Abstract: The article substantiates what really was, is and will be only four basic reasons for international trade:
natural and geographical differences between states; differences in production costs in different countries; the
effect of the country's specialization on the production of goods with a greater relative advantage; the effect of
the scale of production, and the corresponding theories. All other "causes of international trade" mentioned in
numerous publications are, at best, only camouflaged basic ones. There are four reasons for the possibility of 15
types of international trade for a single country or between two countries. None of the four causes of
international trade is sufficient for it to occur, as only a reduction in the "resistance of distance" in the presence
of at least one cause of international trade activates its potential. The article presents the author's concept of
choosing a development strategy at the state or corporate levels, according to which the key determinants are
distance resistance, nature of interaction with the environment (offensive or defensive) and the model of
economic development (resource-based or knowledge-based)
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