The development of capitalism has reached a new historical phase, in which world trade is dictated by foreign direct investment (FDI). In the 19th century, transactions between countries were mainly conducted in goods, to which portfolio investment was added in the century's closing years. FDI gained importance in the 20th century, particularly after the 1960s, due to worldwide operational expansion by multinational corporations. While trade in goods maintains its importance, it is now under constraints presented by FDI.

This shift in the structure of international transactions is reflected in the literature on the subject. Although extensive research has been conducted on FDI, there has not been a significant development in the international trade theory since Leontief (1956). Important papers on FDI include Hymer (1960), which identifies issues regarding multinational firms, Vernon (1966) and Wells (1972), which discusses trade in the context of FDI, Buckley and Casson (1976) on trade and FDI as alternatives, and Dunning (1977), which analyses FDI based on corporate ownership, internalization and location theories.

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Figuratively, individual companies in the world economy used to be regarded as islands or rocks in a huge ocean, which was an image that reflected the economic realities of the 19th century. Corporations long remained subordinate to the economic framework dictated by each country's political authority, even in the first half of the 20th century, when corporations had already accumulated the assets and capital to emerge as oligopolists in their respective home economies. The progress of FDI brought a profound change in this relationship between corporations and countries.

This paper seeks to shed light on the characteristics of the world trade structure that have evolved since the 1960s. This calls for an examination of the international trade in goods, conducted by multinational and transnational corporations, which reveals that it is no longer appropriate to analyse international trade solely in terms of the traditional comparative-advantage theory. This inquiry is based on data from US corporations, as they constitute the core of the modern multinational corporations.