{"id":2629,"date":"2026-02-27T00:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insight.thomsonreuters.com\/mena\/business\/?post_type=insight_resource&#038;p=2629"},"modified":"2026-03-23T22:51:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:51:56","slug":"2026-global-trade-report-tariff-turbulence-is-elevating-strategic-role-of-trade-departments","status":"publish","type":"insight_resource","link":"https:\/\/insight.thomsonreuters.com\/mena\/business\/resources\/resource\/2026-global-trade-report-tariff-turbulence-is-elevating-strategic-role-of-trade-departments","title":{"rendered":"2026 Global Trade Report: Tariff turbulence is elevating strategic role of trade departments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Trade teams are gaining visibility, influence, and resources as they become strategic architects of resilience and growth within their organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Insights:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Trade teams are becoming strategic business partners<\/strong> \u2014 Trade is no longer an administrative, reactive function but rather a driver of business strategy and operational resilience.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tariff mitigation strategies<\/strong> \u2014 Many organisations are absorbing tariff costs as a tariff mitigation strategy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Technology adoption is surging<\/strong> \u2014 Organisations are rapidly adopting automation to improve efficiency and supply chain visibility and are exploring AI and other advanced technologies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For decades, corporate trade departments have operated in relative obscurity, being viewed largely as cost centers that manage compliance and transactional paperwork. Over the past 12 months, however, there\u2019s been a dramatic change. Corporate trade departments are emerging as a strategic business function within their organisations, due mostly to the unprecedented wave of tariff volatility that is forcing businesses to fundamentally rethink how they view trade management, according to the Thomson Reuters Institute\u2019s <em>2026 Global Trade Report<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trade teams are gaining visibility, influence, and resources as they become strategic architects of resilience and growth within their organisations. Key Insights: For decades, corporate trade departments have operated in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":2630,"template":"","categories":[681,694,660],"tags":[],"resource_type":[624],"insight_job_role":[],"insight_practice_area":[817,840],"class_list":["entry","author-legalexecutiveinstitute1","post-2629","insight_resource","type-insight_resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","category-global-trade-supply-chains","category-global-trade-strategy","category-governance-risk-compliance","resource_type-report","insight_practice_area-global-trade","insight_practice_area-risk-and-compliance","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>2026 Global Trade Report: Tariff turbulence is elevating strategic role of trade departments - TR - Business Insight MENA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover how tariff turbulence is driving trade departments from the back office to the boardroom in Thomson Reuters 2026 Global Trade Report.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/insight.thomsonreuters.com\/mena\/business\/resources\/resource\/2026-global-trade-report-tariff-turbulence-is-elevating-strategic-role-of-trade-departments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2026 Global Trade Report: Tariff turbulence is elevating strategic role of trade departments - 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