Global goods trade in the first half of 2010 was about 25 percent higher than the same period of the year before, and the value of worldwide merchandise trade grew during the second quarter, according to new data from the WTO secretariat. But the volume of global trade remains well below the peaks reached in mid-2008 before the global financial and economic crisis. And other data suggest that global macroeconomic imbalances are widening once again, threatening to increase tensions around trade relations.