Trade Backwards

I got interrupted, so never started this post.

But it was a reminder that mainstream econ, even most Post-Keynesians, have the trade story partly backwards.

Ideally a nation does not want to trade, except for what they cannot domestically produce.

Practically all nations want to trade because they cannot source all their needs domestically.

The purpose of trade is not to generate peaceful relations, but peaceful relations is a happy consequence or side-effect. So much so, it can become a raison d’être for wanting to trade even when you do not need to trade.