On 24 October 2025, the World Trade Organization (WTO) advised that its economists, along with those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), had developed a new Trade Policy Activity (TPA) Index, which revealed a marked increase in trade policy activity from around 2019 to 2020, reflecting heightened interventions in trade for a range of policy objectives. The change also coincides with the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, heightened trade policy tensions among major economies, and increasing geopolitical risks. The future development of the indicator can help fill a significant information gap by providing policymakers with an early warning of possible policy shifts.
The Index draws insights from a wide range of information on trade policy measures, covering a large number of economies and products. Using a Dynamic Factor Model, the new WTO-IMF Trade TPA Index captures global trade policy dynamics in a timely and comprehensive fashion.