本文提出經濟互賴與第三國國際互動之實證研究分析。如果國家要保護貿易利得，貿易衝突模型主張貿易可以減少本國與目標國之間的衝突，進而影響其國際關係。理論上證明： 如果第三國與目標國是夥伴關係，則本國增加與第三國之貿易，將會減少與目標國之衝突； 如果第三國與目標國是敵對關係，則本國增加與第三國之貿易，將會增加與目標國之衝突。本研究運用了「衝突與和平資料庫」(COPDAB)三十國的樣本，實證結果大體上支持了理論的假設。貿易可以增加國與國之間的交往，並提升國際和平關係。根據結構平衡理論，三角不平衡關係可以經由國際貿易來改善。因而遞增的世界貿易也會增強箴言：「朋友的朋友也是朋友」的哲理。

　　　　　This article presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between economic interdependence and international third-party interactions. If countries seek to protect their trade gains, the tradeconflict model predicts that trade reduces conflict between pairs of countries, designated “actors” and “targets”. This paper extends the trade-conflict model to garner implications concerning trade and conflict interactions where third parties are involved. The theoretical propositions supported by proofs are as follows: (1) Increasing trade by an “actor” with a third party will decrease conflict with a “target”, if the third party and target are “friends”, who already have a negative level of mutual conflict. (2) Increasing trade with a third party will increase conflict with a target, if the third party and target are “rivals”, having a positive level of mutual conflict. A similar relationship is also discussed and tested if conflict increases or decreases between the actor and third party. The empirical results of tests using a 30-country sample from the Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) generally support the hypotheses. Trade increases communication between states and promotes peace. Therefore, according to the implications of structural balance theory, the imbalance in a triadic relationship can be resolved by international trade. Thus, increasing world trade will give positive effect to the maxim: “a friend of a friend is a friend”.