Abstract. In a modern world, the national economy plays a double role – of a sustainment mechanism for the population living within the appropriate territory, and of a link in the global value chain. The international labor division may be regarded as a labor division between nation-states. At the same time, the national economy is an open system where the exchange of goods, services, capitals and work force with external world happens to a greater or lesser degree, and which cannot exist without such exchange. The engineering industry has the greatest potential of the intra-industry division of labor. The engineering industry external commercial relations of three countries – the USA, Germany and China – are taken into investigation in the article.