Why do countries trade with each other?
Coconuts Meet Tomatoes
Why do countries trade with each other?
Imagine you live on an island where nothing grows except coconuts. Coconuts for breakfast, coconuts for lunch, coconut pie for dessert. You'd give anything for a tomato. Meanwhile, across the water, your neighbor's island grows nothing but tomatoes — tomatoes in every meal, tomato everything, and they're dreaming about coconuts. What do you do?
You trade! You sail over with a basket of coconuts. They meet you with a basket of tomatoes. You swap. Now you've both got variety on your dinner plates. Countries do exactly this, just on a much bigger scale. Some places have what others need, and everyone's better off when they share.
