Manufacturing is the engine of the world economy. Under complicated and volatile international situation, it is worth thinking about where the world manufacturing trade pattern will go. Therefore, it is necessary to sort out the trade-related research of manufacturing trade. This paper systematically reviewed the research on international trade in manufacturing through qualitative and quantitative research methods, which made up for the deficiency of the existing reviews in this field. This paper used CiteSpace software to carry out a bibliometric analysis of 1027 documents from the Web of Science (1996-2020). The study found that authoritative journals in this field are concentrated in the economic field and the quality of publications is high. The cooperation between scholars is not close, and papers are mainly distributed in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The research focus has shifted from international trade, productivity and impact to performance, China, innovation, etc. International trade in manufacturing was subdivided into eight major research fields. According to the burst-detection, national trade markups, input and output analysis, improvement of quality, and export market will become future development trends.