The article considers modern concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, its basic components, effects on production, business processes, value and supply chains. The author has specified five most important effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on international trade and global commerce: shifts in the structure and configuration of international trade, including flow of many operations with real goods and services into digital space and trade localization impulses on part of distributed manufacturing and decentralized value chains; enhancing global competition and its shift to non-material sphere; appearance of the new formats and opportunities for international business due to digitalization, more inclusive cross-border commerce and expansion of cloud employment; regulatory changes to deal with fast growing digital trade with participation of companies, entrepreneurs, households and actually beyond national jurisdictions, emergence of the new generation above the border disciplines related to regulation of commercial relations in virtual space; systemic effects of technological transformation on international trade, i. a. blurring of lines between crossborder and domestic operations in the globalized digital environment, erosion of the concept of foreign trade specialization traditionally determined by the availability of factors of production and necessary competences. Many of the expected changes will have radical character for existing view of international trade. Understanding of these changes is of vital importance for elaboration of the effective external positioning strategy for Russia.

The history of Russian-Dutch relations dates back to the reign of Ivan the Terrible, when Dutch merchants first appeared in Arkhangelsk. Subsequently, at the end of the XVII centuryPeter I sent to European countries, including Netherlands, the Great Embassy, the results and experience of which played a recognized historical role in his large-scale socio-economic reforms in Russian Empire. At the present stage, Netherlands for Russia is one of the key suppliers of high-tech goods, services, competencies and management technologies mostly in all sectors of national economy, a transit country and a logistics hub for Russian exports, as well as an important partner in the field of cross-border investments. The article also analyzes the features of the Kingdom's economy, its place in global trade and key competitiveness rankings. In recent decades, Netherlands has confidently occupied one of the leading positions in European and world trade, ahead of many major economic partners and competitors. The author concludes that the importance of the progressive development of trade and economic relations with countries such as the Netherlands, cooperation with which has a generally positive impact on the transformation of the Russian economy, contributes to the diversification of exports, investments, attracting advanced competencies and innovations.

Turbulent states, structural changes and systemic crises of the world economy have been one of the decisive factors influencing the activity of large integration associations in all centuries. A particularly clear example is the integration processes in the Eurasian space. «The Great Silk Road» – a huge branched system of caravan routes. The Great Silk Road was a kind of connecting link between countries, civilization and socio-economic systems. The path «From the Varangians to the Greeks functioned along the Volga route. The end of the 17th and the first quarter of the 18th centuries was the period of Peter's reforms. Peter I regarded foreign trade as an important means of integrating Russia into Western European culture. Major bans related to the outside world were imposed on the Russian economy in the early 19th century. Anglo-German rivalry and antagonism played a decisive role in the complex system of imperialist contradictions that led to the First World War in 1914–1918. The Second World War almost six times exceeded the First in terms of the total number of victims: 50 million people. The consequence of the Second World War was the formation of the world socialist system, the disintegration of the colonial system and the beginning of the formation and development of major integration projects in Europe, Latin America, East Asia and Africa. Since January 2015, the Eurasian Economic Union functions. The possibilities of cooperation between the EAEU and other integration associations are widely discussed. The interface with the project of the Economic belt of the Silk Road Road is of particular interest.

The progress in reducing the level of poverty after the global crisis lacked behind the process of improving economic indicators in some countries and there are countries where the level of poverty even increased. The paper highlights gaps in poverty levels among different groups of population according to age, gender, and education. It examines poverty trends in US and other OECD countries, covering changes from the global crisis period; the approaches to determining poverty line, including official and supplemental poverty measure which in addition to government cash benefits takes into account non-cash benefits and taxes. Working poor, whose income remains under poverty line, while they are working, are of special attention. Among the main factors that can lower a worker’s ability to earn an income above the poverty threshold – low level of education, long periods of unemployment, part-time employment. It is pointed that the benefits of globalization are not reaching those who are in poverty and government policies often fail to respond to their needs.

In modern conditions, the external economic relations between countries of the vanguard and periphery are becoming increasingly controversial and ambiguous. Undoubtedly, the problem of inequality between the mentioned groups of countries has been always acute, and many schools of economics have been working on a solution of this question. This problem has escalated after the first wave of the global economic crisis (2008–2009). Despite everything, countries of the vanguard continue to promote principles of the neoliberal model through international organizations and financial institutions, which turned out to be unviable due to numerous reasons. The article deals with economic and trade relations between countries of the vanguard and periphery within the European Union, problems and controversies of their interaction and provides with a prediction of further development of the integration group. It may definitely be said that the liberalization of the external economic relations between partners has led to the increase of inequality among them, deepening of structural problems in countries of the periphery and to the stifling of their social and economic development. On that basis, the reasons of transformation of the European Union in context of the modern global instability have been outlined, as well as two groups of country outsiders in this association. The article shows that countries of the South and Central and Eastern Europe have found themselves in a financial bondage to the core countries and that their further membership in the EU will lead to even more harmful consequences and to a deep transformation of the whole EU.

The article considers the changes in US foreign trade policy at the beginning of the Trump’s presidency. Exporting is a critical component for the long-term growth and the U.S. economy overall, and supporting millions of jobs in US. Though D. Trump campaigned for president as a protectionist, there was no such steps the first year of his presidency. But his second year in the White House began with announcing new tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, then on steel, aluminium. As concerning steel products, the United States being the world’s largest steel importer have persistent trade deficit.The US trade law allows the president to limit imports in case if domestic industries are threatened, against unfair foreign trade practices for a period of time, but such measures were not frequent in US practice. Meanwhile new protectionist measures are debated. Trump’s policy is being opposed not only by trade partners of the US, but in the US as well, by those who argue that protectionist measures will complicate international relationships.

The paper firstly provides an overview of the country’s public debt status before looking in more detail on its external borrowings. By reviewing the regional experiences in mobilizing external loans for their development when these neighboring countries reached the LMIC status, the paper argues the key role of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in such countries not as filling the savings gap. Instead, it is to reduce the burden of importing essential capital good and technology during industrialization, given that ODA flows are significant to the size of the economy and consistent over time. The paper concludes with key lessons and recommendations for Vietnam in formulating its new strategy on external borrowings, including using oversea aid to relax the balance of payment constraint; using ODA to finance growth-enhancing projects; directing ODA flows to viable projects to enhance the country’s productive capacity; and developing transparent, consistent and predictable project selection system.

The key aim of the Trump’s large-scale tax reform is to stimulate economic growth by lowering tax rates and providing tax deductions. The article examines the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on American business and macroeconomic indicators. Reduced tax rates create significant advantages for companies doing business in the United States. Companies, primarily small businesses, expected to use additional cash for capital investments and development. Lowering tax rates will attract large corporations to invest in opening new facilities in the United States. The author analyzed the expert assessments and US GDP growth forecasts in the current and alternative scenario, as well as the impact of the Act on the growth of budget expenditures. Reform requires significant expenses and will cause budget deficit and public debt growth in the coming years, which can completely neutralize the positive effects at the micro level in the long term. However, tax incentives trigger market growth mechanisms in the economy, which helps to make the problem of growing public debt manageable and to overcome cyclical economic crises with less losses.

The article considers the foreign trade of the Republic of Korea over the past eight years in the context of the future free trade agreement between the Republic of Korea and the Eurasian Economic Union. The author traces the dynamics of exports and imports of the country during the certain period, the change in the commodity structure of exports and imports, the geography of exports and imports, the dynamics of commodity flows as a share of GDP, as well as the most exported and imported goods at the level of six signs of the Harmonized commodity description and coding system (HS). During the research period, the structure of exports and imports of the Republic of Korea has changed little: the main exported goods, as before, are high-tech equipment (floating equipment and its elements, land road transport and parts; storage devices (about 15% of all exports). Imports are dominated by energy (one fifth of total imports) and machinery and equipment (84 and 85 of the HS groups).

The article considers financial monitoring systems that counteract money laundering and terrorism financing, divided into three levels. The first level is formed by associations of international status, at the second level are national systems, the third is formed by separate financial and commercial organizations interacting with the first two levels. The place of Russia in these international systems is allocated, methods of risk assessment and measures taken depending on their application are indicated. The contribution of Russian organizations to counteracting the legalization of illegal incomes has been analyzed. It is noted that at present time for laundering is characterized by constant complication of illegal schemes, speeding up illegal operations, using transit accounts, which leads to great financial and reputation losses. Clean-up schemes are present in many economic crimes, and in conditions of growing globalization, it is possible to combat these crimes only through concerted actions within the framework of international organizations. However, international cooperation in this field is complicated by the foreign policy crisis unfolding in the last four years. The curtailment of international cooperation is a sure way to defeat in the fight against the legalization of illegal incomes and the financing of terrorism.

Energy cooperation is shown as an important component of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Russia, as well as the source of the driving force for the development and maintenance of sustainable development of China-Russia relations related to the coincidence of the strategic interests of the two states. The main attention is paid to the formation of a new concept of cooperation between China and Russia, caused by fundamental changes in the structure of world energy at present, leading to increased coordination and complementarity in the energy sector. The article notes that the excess of supply over demand led to a decline in oil prices; a significant share of oil and gas consumption moved to the East. The change in the structure of energy resources is reflected in the reduction in the use of traditional (non-renewable) fossil energy resources and in the increase in the use of non-traditional (renewable) energy resources. The article draws attention to the fact that in addition to strengthening the complementarity of the energy of the two countries, there is the application of new Sino-Russian energy technologies, which create great opportunities for cooperation. And despite the fact that in implementing specific energy cooperation projects, the parties have faced a number of problems, bilateral energy cooperation still has broad prospects.

The article is devoted to the gas export of the Russian Federation, as well as to the search for solutions to the problems arising in the process of foreign gas trading by Russian gas companies. It is specially noted that, as a serious shortcoming of gas exports from Russia, it is only one-pointedness to European countries (mainly to EU countries) and Turkey. In addition, it is pointed out that the supply of natural gas (GHG) from the Russian Federation is carried out with a few exceptions only through pipeline systems. All this puts Gazprom and a number of other Russian gas companies in greater dependence, both from direct European importers and from GHG transit countries. It will be possible to solve the problem of diversification and reliability of gas export to the far abroad of the Russian Federation only due to a certain transition to a new technological type of storage and transportation of NG – in liquefied state. In this case, Russian gas companies will be able to export LNG not only via pipelines to a limited number of countries, but also in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by gas tanks to many countries of the world. This will expand the scale of gas trade to the size of oil trading operations. Russian gas companies and Gazprom, using innovative forms of trade in illegal volumes of LNG in the form of spot, futures and forward contracts, will be able to carry out more flexible trading operations and receive increased profits. At the same time, their dependence on European consumers of Russian pipeline PG and transit countries will decrease.