The COVID-19 pandemic constituted both a demand and a supply shock and the twin nature of the shock was expected to lead to a sharp decline in trade (Baldwin and Tomiura, 2020; Buchel et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2022). For an economy experiencing COVID-19, the economic contraction resulting from domestic pandemic containment policies, such as restrictions on mobility (and social distancing), was expected to lead to a large contraction in demand, and thus a decline in imports. From the supply side, the sudden halt in production following strict lockdowns and outright closings of establishments would also imply a contraction in the exports of a COVID-19 hit country to its trading partners—or equivalently—the bilateral imports of trading partners (Baldwin and Freeman, 2022; Cerdeiro and Komaromi, 2020; Espitia et al., 2022; Lafrogne-Joussier et al., 2022). The former channel may be thought of as te direct impact of the pandemic on trade. The latter channel constitutes a spillover effect on global trade, resulting from domestic measures to contain the pandemic.