Global trade is entering a volatile but adaptive phase, shaped by shifting tariff regimes, rising AI-driven capital investment, and a structural tilt toward regional supply networks. Companies are recalibrating sourcing footprints, financing models, and liquidity strategies as policy and technology pressures reshape the cost and timing of global commerce. Citi’s latest Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS) report captures these crosscurrents with new data on supply chain pressures, working capital demands, and the geographic reordering of trade flows.
Regional Supply Chains Advance as Tariff Pressures Build
Citi’s report, Supply Chain Financing – Durable Global Trade in the Age of AI, shows companies absorbing tariff volatility more effectively than expected. Despite U.S. tariff levels rising to roughly 16.8% from 2.4% prior to the change in administration, Citi’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index remains near pre-pandemic levels. The muted response reflects the strategies companies have already been refining: diversified supplier networks, stronger inventory positioning, and targeted nearshoring to reduce exposure to single-country risk.
These adaptation patterns mirror broader global trade realignments. South Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) continue to gain share, with shipments from North and East Asia to those regions up 44%, according to the report. Latin America’s role is also expanding, becoming more deeply integrated into supply chains serving both Asia and North America. Exports from the region into South Asia and ASEAN grew 82%, the steepest increase globally.
The U.S., meanwhile, is drawing more from emerging markets as companies rebalance import exposure. Import growth from South Asia and ASEAN reached 50%, with Latin America close behind at 43%, outpacing the 32% increase from North and East Asia.
Trade officials and analysts have noted similar shifts. According to publicly available trade reports, the dispersion of export growth from China and neighboring economies increasingly favors Vietnam, India, Thailand, and Mexico, reflecting the confluence of tariff uncertainty, labor-cost diversification, and infrastructure investment in newly expanding manufacturing corridors.
AI Infrastructure Spending Pushes Trade Finance Into a New Role
The report also highlights how the acceleration of AI adoption is reshaping global capital spending. Citi Research estimates AI-related investment in data centers could reach US$7.75 trillion by 2030, creating one of the largest multi-year capex expansions in recent memory. This surge affects not only hyperscalers and chipmakers but also the financial infrastructure that supports global equipment flows, construction contracts, and long-horizon supplier agreements.
For trade finance, these pressures are redefining expectations for speed, accuracy, and liquidity release. Citi notes that AI-enabled document processing is now providing significantly higher accuracy rates and reducing turnaround times to minutes, an important shift in categories such as letters of credit, supplier payments, and cross-border guarantees.
Citi’s Global Head of Trade and Working Capital Adoniro Cestari says advances like blockchain-based conditional payments illustrate how guarantees could move toward near-continuous digital execution, offering new levers for working capital optimization.
Recent industry data echoes this acceleration: the share of large corporates using AI in trade finance has risen to 36%, an 18-point increase from 2025. This aligns with broader patterns seen across procurement and logistics technology markets, where automation gains are increasingly tied to liquidity and throughput rather than isolated workflow upgrades.
The working capital implications remain front of mind. With input costs rising, 64% of companies cite cost inflation as their top concern, and Citi’s survey shows 6.3% of working capital is now tied up in funding tariff-related expenses. Companies are responding by expanding structured receivables programs, using dynamic discounting to unlock cash, and trimming inventory positions, 46% expect to rationalize holdings, up sharply from 16% in 2023.
Diversification strategies are also widening. Citi reports that 65% of large companies are shifting sourcing away from one or more countries, with Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Mexico gaining favor. The structural nature of this shift is reflected in U.S. import data: China’s share of U.S. imports has fallen to 8% as of late 2025, down from over 20% in 2018.
A Shift That Forces Finance to Rethink Time Horizons
One area that deserves closer attention is the widening gap between the pace of AI-driven capital deployment and the much slower cycles governing energy capacity, power infrastructure, and advanced equipment supply. Public reports from utilities and data center developers show multi-year queues for grid interconnections and constrained availability of high-voltage transformers, bottlenecks now shaping the speed at which AI infrastructure can scale. As finance teams sharpen liquidity strategies and diversify global sourcing, these long-lead constraints will increasingly influence capital phasing, contract design, and the sequencing of supplier commitments. Recognizing how these structural frictions interact with tariff volatility and regional supply shifts may give companies earlier, and more durable, signal advantages than trade data alone.