Great Recession: annual value of global exports of merchandise from 2007 to 2011

The Great Recession of 2008-2009 caused a dramatic drop in the volume of world trade, after two decades of nearly unbroken growth in export growth across the globe. The Global Financial Crisis, which began in the United States in the Summer of 2007, but quickly spread to other regions, caused international flows of money to freeze.
This lack of international financing in the global economy led to a drop in aggregate demand, as well as causing many goods exporters to be unable to finance short-term expenditures on credit. World merchandise exports collapsed in 2009, falling by around one-fifth. This fall was made up quickly in the recovery, however, as exports already surpassed their 2008 levels by 2011.