--- title: Resources and what countries trade — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Resources and what countries trade», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Britain cannot grow bananas outdoors, and Ecuador does not build many jet engines, so each sells what it is good at and buys the rest --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Resources and what countries trade # Resources and what countries trade Lesson 27 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/0/) — Britain cannot grow bananas outdoors, and Ecuador does not build many jet engines, so each sells what it is good at and buys the rest. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/1/) — That is trade, and it is why a lunchbox can hold food from five continents. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/2/) — Nature's useful things, its resources, are scattered unevenly: oil pools under a few regions, lithium and cobalt for phone batteries are dug in a few countries, rivers and good soil are where they are. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/3/) — Places that hold rare resources become important, and sometimes the targets of greed. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/4/) — Most goods now cross the sea in standard steel boxes on giant ships, squeezing through a few narrow passages called chokepoints, like the Strait of Malacca or the Suez Canal. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/5/) — Block one, and shops on the other side of the world feel it. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/6/) — In Europa Universalis 5 each location produces one raw material and trade flows to the markets that pull hardest. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/7/) — Real places produced many things at once, and real money also came from services such as shipping insurance and banking, which no map shows. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/8/) — History has its own resource rush: silver from Potosí in Bolivia and from Mexico flowed to Europe and across the Pacific to China, dug under the forced-labour mita in which many Indigenous Andean workers died. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/9/) — Natural resources are useful things from nature, such as water, soil, wood, fish, metals, oil and gas. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/10/) — Some resources, such as wood or fish, can renew themselves if used carefully, while others, such as oil and metals, do not come back once used up. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/11/) — Countries trade because none can make everything well, so each sells what it is good at producing and buys the rest. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/12/) — Much of the world's oil comes from a few places, such as the Middle East, the USA, Russia and Venezuela, because oil formed long ago from the remains of tiny sea creatures trapped under special rocks only in some places. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/13/) — Oil mattered little before the 1800s, when the main fuels were wood, charcoal and, later, coal. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/14/) — Lithium and cobalt, needed for batteries in phones and electric cars, are mined in a few countries such as Australia, Chile and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/15/) — Silver from Potosí in Bolivia and from Mexico flowed to Europe and across the Pacific to China in the 1500s to 1700s, because China wanted silver and paid for it with silk, tea and porcelain. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/16/) — The Potosí mine was worked under the Spanish mita forced-labour system, in which many Indigenous Andean workers died. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/17/) — Most of the world's goods now travel in standard steel containers, all one size so cranes, ships, trains and lorries can handle them fast, on huge ships, the biggest of which carry over 20,000 containers. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/18/) — A few narrow sea passages, called chokepoints, carry a huge share of world trade, such as the Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz and the Panama Canal. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/19/) — Exports are goods a country sells abroad and imports are goods it buys from abroad. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/20/) — Countries also trade services, such as banking, insurance, software, films and tourism, not only goods. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/21/) — Farmers who grow crops like cocoa and coffee often earn very little of the price paid in shops, because most of it goes to traders, factories, brands and shops. - ← previous: [Food and farming around the world](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/26-food-and-farming-around-the-world/) - next →: [The Silk Road](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/28-the-silk-road/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)