Basic Text. International Trade

Table 2.1 provides us with the data on merchandise as a percentage of GNP for a number of

representative countries varying from 10 to 58 percent. Many nations which have restricted

resource bases and limited domestic markets simply cannot produce with reasonable efficiency

the variety of goods they want to consume. For such countries, imports are the route for

obtaining goods they desire and therefore imports may run from 25 to 35 percent or more of

their GNP.

Other countries — the United States, Russia, France, Germany, for example — have rich and

highly diversified resource bases and vast internal markets and are therefore less dependent upon

world trade. But they cannot exclude the international trade because the economy efficiency will

sharply decline.

Table 2.2 reflects the growth of both absolute and relative indices of exports and imports in

American economy. Since 1974 the United States' exports and imports in their absolute value have

increased about 10 and 14 times correspondingly and are each nearly 10 and 15.2 per cent of GNP.

Thus in 1947 the U.S. supplied about one-third of the world’s total exports as compared to about

one-tenth today. World trade has increased even more rapidly for other nations than it has for the

United States. But in terms of absolute volumes of imports and exports the United States is the world’s