Impact Of Trade On The International Trade Market

The international trade of goods across the world accounts for approximately 60% of the world Gross Domestic Product (The World Bank, 2014). A great proportion of goods transactions occur every second. The primary question is whether international trade benefits a country as an entirety, and, if so, why would a country implement protective trade policies to restrict particular exports? To address this question, this essay aims to explore the impact of trade on various economic stakeholders, including consumers, producers, labour and government and, furthermore, will compare models and theories with reality to ascertain the true winner/ loser in the international trade market. According to the Ricardian model, free trade allows a country†¦show more content†¦Consumers definitely benefit from increasing purchasing power in terms of lower relative prices. Nonetheless, the real prices of certain commodities such as lamb, tobacco and beef have increased over time due to increasing world average income, which encourages world demand. Interestingly, developing countries, which form the predominant exporters of primary commodities, earn lower relative prices over time, for instance, palm oil arrives primarily from Indonesia and Malaysia and raw sugar arrives mostly from Brazil and Thailand. Contrariwise, the world suppliers of lamb are the United Kingdom, Spain and Australia and, moreover, 14% of world bovine meat arrives from the United States (Simoes, 2013). Therefore, it can be argued that greater advantages are granted to suppliers in developed countries than those in developing countries by trade liberalisation. Aside from the impact on price, the opening of an economy attracts imports into the domestic country, which results in the provision of variety for consumers. For example, eleven mobile phone companies control 66.6% of the world market share, inclusive of Samsung, Sony, Apple, Nokia and Huawei. These companies originated in Korea, Japan, United States, Finland and China respectively (Williams, 2015). Consumer’s gain from choice and, therefore, higher utility can be achieved. In recent years, the US has increased tariffs on the steel industry in order to restrict