## 2.1 Global economy: free trade and protectionism

When you want to buy a bread, you visit a baker. A new pair of jeans is easily bought in a clothing store and new smartphone’s is available in a telephone shop. You can buy virtually everything in the Netherlands. H However, most of our products are not made in our country. The fact that you can still easily buy these products is the consequence of global trade.

As you can see in exercise 5, most of your products are made abroad. They have reached you trough international trade. To understand the process of international trade, you first have to understand the concepts of import and export. To import means buying products or services from foreign countries. To export entails the selling of your own products and services to other countries in the world,

Furthermore, it is also very common for countries to import certain products in order to export them directly to other countries. This process is called re-export. For example, the Dutch economy has always been very reliant on re-export. Dutch companies import products from China to sell them directly to other neighboring countries within the European Union.