Oil, ore and other commodities from Angola, Nigeria and other resource-rich countries make up much of that trade.
I SUPPOSE I should hail the rise of the crossover, these car-based pseudo-S.U.V.'s that give their owners a dash of off-road bravado without the profligacy — oil, ore and parking-lot real estate — of a true truck.
Today, those miles of blood-red canyon rifts, sand dunes and wild rivers, high deserts of bristlecone and sagebrush, bighorn and bison, elk and eagle, untapped reserves of oil, ore, gas and gold are the stuff passionate opinions and contemporary Western confrontations are made of.
Brownsville's deepwater port (opened 1936), with a 17-mile (27-km) channel, serves as the southwestern terminus of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and handles a range of bulk cargoes, including fuel oil, ores, and grains; it is also the harbour for a large shrimp fleet.
Pirates often make deals with the crews to offload oil, ores, and fertilizer to sell later on the black market, which can often result in violence between rival pirate gangs.
But mining analysts say that new technology tends to make everything that comes out of the ground, whether oil or iron ore or gemstones, more plentiful, not more scarce.
Wherever there is a desolate community rich with wood, ore, oil or rivers with hydropower potential a major company will step in, pick the place clean, spread prosperity for a couple of decades, and then leave with the big bucks.
No wonder, as most of the world's ore, unlike oil or stocks, is not traded on global exchanges.
The emerging markets are first in the queue for supplies because they are often able to use each extra barrel of oil or shipload of ore more gainfully.
Economies in the midst of an industrial boom like 1890s America, or China in the 2000s are hungry for basic commodities such as oil, iron ore and beef.
It's the world's biggest importer of oil, iron ore, copper, and many other commodities.
