arliest kind of regular interchange of goods. Indeed
the very word "market" meant originally the boundary between tribes.
Thus, from primitive times when wandering savages gave bits of flint
or copper in return for salt or fish, individuals have sought to
adjust their goods to their desires through trade with men of other
political groups. With the progress of the world in the means of
communication and transportation, international trade has widened in
extent and grown in volume.

Economic relations never have been coextensive with political
relations. The economic groupings of men connected by a network of
trades never have and never will correspond very nearly with political
groupings of men bound together by common citizenship in particular
states. Indeed it is not uncommon for many of the residents in two
adjoining states to trade far more with each other than they do with
their own fellow citizens. Lawmakers and rulers from the beginnings of
formal governments have constantly tried to hinder this kind of trade.
They have done this chiefly because of their belief that they could
strengthen their states in political and economic ways, and could
favor some of their citizens, by confining economic relations within
political boundaries--if not exclusively, more closely than when trade
was left to take its natural course, guided by individual motives. The
regulation of international trade, therefore, has always constituted
an economic problem of great importance in the field of political
action.

Sec. 2. #Benefits of international trade#. Now, bearing in mind that
international trade is carried on by individual traders in any two
countries, we may ask what motive impels men to trade across the
political boundaries of a state. The simple answer is that each trader
has something to give and desires to get something in return. Each
is seeking to get something that has to him a greater value than the
thing he gives, and believes he can do this in trade with a foreigner
better than by trading at home. In any trade, both parties gain, or
think they are gaining.[2] In international trade there is the same
chance for mistake as in domestic trade, but no more. In a single
transaction in either domestic or foreign trade one party may be
cheated, but the continuance of trade relations is dependent upon
continued benefits. The once generally accepted maxim that the gain
of one in trade is the loss of another is now generally reje