Note 10--International trade

International trade is a very important factor to a country's economy but is very easy to be left out when we interpret and analyse the economic perfermance.
International trade is mainly about imports and exports between countries as an exchange of capital,goods and services across the international boundaries.
So what's the difference between the international trade and domestic trade except the trading places?
The main and important difference is the content of the goods and services. Because it will take time for the trade to transfer from one country to the other or maybe sometimes transfer more times,the goods must be kept for a relative longer time.Therefore,some products like milk can't be included in the international trade. Besides,the factors of production such as capital and labour are also a kind of things can be transferred. Because some developing countries' labour will just ask for lower wages than the developed countries',some advanced countries like England will employ labour overseas to reduce their costs but there's a problem inside about the immobility of the labour. Therefore,some of the countries have to choose the import goods from them with lower prices instead of transferring labour. For example,instead of importing Chinese labor, the United States is importing labour-intensive goods from China that were produced with Chinese labor.
Secondly,the cost of international trade may costs more than the domestic trade.The reason is that a border typically imposes additional costs such as tariffs, time costs due to border delays and costs associated with country differences such as language, the legal system or a different culture. In addition,if the country is experiencing a recession,the government will build up some import controls like tariffs and quota as protectionism to those domestic firms or industries that it makes the international trade difficult to operate.
Traditionally the trade was regulated through bilateral treaties between two nations. The regulation of international trade now is done through the World Trade Organization at the global level. But the countries still have their own rights to decide what can be imported into their countries but they have to be passed through the World Trade Organisation.
We can also refer to the balance of payments in the economy which includes the imports and exports. And they will also affect the economic performance,such as more imports will reduce the demand for domestic goods.