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Imagine your most experienced trader switches off their phone for a week. Could someone else establish exactly where every live deal stands? Which terms changed? What the buyer accepted? Which document is holding up the next step? Or would the business spend Monday morning trying to reconstruct Friday afternoon? That is the test I would put to any trading business that describes someone as indispensable. Their judgement may deserve that description. Should access to the trans

Imagine asking a customer to sign a contract, celebrating the relationship for a decade, and still waiting for their signature. Welcome to European trade diplomacy. Canada is pushing Europe to finish ratifying the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, better known as CETA. Mark Carney called for the remaining EU countries to ratify it in September. Ireland remains among them. The agreement was signed on 30 October 2016. As its tenth anniversary approaches, the awkward q

The goods have left. The invoice has landed. Then the buyer sends six words: “That wasn’t what we agreed to.” Consider a hypothetical trade. A seller accepts a revised delivery arrangement. The buyer understands that freight is now included. The seller’s operations team uses the original quotation. The freight forwarder follows instructions issued before the change. Finance invoices against yesterday’s purchase order. Nobody thinks they have made a mistake. Everybody can prod

The goods arrived. The customer paid. The deal lost two-thirds of its expected profit. At the review meeting, procurement pointed to the negotiated discount. Logistics explained how it had rescued the delivery. Sales confirmed that it had kept the customer. Finance said every invoice had been authorised. The managing director asked: “Then who approved losing €40,000?” Nobody had approved that number. They had approved the decisions that produced it. This is a hypothetical tra

The purchase price looks good. The sales forecast looks better. Everyone is ready to sign. Then freight costs rise. The shipment misses its connection. An unexpected charge appears. The goods arrive after the customer needed them. The margin you negotiated starts paying for the assumptions you never tested. International trade requires decisions under uncertainty. But there is a difference between accepting a risk and discovering, too late, that you accepted it. What if you c

Crude-oil exports from the Gulf have largely returned to their pre-war level. That is positive news—but don’t be fooled. International trade is not out of troubled waters yet. According to data from trade-intelligence provider Kpler, at least 16.5 million barrels of crude oil per day left the region in September, equivalent to the pre-war average excluding Iran. That is 10.5 million barrels per day more than the average recorded in March, during the opening weeks of the confl

International trade still has a paper problem. Around four billion paper documents circulate through global trade every year. According to APEC, less than 1% are fully digitalised. A typical international trade transaction can involve more than 20 parties, thousands of data fields and dozens of individual documents. But a transaction completed in Mauritius this month provides an interesting glimpse of what happens when some of that paper finally disappears. Mauritius Commerci

7% in one week. That was the increase in Shanghai–New York container spot rates in the week to 17 September, according to Drewry. Shanghai–Los Angeles rose 5%. Yet, during the same week, Shanghai–Rotterdam rates fell 9%. The overall Drewry World Container Index moved only 1%. That tells exporters something important: the economics of international trade don't move uniformly. They change by route, product, market and transaction. Drewry World Container Index And freight is onl

Global trade is not slowing down. But it is becoming harder to navigate. The WTO’s latest Goods Trade Barometer reached 102.0, above its long-term baseline of 100, while the export orders index climbed to 103.5. Both indicate continued growth in global merchandise trade. But beneath those headline numbers, the trading environment is becoming more complicated. The WTO’s newly published World Trade Report 2026 says around 72% of global merchandise trade now takes place under st

For years, calculating landed cost meant adding freight, insurance, duties, taxes and handling charges to the price of the goods. In 2026, another cost entered the equation: carbon. On 1 January, the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism—or CBAM—entered its definitive phase. Importers of certain carbon-intensive goods must now account for the greenhouse-gas emissions embedded in those goods and, where applicable, purchase certificates reflecting those emissions.

AI is coming for international trade. It can already interpret documents, identify inconsistencies, recommend commodity codes, screen counterparties, predict delays and help businesses navigate unfamiliar trade rules. The World Trade Organization estimates that AI could increase global trade by between 34% and 37% by 2040. The temptation is obvious: take every slow, manual trade process and add AI. But there is a problem. AI cannot create order from a transaction that nobody

Shipping the goods is not the same as completing the trade. The transaction is only complete when the money is in your account. That distinction matters more than ever. World merchandise trade was surprisingly resilient in early 2026, growing 3.2% year-on-year in the first quarter, according to the World Trade Organization. But beneath that growth, exporters are carrying more risk for longer. In its latest survey of 6,000 companies across 13 countries, Allianz Trade found tha

The order looks profitable. The customer is ready. The price has been agreed. Then the shipment encounters a new tariff, an unexpected customs charge, a compliance problem or a freight surcharge. Suddenly, the margin you thought you had has disappeared. That risk is becoming harder to ignore. The World Trade Organization forecasts that merchandise trade growth will slow from 4.6% in 2025 to 1.9% in 2026. It also estimates that persistently high energy prices could reduce grow

A supplier creates a commercial invoice in its accounting system. It saves the invoice as a PDF and emails it to the buyer. The buyer downloads it, compares it with a purchase order and forwards it to a freight forwarder. The freight forwarder extracts the information and enters it into another system. A customs agent does it again. The finance team may repeat the process before releasing payment. The document is digital. The transaction is not. Replacing paper with a PDF cha

“I think we should start selling internationally.” It sounds like a strategy. It isn't. Germany is a strategy. Selling 500 units of Product X to a specific German customer at a price that still makes you money is a strategy. For an SME, that distinction matters. The opportunity is unquestionably there. Global trade in goods and commercial services reached $34.89 trillion in 2025, up 8% in a single year, according to the World Trade Organization. But comparatively few SMEs cap

The buyer has a purchase order. The seller has a commercial invoice. The freight forwarder has shipping instructions. The customs broker has a declaration. The bank has payment conditions. The insurer has a description of the goods and their value. Every party is working on the same international trade transaction. But they may not be working from the same information. That is one of the most persistent and underestimated problems in international trade. A transaction that be

An Irish food distributor receives an enquiry from a hotel-supply company in the Middle East. The prospective customer wants to purchase three refrigerated containers of premium dairy products for a new hospitality development. The opportunity is worth €420,000. Over the next four weeks, everything appears credible. The buyer has a professional website, an active LinkedIn presence and photographs of completed hotel projects. Its purchasing director joins two video calls and s

Three letters can decide who pays, who carries the risk, who clears customs — and whether your export sale is actually profitable. EXW. FCA. FOB. CIF. DAP. DDP. To an inexperienced exporter, Incoterms can look like harmless shipping shorthand. They are not. They are commercial risk-allocation rules. Choose the wrong one, misunderstand the obligation, or fail to specify the named place clearly, and a good order can quickly become a bad one. The goods may still ship. The buyer

International trade is not becoming simpler. The World Trade Organization expects world merchandise trade growth to slow from 4.6% in 2025 to 1.9% in 2026, while geopolitical disruption, transport costs and changing regulations continue to pressure supply chains. Meanwhile, more than 80% of goods traded worldwide move by sea, making exporters highly dependent on complex networks of carriers, ports, customs authorities, freight forwarders and documentation providers. In that e

Winning your first overseas customer is an important milestone. But it is not the same as successfully completing your first export. Between the buyer saying “yes” and the money arriving in your account lies a chain of decisions involving pricing, delivery responsibilities, customs, documentation, transport, insurance and payment risk. A mistake at any point can delay the shipment, erode your margin or leave you chasing payment from a customer in another jurisdiction. These c