Falling Commodity Prices Could Mute Inflation Risks from Trade Tensions

April 29, 2025--Overview
Global Commodity Prices Expected to Drop to Six-Year Low by 2026
Faltering economic growth is coinciding with ample oil supply in ways that are expected to drop global commodity prices to their lowest level of the 2020s, according to the World Bank's latest Commodity Markets Outlook.

The decline could moderate near-term inflation risks emerging from rising trade barriers, but it could also hamper prospects for economic progress in two out of every three developing economies.

Global commodity prices are expected to tumble 12% in 2025, and an additional 5% in 2026, falling to levels not seen since 2020. In nominal terms, prices would still be higher than they were before the start of the pandemic. Adjusted for inflation, however, they are likely to fall for the first time below the average that prevailed from 2015 through 2019. That would mark the end of a boom fueled by the global economy's rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.