The article contains an attempt at confronting transformations in the Polish trade with transformations occurring in the world economy. There have been accepted three areas of confrontation as the most significant for the Polish economic situation: raw materials market, problem of newly-industrialized countries, and institutional changes in the world trade. This has been supplemented by presentation of the most characteristic structural changes taking place in the world economy. The author comes to the conclusion that changes occurring in the Polish foreign trade, regardless of their causes, are divergent in relation to the world trends. It leads ultimately to deterioration of Polands position in the international division of labour. There must be effected changes convergent with the trends observed in the world economy and the world trade, and, thus, it becomes necessary to change the structure of the Polish export in the direction of diminishing the role of raw materials and products with a low degree of processing in favour of highly-processed products and products characterized by their high technological intensity. Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 dofinansowane zostało ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę