international trade the difference (surplus or deficit) between one country's total payments to all other countries and its total reciepts from them, as periodically assessed, constituting a sort of statement of income and expenditure on international account —note such a statement for imports and exports of goods is termed the balance of trade; because the value of services is commonly excluded from computations of the balance of trade, and because payments for services represent an increasing share of the transactions between countries, the balance of trade has become a less useful statistic for setting trade policy than in previous decades This definition last updated 07/16/2008