Lead:

The so-called international trade, also known as world trade, is the activity of exchanging goods and services between different countries and regions. It consists of import trade and export trade, so it is often referred to as import and export trade.

Once upon a time, two hungry people were given a gift from God - two fishing rods and two baskets of live fish. One of them asked for two baskets of fish, and the other for two rods. With the gift they received, they parted. The man who got the fish walked a few steps, lit a bonfire using dry branches, and boiled the fish. He devoured it, didn't taste the aroma of the fish, and even swept away the fish soup. Within a few days, he could no longer get new food, and finally starved to death next to the empty fish basket.

The other person who chooses a fishing rod can only continue to choose to starve, and he walks to the sea step by step, ready to fish to satisfy his hunger. However, when he saw the blue water not far away, his last bit of strength was exhausted, and he could only die with endless regrets.

God shook his head, determined to show mercy one more time. So two more hungry people were given two rods and two baskets of live fish as a gift from God. This time, the two men did not go their separate ways, but agreed to exchange one of each other's fishing rods and a basket of fish.

In the end they all reached the seaside. Since then, the two of them have started to live by fishing, they have their own families, children, and fishing boats they have built, and they live a happy and healthy life.

From an economic point of view, the actions of the latter two fishermen are actually trade, and if this situation develops into an exchange between different countries or regions, it is called international trade.

The so-called international trade, also known as world trade, is the activity of exchanging goods and services between different countries and regions. It consists of import trade and export trade, so it is often referred to as import and export trade.

International trade in goods is relative to domestic trade, because it is carried out between different countries or regions, so compared with domestic trade, it has the following characteristics: international trade in goods involves differences and conflicts in policies and regulations that may exist in different countries or regions, as well as differences in language, culture, customs and habits, etc., and the issues involved are much more complex than domestic trade; The volume and amount of international trade transactions are generally larger, the transportation distance is longer, and the execution time is longer, so the risks borne by both parties to the transaction are much greater than those of domestic trade; International trade is susceptible to the political, economic, and foreign relations conditions of the countries where the parties to the transaction are located; In addition to the two sides of the transaction, international trade in goods also involves the cooperation and cooperation of transportation, insurance, banking, commodity inspection, customs and other departments, and the process is much more complex than that of domestic trade.

International trade plays an important role in the development of countries participating in trade and even the world economy, which is mainly manifested in regulating the supply and demand relations in the markets of various countries. Due to the influence of factors such as the level of production, science and technology, and the distribution of factors of production, there is a certain degree of difference between the production capacity and the market supply and demand in all countries, and there are not only the situation of insufficient supply of products in various countries, but also the situation of various forms of product surplus, and through international trade, we can not only increase the market supply of products in short supply at home and meet the needs of consumers, but also provide a new way out for the surplus products in the domestic market of various countries, and alleviate the contradiction between market supply and demand to a certain extent. Thus regulating the market supply and demand in various countries.

Promote the full utilization of factors of production. In today's world, the distribution of factors of production such as labor, capital, land, and technology in various countries is often unbalanced; some countries have surplus labor but capital shortage, some countries have abundant capital but insufficient land, and some countries have vast land and backward farming technology. If there is no international trade, the scale of domestic production and the development of social productive forces in these countries will be constrained by their shortage of production factors, some of which will be idle or wasted, and the production potential will not be brought into play. Through international trade, these countries can adopt such methods as international labor trade, capital transfer, land leasing, and technology trade to exchange domestic surplus production factors with other countries for production factors that are in short supply at home, so that the constraints of shortage of production factors can be eased or eliminated, and the surplus production factors can be fully utilized, the scale of production can be expanded, and economic development can be accelerated.

Comparative interests and comparative advantages are an important basis for countries to give full play to their comparative advantages and improve production efficiency. By making use of comparative interests and comparative advantages to carry out international division of labor and international trade, we can expand the production of superior commodities, reduce the production of inferior commodities, and export superior products from abroad in exchange for inferior commodities in our own countries, so that we can improve the efficiency of production factors, improve production efficiency, and obtain greater economic returns under the premise that the social productive forces remain unchanged.

Improve the level of production technology and optimize the domestic industrial structure. In today's world, all countries generally introduce advanced science and technology and equipment through international trade in order to raise the level of domestic productive forces and accelerate economic development, and through international trade, the domestic industrial structure is gradually coordinated and perfected, so as to promote the coordinated development of the entire national economy.

Increasing fiscal revenue and improving the level of national welfare The development of international trade can open up a source of fiscal revenue for a country. ** A large amount of fiscal revenue can be obtained from the collection of customs duties on goods passing through the border, the collection of domestic taxes on imported and exported goods, and the provision of various services for goods in transit.

Strengthen economic ties among countries and promote economic development. The extensive international trade activities carried out by all countries in the modern world not only link the developed countries with a relatively high level of development of productive forces, but also involve the vast number of developing countries with a relatively low level of development of productive forces into international economic life. Competitive activities in the international market have also further accelerated the development of the world's overall productive forces. This has not only promoted the further economic development of the developed countries, but also promoted the economic development of the underdeveloped countries and regions.

However, there is a duality in everything, and the same is true of international trade. It brings benefits to the country as well as high risks.

There is such a story:

In ancient times, the king of a country issued a very strange decree one day: the ministers of the country must wear silk clothes, but the common people must not raise silkworms, only grow food. No one raises silkworms, so silk is naturally in short supply, and the price rises again and again.

Seeing this situation, almost all the common people who have been to neighboring countries have gone to raise silkworms to make silk, and then sell silk to this country, many people. A few years later, the emperor issued a second decree: his ministers could not wear silk clothes, otherwise they would be killed, so the silk of the neighboring country could not be sold at once, and not only that, because the whole country of the neighboring country was silk, and no one grew grain, they had to buy grain from this country at a high price.

Immediately afterwards, the emperor issued a third decree: not a single grain of grain from his country should be sold to foreign countries. The result can be imagined: if you don't do anything, a country that doesn't grow a little food will perish.

If you look at it from an economic point of view, it is the use of international trade by one country to destroy another. Although this is just a story, it illustrates one thing: international trade is risky. After all, international trade is a kind of worldwide market competition, and its negative impact is also very obvious. Because economic development between countries is very uneven, developed countries often rely on their strong economic strength and do not consider the interests of the overall situation to wantonly carry out economic aggression, which may cause developing countries to suffer even greater losses. In this context, international trade is like a global war without gunpowder in the economic sphere.

In recent years, international trade disputes have appeared many times, which seriously affect the overall interests of certain industries in a country.

At the end of 2010, Chinese company A met company B of the United States through the website and agreed to sell a batch of building materials to the company, and the payment method was 60% of the payment as shown in the annex of the bill of lading. Company A then loaded the cargo onto a ship to the United States. After the goods were shipped, Company B demanded a price reduction on various grounds, citing financial difficulties. Company B's behavior has led to a dilemma for our exporters. If you agree with the other party's approach, on the one hand, the profit will be greatly reduced or even unprofitable, and it may be completely impossible to recover the payment, if you do not agree with the other party's approach, because the goods are already in the United States port, you will have to pay a huge amount of terminal and related fees.

In the above example, the contradiction between Chinese company A and American company B is an international trade dispute. In order to safeguard free trade and oppose unilateral trade restrictive measures such as the one in the above case, the World Trade Organization (WTO) came into being, and the WTO played an important role in resolving international trade disputes. After China's accession to the WTO, many trade disputes related to China can be dealt with in accordance with the multilateral system of the WTO, so as to better safeguard its own interests and achieve faster economic development.