Quick Bites | Countries benefiting the most from international trade

The recent trends of “home-shoring”, “friend-shoring” and “near-shoring” were a response to the disruption and fragility of supply lines during the pandemic lockdown periods and the rise of geopolitical tensions between the US and its allies, and China.

So which countries are especially vulnerable to a decline of global trade, and which countries can rely on their own large domestic markets?

Source: Wall Street Journal 

The US economy is clearly best positioned from this perspective, while the rest of the world falls behind it. Germany is noticeable by being highly dependent upon its export markets. Unfortunately, Australia doesn’t appear in this World Bank chart, but for the record, its merchandise exports make up 22% of its GDP, placing it somewhere in the middle of the pack.

A slowdown in international trade is hurting some countries much more than others. At the losing end are “extroverted” economies that have traditionally recorded trade surpluses and are now seeing their growth lag behind those of the US and India, which have their own vast markets historically relied upon for domestic demand for growth.

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