A common claim is that every country says it believes in free trade, and almost none practice it. The fact is that almost none have a zero tariff on every product, and most still trade on equal terms. World Tariff Profiles 2025, from the WTO, the International Trade Centre, and UNCTAD, finds that about 74% of global merchandise trade was conducted on most-favoured-nation terms as of May 2025. MFN means a country charges the same tariff to every partner, unless a deal says otherwise. That is the practice, not a speech.

Deals have multiplied. They have not taken over the tariff. A WTO staff paper found that imports between regional-agreement partners rose from 37% of world imports in 2010 to 52% in 2022. The share that could actually use a lower deal rate rose only from about 17% to 23%. About 80% of imports were not under those preferences. Much of that trade was already duty-free at the general rate, so a deal had nothing left to cut. Bound ceilings, the legal maximum, sit above the rates countries apply. The gap is room to raise a tariff, not a closed border.

The larger friction is not the average tariff line. UNCTAD’s 2024 trade-policy review says technical measures regulate about two-thirds of world trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary rules cover almost all agricultural products. Compliance costs of those measures are generally higher than tariffs. More than half of world trade is between partners in some preferential agreement, but a preferential partner is not a zero-tariff border. Agriculture stays more protected than industrial goods. A country can apply a low average and still block a farm product.

World Tariff Profiles compare bound ceilings with applied rates for more than 170 economies, as of the end of 2024, and estimate how much trade moves on MFN terms. The MFN share uses customs data and preference use, not a count of speeches. A duty-free MFN line and a preferential line are different. One is open to every partner. The other is a deal.

The WTO staff paper uses tariff-line imports for 157 customs territories from 2010 to 2022. “Potential preferential” means the import could have used a deal rate. It is not proof that every shipment did. UNCTAD counts non-tariff measures by the trade they cover. A rule on two-thirds of trade is not a tariff of two-thirds.

It is settled that almost no country has a zero tariff on every product, and that about 74% of merchandise trade was still on MFN terms in May 2025. It is not settled that almost none practice trade on equal terms. Use 74% for the MFN share. Use 23% for imports that could use a deal rate in 2022. Use two-thirds for technical rules. Do not use “almost none” as the trade share.