Making trade the foundation of a nation to me sounds like one of those great on paper ideas. The closest I can think of is Singapore, their national creed isn’t trade though, but striving harder than the rest.

A lot of wars have been fought with trade a root cause, neither to my memory have given trade as its primary reason (even the British ships forcing the Chinese to indulge their opium habit used brought back the old “civilisation” for the purpose).

I don’t know where this is, but I’ll err on the safe side that humans need more to motivate them to cast aside petty hatreds.