explain other common patterns of international trade.

The Prevalence of Intra-Industry Trade between Similar Economies

The theory of comparative advantage suggests that trade should happen between economies with large

differences in opportunity costs of production. Roughly half of all U.S. trade involves shipping goods between

the fairly similar high-income economies of Japan, Canada, and the United States. Furthermore, the trade has
an important geographic component—the biggest trading partners of the United States are Canada and Mexico

(see Table 19.13).

Country

U.S. Exports Go to ... U.S. Imports Come from ...

China

8.6%

Canada

17.6%

Japan

4.3%

Mexico

15.8%

South Korea 3.8%

17.7%

12.6%

4.3%

13.6%

3.3%

TABLE 19.13 Top Trading Partners (November 2021) (Source:

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/

toppartners.html)
{"uploaded_via": "batch_uploader", "upload_timestamp": "2026-02-07T15:24:38.309401", "title": "Principles of Microeconomics 3e", "source_file": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_size_mb": 26.99, "creationdate": "2022-12-07T14:15:44-06:00", "moddate": "2022-12-07T14:23:05-06:00", "file_name": "Microeconomics3e.pdf", "batch_upload": true, "total_pages": 597, "producer": "Prince 14.2 (www.princexml.com)", "file_type": ".pdf", "file_hash": "830b81f41611ac67a490444dbb5d6aed292224606965b06965b914443c93331a", "creator": "PDFMiner", "source": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf"}