Considered precious and therefore a source of great power, ancient civilizations invested enormous symbolism, prevented famine, waged wars, built and lost empires over salt for thousands of years. But now that salt is readily available almost everywhere on Earth – why do we still trade so much of it?
Whatever you buy for the holidays this year, chances are, there’s a global trade aspect to your gift-gifting. As we like to say at TradeVistas, “see the trade in everything.” Happy holidays.
As we bundle up for the remainder of the winter season, we can give thanks to global trade for gifting us with some of today’s trendiest and coziest items – Sherpa wool coats, Mongolian lamb fur pillows and cashmere sweaters, Giza cotton sheets, and Turkish towels.
If shoppers are worried about the U.S.-China trade war, it’s not showing up yet in measures of their buying confidence or holiday retail sales. After more than a year of dueling tariffs, American and Chinese consumers are still filling their real and virtual shopping carts to the brim.
We long ago stopped having to make everything we need: forging tools, handcrafting shoes from hides and weaving textiles for clothing. The expansion of global trade is affording us the opportunity to rediscover and reinvent the art of “making” itself, which could in turn profoundly impact what we make and what we trade.
Ripe olives are a critical ingredient for olive oil. They’ve also been ripe with trade tension over the past two years. Spanish black olives, green olives and olive oil have all been embroiled in two recent trade disputes between the United States and the European Union (EU), resulting in higher tariffs and increased prices of Spanish olives and olive oils for U.S. consumers.
Responding to U.S. tariffs, China has imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans since July last year. The tariff has remained in place as leverage in the trade war – a proxy for whether China perceives progress is being made or not in the negotiations.
Many American farmers and ranchers breathed a sigh of relief when the United States and Japan formally signed a U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement in September. However, U.S. agricultural producers are not completely out of the woods.
Pomegranates figure prominently every Jewish New Year. Thanks to trade we can enjoy them nearly all year-round. But in order to continue enjoying a variety of foods – and sustain basic crop production – growers must have access to a variety of high-quality seeds.
Simple in appearance, pleasantly sweet, nutritious, and nearly universal in appeal, that Cavendish bunch of bananas on your counter comes off as pretty unassuming. In reality, it has been through jungle wars and trade wars and now sits on the precipice of extinction. Growing to love more varieties could help save trade in bananas.