IN Brief:
- DHL and NYU Stern say global connectedness held at a record 25% in 2025.
- Europe again ranked as the most connected region, while the UK led the world on flow breadth.
- Trade distances lengthened, not shortened, suggesting supply chains are still diversifying globally rather than retreating into tighter regional blocs.
DHL says the world’s supply chains have proved more resilient than the politics surrounding them, with its Global Connectedness Report 2026 finding that globalisation held at a record 25% in 2025 despite rising tariffs and continued U.S.-China decoupling.
The report, produced with New York University’s Stern School of Business, argues that cross-border flows of trade, capital, information, and people have not retreated in the way many businesses feared. Instead, it describes a world economy that is still expanding across borders, even as policy becomes more volatile and large bilateral relationships become harder to read. The study covers 180 countries and draws on more than 9 million data points.
For Europe, the findings are particularly strong. The region again ranked as the world’s most connected, ahead of North America and the Middle East and North Africa. The United Kingdom was identified as having the most broadly distributed flows worldwide, underlining the extent to which its trade and investment links remain geographically diverse even as individual corridors come under pressure.
Trade performance in 2025 also ran against the idea that companies are rapidly shrinking supply chains into local or regional blocks. DHL said global trade grew faster in 2025 than in any year since 2017, excluding the pandemic period. AI-related products accounted for 42% of goods trade growth in the first three quarters of last year, while front-loading ahead of tariff hikes and rising Chinese exports to non-U.S. markets helped sustain global volumes.
The report’s distance data is one of its most telling signals. Traded goods travelled an average of 5,010 km in 2025, the longest distance on record, while greenfield foreign direct investment projects reached an average of 6,250 km. In other words, supply chains are not simply regionalising by default. They are still stretching across long routes where cost, capability, and market access justify it.
Steven Altman, director of the DHL Initiative on Globalization at NYU Stern’s Center for the Future of Management, said: “The politics and policy surrounding globalization are much more volatile than the actual flows between countries. The risks to globalization are real, but so is the resilience of global flows.”
The report also finds that U.S.-China ties continue to weaken, but from a relatively small base in global terms. Trade between the two countries accounted for 3.6% of world trade at its 2015 peak, falling to 2.7% in 2024 and 2.0% during the first three quarters of 2025. DHL says there is still no evidence of a broad split into rival trading blocs, with only 4% to 6% of global trade and investment flows shifting away from geopolitical rivals over the past decade.
That leaves a more complex picture for logistics and sourcing teams. Risk has not disappeared, and policy shocks still alter routes and buying patterns. But the operating assumption that global networks are collapsing into regional islands looks increasingly weak. For now, the longer story is one of rerouting, diversification, and persistence rather than retreat.
