More than half of supply chain executives expect policy uncertainty to remain high during 2026. This is mainly due to businesses bracing for more geographical instability & higher costs, as reflected in a DP World Survey.
Research involving 3,500 senior supply chain & logistics executives across global industries was published amidst the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos this week, where it was found that 53% of respondents anticipate ‘high’ or ‘very high’ policy uncertainty to materialise.
Meantime, 9 in 10 business leaders expect trade barriers to either increase (47%) or remain unchanged (43%) during 2026. Half also forecast ‘moderate or sharp’ cost increases across shipping & transport, labour and customs & compliance.
DP World’s findings, in part of its Global Trade Observatory annual outlook report, were compiled before the U.S. President Donald Trump further shook-up global stability this week. This was by threatening additional tariffs on some European countries amidst the ongoing dispute over Greenland.
Trump, who intends to address the Devos conference shortly, said the U.S. could impose tariffs of 10% on goods from Denmark, the UK, Germany, Norway, Sweden, France, the Netherlands & Finland from Sunday 1 February 2026. It would be increased to 25% by June unless a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland.
The survey results also materialise amidst warnings from the UN Trade & Development (UNCTAD) in its January global trade update. The said governments mentioned earlier are expected to continue using tariffs as protectionist and strategic tools during 2026, with that uncertainty likely to persist.
Meantime, trade finance also emerged as one of the executives’ priority concerns in DP World’s survey. This, with 53% of respondents finding it too costly, whilst 8% said access was difficult.
The issue was particularly problematic for SMEs, with only 35% of executives from smaller companies reporting that they could readily access finance on reasonable terms. This is in comparison with 50% at large companies.
Accessibility and costs may vary by country & business size. SMEs often face more stringent collateral requirements and/or higher rejection rates, as pointed out by DP World’s survey.
Trade finance access is further constrained in many countries with more limited correspondent banking relationships. This includes reducing the availability of cross-border financial services and raising their costs.
Nevertheless, overall business confidence remained steady despite the geopolitical risks and financial strains as divulged in the survey.
Only 25% of executives expect incoming trade barriers to have a negative impact on their businesses. This was whilst 49% expect no effect, whereas 26% didn’t see the potential of a positive impact.
Due to the uncertainty, the survey respondents cited supplier diversification (51%), higher inventories (44%) and friend-shoring (36%) amongst the most common strategic shifts intended for 2026.
Additionally, 26% said that they intended to opt for new routes. This was whilst 23% said they were evaluating them.
Supply chain leaders are also set to prioritise investment in warehousing and logistics hubs (39%), road networks (36%) and border/customs processing infrastructure (36%).
Margareta Drzeniek, the Managing Partner at Geneva-based insights agency Horizon Group, which helped to develop DP World’s survey, said that what we are seeing is confidence in contingency plans.
Executives are embedding resilience into strategy. This is achieved by diversifying suppliers, reassessing routes, and adding options. This is due to volatility being now the baseline. Those best positioned will be the operators who can turn those resilience plans into measurable performances.
Meantime, more than half of supply chain executives (54%) expect growth during this year to be quicker than during last year (2025). This is whilst 40% expect it to be in line with last year’s levels.
