Every day, a network of ships, trucks and planes move massive quantities of goods around the world.
Your car might come from South Korea, and your T-shirt from Bangladesh.
All countries export, sell products and services abroad and import buy goods and services from foreign trading partners.
These goods are manufactured items or agricultural commodities.
Services, a dynamic and growing part of trade, refer to all intangible goods such as advertising and telecommunication.
But the trade network is more complex than sellers and buyers.
The system of worldwide trade is an intricate web in which lengthy supply chains allow products to be sourced, assembled, packaged and sold in different parts of the world.
The materials for your phone or shoes or the tuna fish you had for lunch might have been produced in one country, processed in another country, assembled in a third country and packaged somewhere else.
All before getting to your local store, how does this make sense?
Why can't countries just make their own phones, shoes or tuna fish and provide more jobs in business domestically?
