For the liberals, nations can and should be specialized in certain arenas. For instance, the United States has huge amount of land and great soil, thus it can produce food. Gulf countries have oil, so they can produce oil. Japanese and South Korean companies can get into shipbuilding, while Chinese can make inexpensive, labor-intensive products. David Ricardo (1772-1823) calls this “comparative advantage”. That is, states should produce and export those products which they can produce most efficiently, relative to other states.