The article presents the results of research the historical background of the emergence and development of foreign economic activity helped to form a periodization stages of development and foreign trade activities on the territory of Ukraine and to identify the characteristics and trends of activities in this area in the context of historical facts. Based on the study of the place of foreign trade activities in the economic relations in the context of historical stages identified a number of factors behavioral nature that have an impact on foreign trade at the global level, despite researched historical facts of economic development in the world, and at the macroeconomic level, consequently the level of individual entities. Behavioral factors of the environment in relation to foreign entities in the area, given the historical data include political factors. The impact of behavioral factors on the development of foreign trade, which traced in the study of historical aspects of economic development is essential in view of the presented empirical data on the formation and development of Ukrainian lands ruled by neighboring countries, and include no other than the political aspects, factors of social and cultural areas.