International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services.
In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product (GDP). While international trade has existed throughout history (for example Uttarapatha, Silk Road, Amber Road, salt roads), its economic, social, and political importance has been on the rise in recent centuries.
Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, the liberalization of capital movements, the development of transportation, and the advancement of information and communication technologies. The term globalization first appeared in the early 20th century (supplanting an earlier French term mondialisation). It developed its current meaning sometime in the second half of the 20th century, and came into popular use in the 1990s to describe the unprecedented international connectivity of the post–Cold War world.The origins of globalization can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries, driven by advances in transportation and communication technologies. These developments increased global interactions, fostering the growth of international trade and the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and cultures. While globalization is primarily an economic process of interaction and integration, it is also closely linked to social and cultural dynamics. Additionally, disputes and international diplomacy have played significant roles in the history and evolution of globalization, continuing to shape its modern form. Though many scholars place the origins of globalization in modern times, others trace its history to long before the European Age of Discovery and voyages to the New World, and some even to the third millennium BCE. Large-scale globalization began in the 1820s, and in the late 19th century and early 20th century drove a rapid expansion in the connectivity of the world's economies and cultures. The term global city was subsequently popularized by sociologist Saskia Sassen in her work The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991).
Globalization describes the growing interdependence of the world's economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information. Countries have built economic partnerships to facilitate these movements over many centuries.
The Age of Discovery (c. 1418 – c. 1620), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which seafarers from European countries explored, colonized, and conquered regions across the globe. The Age of Discovery was a transformative period when previously isolated parts of the world became connected to form the world-system, and laid the groundwork for globalization. The extensive overseas exploration, particularly the opening of maritime routes to the East Indies and European colonization of the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese, later joined by the English, French, and Dutch, spurred international global trade. The interconnected global economy of the 21st century has its origins in the expansion of trade networks during this era.
The exploration created colonial empires and marked an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization. This colonization reshaped power dynamics causing geopolitical shifts in Europe and creating new centers of power beyond Europe. Having set human history on the global common course, the legacy of the Age still shapes the world today.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; French: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, OCDE) is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum whose member countries describe themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices, and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members.
The majority of OECD members are generally regarded as developed countries, with high-income economies, and a very high Human Development Index.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations, headquartered in Washington, D.C. It consists of 191 member countries, and its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." The IMF acts as a lender of last resort to its members experiencing actual or potential balance of payments crises.
Established in July 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference based on the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, the IMF came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. For its first three decades, the IMF oversaw the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rate arrangements. Following the collapse of this system in 1971, the Fund's role shifted to managing balance-of-payments difficulties and international financial crises, becoming a key institution in the era of globalization.
A tariff or import tax is a duty imposed by a national government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods or raw materials and is paid by the exporter. Besides being a source of revenue, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and policy that burden foreign products to encourage or safeguard domestic industry. Protective tariffs are among the most widely used instruments of protectionism, along with import quotas and export quotas and other non-tariff barriers to trade.
Tariffs can be fixed (a constant sum per unit of imported goods or a percentage of the price) or variable (the amount varies according to the price). Tariffs on imports are designed to raise the price of imported goods to discourage consumption. The intention is for citizens to buy local products instead, which, according to supporters, would stimulate their country's economy. Tariffs therefore provide an incentive to develop production and replace imports with domestic products. Tariffs are meant to reduce pressure from foreign competition and, according to supporters, would help reduce the trade deficit. They have historically been justified as a means to protect infant industries and to allow import substitution industrialisation (industrializing a nation by replacing imported goods with domestic production). Tariffs may also be used to rectify artificially low prices for certain imported goods, due to dumping, export subsidies or currency manipulation. The effect is to raise the price of the goods in the destination country.
Commerce is the organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions that directly or indirectly contribute to the smooth, unhindered exchange of goods, services, and other things of value—predominantly through transactional processes—at the right time, place, quantity, quality and price through various channels among the original producers and the final consumers within local, regional, national or international economies. The diversity in the distribution of natural resources, differences of human needs and wants, and division of labour along with comparative advantage are the principal factors that give rise to commercial exchanges.
Commerce consists of trade and aids to trade (i.e. auxiliary commercial services) taking place along the entire supply chain. Trade is the exchange of goods (including raw materials, intermediate and finished goods) and services between buyers and sellers in return for an agreed-upon price at traditional (or online) marketplaces. It is categorized into domestic trade, including retail and wholesale as well as local, regional, inter-regional and international/foreign trade (encompassing import, export and entrepôt/re-export trades). The exchange of currencies (in foreign exchange markets), commodities (in commodity markets/exchanges) and securities and derivatives (in stock exchanges and financial markets) in specialized exchange markets, typically operating under the domain of finance and investment, also falls under the umbrella of trade. On the other hand, auxiliary commercial activities (aids to trade) which can facilitate trade include commercial intermediaries, banking, credit financing and related services, transportation, packaging, warehousing, communication, advertising and insurance. Their purpose is to remove hindrances related to direct personal contact, payments, savings, funding, separation of place and time, product protection and preservation, knowledge and risk.
Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects.
Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials used to make them have expanded enormously, while the functions of textiles have remained the same, there are many functions for textiles. Whether it be clothing or something decorative for the house/shelter. The history of textile arts is also the history of international trade. Tyrian purple dye was an important trade good in the ancient Mediterranean. The Silk Road brought Chinese silk to India, Africa, and Europe, and, conversely, Sogdian silk to China. Tastes for imported luxury fabrics led to sumptuary laws during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Industrial Revolution was shaped largely by innovation in textiles technology: the cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the power loom mechanized production and led to the Luddite rebellion.
Cultural expressions are creative manifestations of the cultural identities of their authors. They are treated in the international legal system in terms of cultural rights, intellectual property law and international trade.