Today’s topic is international trade. What is international trade? This article will go about explaining the background, the development, the usefulness, and future of international trade. Whether you know or not, you, yourself will have taken part in the outcome of an international trade deal or trade agreement.
How Did International Trade Begin?
International trade has a big history which starts with the barter system. The barter system started as early as 6000 BC. Introduced by Mesopotamia tribes, bartering was adopted by Phoenicians. Phoenicians bartered goods to those located in various other cities across oceans. If you are not familiar with it, bartering is the process of trading services or goods between two parties without using money in the transaction. When people barter, everyone benefits because they receive items or services they need or want.
Since then international trade has evolved many times over. Today we know it as the massive imports and exports business all over the world. There are trillions of dollars spent on global trade each year. Developed countries such as the United States rely on other countries for certain goods and services. An example of this is the car industry. The United States imports $300 billion worth of cars from around the world each year. Yes, $300 billion, not million. That is a lot of cars.
Why Is International Trade Important?
In other parts of the world countries have superior natural resources and raw materials to be able to produce or manufacture certain goods and therefore they take on the role of supplying it to the world economy. Therefore, we have international trade. Trading between countries will always happen now and in the future, mainly because certain countries are not able to manufacture or produce certain goods and can only get them from other countries. For such a big and complex business, it is such a simple idea. Simple, but necessary. This is why international trade is so useful and important.
The future of international trade looks brighter than ever. Why, you might ask? Well, as more countries develop, and as the world develops, we are all able to become more efficient. Mainly due to the rapid advancements in technology. But we are becoming efficient at both the production level and the distribution level. This means we will be able to offer better goods and services and have them reach your doorstep quicker at an affordable price.
That is all we have for today's blog post. We hope that you have fully grasped the idea of international trade and why it is so important to the world we live in. We want to quickly tie this back to the bigger picture, why this impacts trading? Well, this might be news to you, however, you are able to trade soft commodities such as orange juice, coffee and sugar. All these products are heavily related to international trade and their prices are affected in more ways than you probably think.
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