During three millennia of pharaonic history Egyptians traded goods with other countries, while the Egyptian government tried to control this trade and profit from it.
The conquest of Nubia was not just a response to incursions by Nubians, but made economic sense by bringing the rich Nubian gold mines and the overland routes to Kush and Punt under Egyptian authority.
The Sinai desert was important for its copper and gem stone mines, and its trade routes through Arabia to the Horn of Africa, and later to Persia and India.
Retenu (Canaan and Syria) was a buffer region against Asiatic attacks, but also a crossroads of trading routes and there is evidence of royal trade and exchange in the form of Egyptian style clay cylinder seal impressions and serekh signs from as early as Narmer's reign.
Even the Egyptian attempts at ruling Libya were influenced by the profits to be made from the European trade with Africa.
During the Late Period much of Egyptian trade was in the hands of Phoenicians and Greeks, who had settled in the Delta. Naukratis on the western most arm of the Nile was for some time the only international port.
