Analysis of Trade Exchanges Between Developed and Developing Countries Over 60 Years

The study of trade dynamics between developed countries (Global North) and developing countries over a 60-year period reveals a structural imbalance. This in-depth analysis, covering the period from the 1960s to the present day, highlights persistent patterns that have shaped international economic relations and continue to influence the development trajectories of many Global South nations.
The 1960s and 1970s were marked by optimism surrounding independences and hopes for a new international economic order. Yet, despite declarations of intent and development aid programs, the fundamental structures of trade exchanges remained largely unchanged. Developing countries continued to export primarily low-value-added raw materials while importing high-priced manufactured goods and technologies from developed countries.
During the 1980s and 1990s, this situation worsened with structural adjustment policies imposed by international financial institutions. These policies, often presented as necessary conditions for obtaining loans and assistance, forced many developing countries to rapidly liberalize their markets, privatize public enterprises, and drastically cut social spending, all while maintaining their export-oriented economies toward Northern markets.
The turn of the millennium and the first two decades of the 21st century saw the emergence of new economic actors, particularly China, which began offering alternatives to traditional trade partnerships. However, the fundamental structures of dependency and asymmetry have not been fundamentally transformed for the majority of developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Data show the absence of a trade surplus for developing countries, whose trade balance remains systematically negative in these asymmetric exchanges. This statistical reality, confirmed by World Bank, UNCTAD, and other international institutions' data, reveals an uncomfortable truth: after six decades of globalization and growing economic integration, developing countries as a whole have failed to reverse their deficit position in international trade with developed countries.
This chronic trade deficit does not result from a lack of effort or capacity on the part of developing countries. It stems instead from deeply entrenched structural factors in the architecture of international trade: the deterioration of terms of trade for raw materials, tariff and non-tariff barriers limiting Southern manufactured goods' access to Northern markets, massive agricultural subsidies in developed countries that distort competition, and intellectual property rules that make technology transfers prohibitively expensive.
This situation deprives them of foreign exchange reserves, thereby hindering their ability to finance development. The consequences of this foreign exchange deprivation are multiple and profound. Without sufficient reserves in strong currencies, developing countries find themselves in permanent vulnerability to external shocks, whether fluctuations in raw material prices, international financial crises, or natural disasters.
The insufficiency of foreign exchange reserves also limits developing countries' ability to import capital goods, technologies, and inputs necessary for economic diversification and modernization. This constraint creates a vicious circle: without access to modern technologies and equipment, these countries cannot improve their competitiveness and climb global value chains; and without improved competitiveness, they cannot generate the trade surpluses that would allow them to accumulate the foreign exchange needed for productive investments.

Moreover, the lack of foreign exchange reserves forces developing country governments to resort massively to external debt to finance essential imports and investment projects. This debt, often contracted on unfavorable terms, creates a debt service burden that absorbs a considerable portion of export revenues, further reducing resources available for national development.

To correct this asymmetry, a thorough revision of international contracts and agreements is imperative. This revision cannot be limited to marginal adjustments or cosmetic reforms. It must address the very foundations of international trade relations and challenge the assumptions that have guided global economic governance over recent decades.
Existing bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have often been negotiated under conditions of considerable power asymmetry, where developed countries held superior technical expertise, greater financial resources to support their negotiators, and economic and political leverage that developing countries lacked. The result of these unequal negotiations has been agreements that, under the guise of formal reciprocity, actually reproduce and reinforce existing imbalances.
A genuine revision of these agreements would require explicitly recognizing these initial asymmetries and incorporating principles of differential and more favorable treatment for developing countries. This would go beyond current special and differential treatment provisions, often reduced to mere longer transition periods, to integrate substantial rebalancing mechanisms.
It is essential to integrate mechanisms favorable to developing countries, such as mandatory technology transfers or clauses ensuring equitable benefit sharing. Mandatory technology transfers constitute a crucial element of any serious effort to correct structural trade imbalances. Unlike the current intellectual property regime that treats technology primarily as private merchandise protected by exclusive rights, a mandatory transfer system would recognize technology as a global public good whose access is essential for human development.
These transfer mechanisms could take various forms: requirements for production and R&D localization as a condition of market access in developing countries; obligations for local personnel training and national technical capacity building; mandatory sharing of patents and know-how in sectors deemed strategic for development, such as health, agriculture, and renewable energy; and establishment of technology pools accessible on preferential terms to enterprises and research institutions in developing countries.
Clauses ensuring equitable benefit sharing are equally essential. In many sectors, particularly natural resource extraction, current agreements allow multinational corporations from developed countries to capture the lion's share of created value, leaving host countries with a minimal fraction in royalties, taxes, and export revenues. Truly equitable sharing would require a fundamental reevaluation of these arrangements.
This could include mechanisms such as: mandatory state or national enterprise participation in natural resource exploitation projects, with effective governance rights rather than merely symbolic ones; revenue-sharing formulas that automatically adjust based on international raw material prices, ensuring producer countries fully benefit from high-price periods; requirements for local processing of a minimum percentage of extracted raw materials, thereby creating value added and jobs in producer countries; and sovereign wealth funds financed by natural resource revenues, designed to transform temporary resource wealth into long-term sustainable development.
In parallel, diversifying trade partnerships toward more solidarity-oriented actors could reduce historical dependence on the Global North. The excessive concentration of developing countries' trade with a limited number of developed partners has created structural vulnerability and limited their negotiating leverage. Diversification of partnerships therefore represents an essential strategy to strengthen their position and access better exchange terms.
The emergence of alternative economic actors over recent decades offers concrete diversification opportunities. China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and other emerging economies have developed cooperation models with developing countries that, while imperfect and sometimes controversial, nevertheless provide alternatives to traditional Global North partnerships.
South-South cooperation institutions, such as the BRICS with their New Development Bank, offer alternative financing mechanisms that can reduce dependence on traditional international financial institutions dominated by developed countries. These institutions can potentially offer more favorable lending terms, greater flexibility in development project design, and greater respect for borrower countries' national sovereignty.
However, partnership diversification must not simply replace one dependency with another. It must fit into a broader strategy aimed at strengthening national economic capacities, promoting integration among developing countries, and creating South-South value chains that enable greater value capture within the Global South itself.
Regional integration among developing countries represents a particularly promising dimension of this diversification strategy. Regional economic unions, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), ASEAN in Southeast Asia, or MERCOSUR in South America, have the potential to create sufficiently large regional markets to enable the development of competitive industries within the Global South, thereby reducing dependence on Northern imports.
These measures would constitute an essential lever for rebalancing economic relations and supporting sustainable development. Rebalancing international economic relations is not merely a matter of justice or equity, though these considerations are certainly important. It is also a necessity for long-term global stability and prosperity.
An international economic system characterized by growing structural imbalances and wealth concentration in a limited number of developed countries is not sustainable. It generates social tensions, massive migratory flows, resource conflicts, and political instability that ultimately affect the entire international community, including developed countries themselves.
Sustainable development, as defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, cannot be achieved without a profound transformation of international trade structures. Eradicating poverty, ensuring food security, universal access to health and education, climate action, and other sustainable development goals all require substantial financial resources that developing countries cannot mobilize without correcting the trade imbalances that deprive them of foreign exchange and keep them in economic dependency.
Moreover, the global challenges facing humanity today climate change, pandemics, forced migration, international terrorism cannot be effectively addressed without the active participation and contributions of all countries, including those of the Global South. Yet these countries cannot fully play their role as long as they are handicapped by trade structures that hinder their economic development and limit their capacity to act.
Implementing these reforms will require considerable political will from both developing and developed countries. For developing countries, this involves overcoming internal divisions, strengthening collective negotiation capacity, and resisting pressures to accept disadvantageous trade arrangements in exchange for short-term gains. For developed countries, it requires recognizing that their long-term prosperity is linked to the development of the rest of the world and that maintaining the status quo carries growing risks.
The current international context, marked by growing questioning of the post-war economic order and the emergence of new power configurations, may offer a window of opportunity for undertaking these necessary reforms. The multipolarization of the international system, while presenting its own challenges, also creates space for alternative initiatives and different economic cooperation models.
As a professional engaged in facilitating international cooperation and promoting equitable partnerships between nations, I consider that a deep understanding of these structural imbalances and action to correct them constitute moral and practical imperatives. My work coordinating between Russian and African partners, my efforts to facilitate technology transfers in the pharmaceutical sector, and my commitment to South-South cooperation principles all fit into this broader vision of a rebalanced and fairer international economic order.
The past 60 years have taught us that trade imbalances do not correct themselves spontaneously through market mechanisms alone. They require deliberate action, deep institutional reforms, and collective commitment to principles of international solidarity and shared development. The coming decades offer us the opportunity and impose upon us the responsibility to build an international trade system that truly serves all of humanity, not just its privileged fraction.