under the disguise of responding to climate change, reducing carbon emission and protecting environment, [these subsidies] are in fact contingent upon the purchase and use of goods from the United States, or imported from certain particular regions,’ the Chinese mission said.” WTO rulings on trade disputes are supposed to take six months but often take longer. If the WTO finds in favor of China, the United States will have no venue for an appeal.

Momentum for additional trade agreements that reduce barriers to trade appears at a standstill. And there is no good way to enforce the existing agreements. The outlook for global trade growth appears dim.