1. The Advantages and
Disadvantages of
International Trade

2. Meeting Our Needs
• With trade we can
sell something we
don’t need or have
made for trade and
buy something we
do need.
• It leads to benefits
including jobs,
investment, new
goods and a wider
choice of products
and services

3. • Canada has many surplus goods in the
areas of natural resources and agriculture.

4. • We use the money made from these
goods to purchase goods we do not
have:
• because of our climate (such as for
•
agricultural products.) or because of products
we “value” (like
entertainment).

5. Job Creation
Canada is a trading nation. Here are
some statistics:
• 1 in 3 jobs in Canada depend on
exports.
• 40% of all we produce is exported.
• Each $1 billion in goods and
services equates to 6000 jobs.
• The wages earned from export
companies pay for many of the
other goods and services
produced in our economy.

6. Attracting Investment
Investment in Canada by others often
follows the increase in demand for those
goods.
•Companies that export to Canada often
build offices, warehouses of factories here.
•Others use their Canadian dollars to invest
in Canadian stocks or bonds.

7. New Technology and
Materials
Increased technology
increases Canadian
competitiveness and
profitability. It allows
Canadian firms to
compete with those in
other countries.
Our new technology can
also serve as an good or
service we can export.

8. More Diverse Goods
and Services
Canadians enjoy goods that
were once rare to Canada
and services that in the past
were only available in other
countries.

9. The Disadvantages of
Trade

10. Support for Non-
Democratic Systems
• Decisions regarding resources in
developing countries are often made by the
rich or by corporations and often do not
increase the welfare of the
population.

11. • The increase trend towards corporate
control over the production of food has
lowered the available price available to
independent farmers in the developing
world.

12. • A large percentage of the final price paid for
goods today do not go towards the producers of
those goods, especially if the goods are
produced in the developing world.

13. Cultural Identity Issues
• Culture is a major export of the United
States. This transmits American values
and lifestyle decisions around the world.

14. Cultural
Identity
Issues
• Branding is a
worldwide phenomena.
International
companies spend
billions each year (a
projected worldwide
total of $319 billion:
$140 billion in the US,
$90 billion in Europe)
to acquire your
“mind share.”

15. Social Welfare Concerns
• Canada has minimum
safety standards, wage
requirements, workers
compensation and health
benefits.
• These benefits cost
business and government
money.
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• Goods made in places that
Nike Sweat Shop Olympics
do not have these
Gold Medal Winner in requirements are cheaper.
the Ten Hour Non-Stop
Soccer Ball Sewing
Championship

16. Estimates of the number
of child workers
worldwide are
notoriously unreliable.
• This is partly because the
definition of child labour is
unclear ­ at what point
does helping out the family
become work? But it is also
because governments are
not keen to measure a
phenomenon that is
officially not supposed to
exist.

17. Environmental Issues
• Canadian business are encouraged by
consumers, labour groups and
government to respect our water, air and
land. • But our
pollution
controls can
not stop
businesses
from
relocating
where no
such rules
exist or are
enforced.

18. Economic Considerations
More than $1.5 trillion
changes hands daily on
global currency markets.
• The annual global trade
in merchandise and
services was $6.5 billion
in 1998, the equivalent
of just 4.3 days of
trading on foreign
exchange markets.
• Actual foreign exchange
reserves in the hands of
all governments in the
same year totalled $1.6
trillion or just over a

19. • Huge global
corporations are
becoming ever
more powerful,
eroding the
regulatory
powers of nation-
states and riding
roughshod over
the rights of
citizens to
determine their
own future.

20. •Out of the top 100 economic
units on the planet, 51 are
corporations. The other 49 are
countries.
•While the top 200 corporations
account for over a quarter of
economic activity on the planet,
they employ less than 1% of its
workforce.
•The top 200 corporations’ sales
levels are 18 times the combined
annual income of the 1.2 billion
poorest people.

21. Political
• Political alliances often
Issues help corporations not
people.
• Example: Halliburton – an
engineering and
construction company
previously run by US Vice-
President Dick Cheney
that is developing an
offshore oil and gas facility
in Nigeria – has admitted
that one of its subsidiaries
paid bribes totalling $2.4
million to a Nigerian tax
official to obtain
favourable tax treatment.

22. Political Issues
• War and strife often occur because of a
struggle for control over natural resources
like diamonds or oil.

23. The Results of Increased
Trade:
Today we enjoy freer world trade than in any
other point in history. Here are some other
achievements:
•Twenty percent of the worlds population
control 80% of its assets, generate 82% of
all world exports and receive 62% of all
foreign investment.
•The income gap between the fifth of the
world’s people living in the richest countries
and the fifth living in the poorest jumped
from 30:1 in 1960 to 74:1 in 1997.