>>2231913
NTA but I just spammed Overseas Trading Posts + Trade Offices all over and left trade itself automated. This adds trade capacity everywhere, the automated trade rakes in money for you. Eventually you get more naval range to spam more of them, and then you can start colonizing for even more stuff, but I didn't get too far into that yet

When you build foreign buildings, the pops they employ are counted as part of your country. Which is why I have almost 400k pop but only like 200k in Cyprus.