:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/skyscrapers_business-183021977-08b971808bc54de8bcebb1414a47e0d3.jpg)
Reem Heakal is a writer who became an Investopedia contributor in 2003. Her writing covers a wide array of large-scale financial topics.
Updated August 20, 2024 Reviewed by Reviewed by Thomas J. CatalanoThomas J Catalano is a CFP and Registered Investment Adviser with the state of South Carolina, where he launched his own financial advisory firm in 2018. Thomas' experience gives him expertise in a variety of areas including investments, retirement, insurance, and financial planning.
Fact checked by Fact checked by Jared EckerJared Ecker is a researcher and fact-checker. He possesses over a decade of experience in the Nuclear and National Defense sectors resolving issues on platforms as varied as stealth bombers to UAVs. He holds an A.A.S. in Aviation Maintenance Technology, a B.A. in History, and a M.S. in Environmental Policy & Management.
Part of the Series Global Trade Guide CURRENT ARTICLECurrency & Exchange Rates
Cryptocurrencies and Global Trade
International trade is the purchase and sale of goods and services by companies in different countries. Consumer goods, raw materials, food, and machinery all are bought and sold in the international marketplace.
International trade allows countries to expand their markets and access goods and services that otherwise may not have been available domestically. As a result of international trade, the market is more competitive.
This can ultimately result in more competitive pricing and cheaper products. Some countries engage in national treatment of imported goods, treating them as equivalent to those same products produced domestically.
If you can walk into a supermarket and find Costa Rican bananas, Brazilian coffee, and a bottle of South African wine, you're experiencing the impacts of international trade.
International trade was key to the rise of the global economy. In the global economy, supply and demand—and thus prices—both impact and are impacted by global events.
Political change in Asia, for example, could increase the cost of labor. This could increase the manufacturing costs for an American sneaker company that is based in Malaysia, which would then increase the price charged for a pair of sneakers that an American consumer might purchase at their local mall.
A product that is sold to the global market is called an export, and a product that is bought from the global market is an import. Imports and exports are accounted for in the current account section of a country's balance of payments.
Different countries are endowed with different assets and natural resources, such as land, labor, capital, and technology. Global trade allows wealthy countries to use their resources more efficiently.
This also allows some countries to produce the same good more efficiently; in other words, more quickly and at a lower cost. Therefore, they may sell it more cheaply than other countries might. If a country cannot efficiently produce an item, it can obtain it by trading with another country that can. This is known as specialization.
England and Portugal have historically been used—as far back as in Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"—to illustrate how two countries can mutually benefit by specializing and trading according to their own comparative advantages.
In such examples, Portugal is said to have plentiful vineyards and can make wine at a low cost, while England is able to manufacture cloth more cheaply given its pastures are full of sheep.
According to the theory of comparative advantage, each country would eventually recognize these facts and stop attempting to make the product that was more costly to generate domestically in favor of engaging in trade.
Indeed, over time, England would likely stop producing wine, and Portugal would stop manufacturing cloth. Both countries would realize that it was to their advantage to redirect their efforts at producing what they were relatively better at domestically and, instead, to trade with each other in order to acquire the other.
According to international trade theory, even if a country has an absolute advantage over another, it can still benefit from specialization.
These two countries realized that they could produce more by focusing on those products for which they have a comparative advantage. In such a case, the Portuguese would begin to produce only wine, and the English, only cloth.
Each country could then create a specialized output of 20 units per year and trade equal proportions of both products. As such, each country could access both products at lower costs. We can see then that for both countries, the opportunity cost of producing both products is greater than the cost of specializing.
Comparative advantage can contrast with absolute advantage. Absolute advantage leads to unambiguous gains from specialization and trade only in cases wherein each producer has an absolute advantage in producing some good.
If a producer lacked any absolute advantage, then they would never export anything. But we do see that countries without any clear absolute advantage do gain from trade because they have a comparative advantage.
The theory of comparative advantage has been attributed to the English political economist David Ricardo. Comparative advantage is discussed in Ricardo's book "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," published in 1817, although it has been suggested that Ricardo's mentor, James Mill, likely originated the analysis and slipped it into Ricardo's book on the sly.
Comparative advantage, as we have shown above, famously showed how England and Portugal both benefit by specializing and trading according to their comparative advantages.
In this case, Portugal was able to make wine at a low cost, while England was able to cheaply manufacture cloth. Ricardo predicted that each country would eventually recognize these facts and stop attempting to make a product that was more costly to generate.
A more contemporary example of comparative advantage is China’s comparative advantage over the United States in the form of cheap labor. Throughout much of the 20th century, Chinese workers produced simple consumer goods at a much lower opportunity cost.
The comparative advantage for the U.S. is in specialized, capital-intensive labor. American workers produce sophisticated goods or investment opportunities at lower opportunity costs.
Specializing and trading along these lines benefit each country. However, it should be noted that Chinese manufacturers are now able to produce goods that span all levels of the value chain, including high-quality, higher-cost products.
The theory of comparative advantage helps to explain why protectionism has been traditionally unsuccessful. If a country removes itself from an international trade agreement, or if a government imposes tariffs, it may produce an immediate local benefit in the form of new jobs; however, this is rarely a long-term solution to a trade problem.
Eventually, that country will grow to be at a disadvantage relative to its neighbors, countries that were already better able to produce these items at a lower opportunity cost.
The U.S. international trade deficit in June 2024 was $73.1 billion, meaning imports exceeded exports.
Why doesn't the world have open trading between countries? When there is free trade, why do some countries remain poor at the expense of others? There are many reasons, but the most influential is something that economists call rent-seeking. Rent-seeking occurs when one group organizes and lobbies the government to protect its interests.
Say, for example, the producers of American shoes understand and agree with the free-trade argument but also know that cheaper foreign shoes would negatively impact their narrow interests.
Even if laborers would be most productive by switching from making shoes to making computers, nobody in the shoe industry wants to lose their job or see profits decrease in the short run.
This desire could lead the shoemakers to lobby for special tax breaks for their products or extra duties (or even outright bans) on foreign footwear.
Appeals to save American jobs and preserve a time-honored American craft abound—even though, in the long run, American laborers would be relatively less productive and American consumers relatively poorer as a result of such protectionist tactics.
International trade not only results in increased efficiency but also allows countries to participate in a global economy, encouraging the opportunity for foreign direct investment (FDI). In theory, economies can thus grow more efficiently and become competitive economic participants more easily.
For the receiving government, FDI is a means by which foreign currency and expertise can enter the country. It raises employment levels and, theoretically, leads to growth in the gross domestic product (GDP). For the investor, FDI offers company expansion and growth, which means higher revenues.
As with all theories, there are opposing views. International trade has two contrasting views regarding the level of control placed on trade between countries.
Free trade is the simpler of the two theories. This approach is also sometimes referred to as laissez-faire economics. With a laissez-faire approach, there are no restrictions on trade.
The main idea is that supply and demand factors, operating on a global scale, will ensure that production happens efficiently. Therefore, nothing must be done to protect or promote trade and growth because market forces will do this automatically.
Protectionism holds that regulation of international trade is important to ensure that markets function properly. Advocates of this theory believe that market inefficiencies may hamper the benefits of international trade, and they aim to guide the market accordingly.
Protectionism exists in many different forms, but the most common are tariffs, subsidies, and quotas. These strategies attempt to correct any inefficiency in the international market.
As international trade opens up the opportunity for specialization, and thus more efficient use of resources, it has the potential to maximize a country's capacity to produce and acquire goods.
Opponents of global free trade have argued, however, that international trade still allows for inefficiencies that leave developing nations compromised. What is certain is that the global economy is in a state of continual change. Thus, as it develops, so too must its participants.
The benefits of international trade for a business are a larger potential customer base, meaning more profits and revenues, possibly less competition in a foreign market that hasn't been accessed as yet, diversification, and possible benefits through foreign exchange rates.
International trade arises from the differences in certain areas of each nation. Typically, differences in technology, education, demand, government policies, labor laws, natural resources, wages, and financing opportunities spur international trade.
The barriers to international trade are policies that governments implement to prevent international trade and protect domestic markets. These include subsidies, tariffs, quotas, import and export licenses, and standardization.
The world economies have become more intertwined through globalization and international trade is a major part of most economies. It provides consumers with a variety of options and increases competition so that businesses must produce cost-efficient and high-quality goods, benefiting these consumers.
Nations also benefit through international trade, focusing on producing the goods they have a comparative advantage in. Though some countries limit international trade through tariffs and quotas to protect domestic businesses, international trade has been shown to benefit economies as a whole.
Article SourcesCurrency & Exchange Rates
Cryptocurrencies and Global Trade
The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace.
Related Articles
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/foreign-currency-804917648-b77542998bd940b88564bdb7e4ac218c.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/structural-adjustment.asp-final-686ebe7132e7455e985b2cdfb85cf56d.png)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/-statue-of-alexander-hamilton-in-front-of-the-united-states-department-of-treasury-washington-d-c-73071086-5750d6b43df78c9b466d6f15.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/over-shoulder-close-up-of-male-office-worker-looking-at-laptop-in-office-536986021-33bd6bc194c64e73a67b6533bc68c316.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-949182974-a85e5d5960b14398950e0e9b4452f22f.jpg)
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is the largest global business organization representing over 130 countries.
A reserve tranche is a segment of an International Monetary Fund member country’s quota that is accessible without fees or economic reform conditions.
A structural adjustment is a set of economic policy reforms that a country must adopt in order to receive a loan from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or both.
Continuing claims are the number of people who have already filed an initial claim and are still filing for unemployment benefits.
Jobless claims are a statistic reported weekly by the U.S. Department of Labor that counts people filing to receive unemployment insurance benefits.
Non-negotiable can refer to a price or part of a contract that cannot be adjusted, or a financial product that cannot be transferred to a new owner.
We and our 100 partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your choices by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, or at any time in the privacy policy page. These choices will be signaled to our partners and will not affect browsing data.
Store and/or access information on a device. Use limited data to select advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles to personalise content. Use profiles to select personalised content. Measure advertising performance. Measure content performance. Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources. Develop and improve services. Use limited data to select content. List of Partners (vendors)
