What Is International Trade - перевод текста

What Is International Trade?           

When Honduras exports bananas to Switzerland, they can use the money they earn to import Swiss chocolate-or to pay for Kuwaiti oil or a vacation in Hawaii. The basic idea of international trade and investment is simple: each country produces goods or services that can be either consumed at home or exported to other countries.The main difference between domestic trade and international trade is the use of foreign currencies to pay for the goods and services crossing international borders. Although global trade is often added up in U.S. dollars, the trading itself involves various currencies. Japanese videocassette recorders are paid for in German marks in Berlin, and German cars are paid for in U.S. dollars in Boston. Indian tea, Brazilian coffee, and American films are sold around the world in currencies as diverse as Turkish liras and Mexican pesos.Whenever a country imports or exports goods and services, there is a resulting flow of funds: money returns to the exporting nation, and money flows out of the importing nation. Trade and investment is a two-way street, and with a minimum of trade barriers, international trade and investment usually makes everyone better off.  

 In an interlinked global economy, consumers are given the opportunity to buy the best products at the best prices. By opening up markets, a government allows its citizens to produce and export those things they are best at and to import the rest, choosing from whatever the world has to offer. 

 Some trade barriers will always exist as long as any two countries have different sets of laws. However, when a country decides to protect its economy by erecting artificial trade barriers, the result is often damaging to everyone, including those people whose barriers were meant to protect.        The Great Depression of the 1930s, for example, spread around the world when the United States decided to erect trade barriers to protect local producers. As other countries retaliated, jobs were lost, and the world entered into a long period of economic decline.  

In spite of that, in the realm of foreign commerce, the United States led the world in the value of imports in 1986, and was second only to the Federal Republic of Germany in the value of exports. Exports of domestic merchandise, raw materials, agricultural and industrial products, and military goods amounted in 1985 to nearly $207 billion. One rapidly growing export category was computers, which rose from $1.2 billion in 1970 to $13.8 in 1985, grain exports rose from $2.6 to $11.25 in 1985.                                                                                                                                   From the value of combined exports and imports, the largest proportion of United States` foreign trade is with the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Canada is the nation’s single best customer and supplier.  The United Kingdom, the world’s fourth- largest trading nation, is highly dependent on foreign trade. It must export almost all its copper, lead, zinc, rubber, and raw cotton. Its exports, about 67% of which are manufactured goods, account for more than 30% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).Principal trade partners in 1986 were as follows: Federal Republic of Germany, United States and France.

Trade exists for many reasons. Due to specialisation and division of labor, most people concentrate on a small aspect of production, trading for other products. Trade exists between regions because different regions have a comparative advantage in the production of some tradable commodity, or because different regions' size allows for the benefits of mass production. As such, trade at market prices between locations benefits both locations.

Trading can also refer to the action performed by traders and other market agents in the financial markets.

In most countries, it represents a significant part of GDP. While international trade has been present throughout much of history (for example: Silk Road, Amber Road), its economic, social, and political importance have increased in recent centuries, mainly because of Industrialisation, advanced transportation, globalization and multinational corporations. In fact, it is probably the increasing prevalence of international trade that is usually meant by the term "globalisation".

        Empirical evidence for the success of trade can be seen in the contrast between countries such as South Korea, which adopted a policy of export-oriented industrialisation, and India, which historically had a more closed policy (although it has begun to open its economy, as of 2005). South Korea has done much better by economic criteria than India over the past fifty years, though its success also has to do with effective state institutions.

        Trade sanctions against a specific country are sometimes imposed, in order to punish that country for some action. An embargo, a severe form of externally imposed isolation, is a blockade of all trade by one country on another. For example, the United States has had an embargo against Cuba for over 40 years.