Total U.S. foreign trade accounts for 19.6% of GDP.
Foreign trade, also known as "foreign trade" or "import and export trade", or "foreign trade", refers to the exchange of goods, labor and technology between one country (region) and another. Countries (regions) between the exchange of goods, services and technology activities, this trade consists of import and export two parts of the shipment of goods or services into the country (region), it is imported; for the shipment of goods or services out of the country (region), it is exported.
Trade dependence, also known as "foreign trade dependence rate" or "foreign trade coefficient", a country's dependence on trade, generally used in foreign trade volume import and export value in the gross national product or gross domestic product in the proportion of the expression, that is, the degree of trade dependence = total foreign trade / GNP, changes in the proportion means that foreign trade in the national economy in the status of the change.
The Role of Foreign Trade
Foreign trade not only connects the countries with high development of commodity production with each other, but also makes the countries and regions with low level of development of production join in the field of exchange through foreign trade, and makes the money as a general equivalent y penetrate into their economic life, so that the labor products of these countries and nations increasingly have commodity and exchange value. The products of the labor of these countries and nations increasingly have the nature of commodities and exchange value, and the law of value gradually dominates their production.
With the development of the circulation of commodities in various countries into a universal, worldwide circulation of commodities, the functions of gold and silver as world money grew, and gold and silver, in addition to having the general means of purchasing money, were also used as a means of international payments, international settlements and international credits, and with the transformation of gold and silver into the world's money, there arose the possibility of the formation of the world price of commodities.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Foreign Trade