Title: What Is Trade?
Headings: Trade
Trade
Economic Trade
How Trade Works
Key Takeaways
Comparative Advantage: Increased Efficiency of Trading Globally
Criticisms of Comparative Advantage
Free Trade Vs. Protectionism
Currency as a Medium of Exchange Facilitating Trade
Barter Transactions

Content: There are many reasons this could be the case, but the most influential is something that economists call rent-seeking. Rent-seeking occurs when one group organizes and lobbies the government to protect its interests. Say, for example, the producers of American shoes understand and agree with the free-trade argument—but they also know that cheaper foreign shoes would negatively impact their narrow interests. Even if laborers would be most productive by switching from making shoes to making computers, nobody in the shoe industry wants to lose his or her job or see profits decrease in the short run. This desire leads the shoemakers to lobby for, say, special tax breaks for their products and/or extra duties (or even outright bans) on foreign footwear. Appeals to save American jobs and preserve a time-honored American craft abound—even though, in the long run, American laborers would be made relatively less productive and American consumers relatively poorer by such protectionist tactics. Free Trade Vs. Protectionism
As with other theories, there are opposing views. International trade has two contrasting views regarding the level of control placed on trade: free trade and protectionism.