Twenty ships loaded with 1.2 million tons of Sorghum are changing course after China implemented anti-dumping measures targeting the grain (). Chinese imports of US sorghum began only five years ago and China swiftly began purchasing nearly all US exportable sorghum as livestock fodder. These boats are in the unfortunate position of requiring an entirely new market for their product while at the same time burning precious fuel in the Pacific.
The European exploration period (15th – 19th centuries) was likely driven by economic incentives and national security concerns.
Part of the economic incentives were obviously that Asian spices and other goods were valuable, so commercially minded people such as Columbus, Cabot, Vasco da Gama, Drake and Raleigh were good agents for that effort.
Other economic incentives were the memory of the Italian city-states success (Venice, Genoa). No one from England, to France, Spain, Portugal and Holland, could have ignored the great wealth and success the Italians had by trading with the middle east as a bridge into Europe.
National security concerns included when the Ottomans cut the trade land routes it was not only a driver of scarcity, thus higher prices for spices and other products, but also a threat to Europeans dependent on spices for example to cover the smell & saltiness of their food.
Maybe the above was confined to middle and upper classes, but it wouldn’t surprise me that other products had become essential for European life in general.
Once Portugal and Spain successfully made contact to the east and west to the America’s and the far east, it was just a matter of national security for the other European powers to launch their aggressive efforts to connect to all sources of trade, and thus sources of wealth.
The above is because after centuries of killing each other after the fall of the Roman Empire, any of the European states who gained an advantage was a clear threat to all the other states, who were traditionally competitors, not like today that they seem very friendly!
Keep in mind that the trade routes did not only connect with wealth and trade, but also to possible advantages in technology and information.
In summary, I think economic incentives of course were important drivers, but another not less important reason, was to escape from a possible national security threat of having your hated-at-the-time neighbor become so rich and powerful that they would likely invade your nation.
Extrapolating the economic and need for security forces above to the rest of history, it is likely that expansion in general of homo sapiens around the world for hundreds of thousands of years has been driven by opportunity and the need for security.
