everybody knows that the Portuguese and Dutch made a ton of money importing pepper and other spices from, well, the “Spice Islands” in Indonesia. So, how come? Why didn’t they just plant all those spices in the Caribbean or in Brazil instead, without the huge distances and hostile locals involved in commerce with SE Asia?
I’m sure some of the plants in question only flourish in their native areas.
Beyond that, European traders in that era often had surprisingly little clue what the stuff was that they were trading.
For example, the British were well on their way to being hooked on tea before any of them had the slightest idea that the shredded black stuff they bought in chests on Chinese piers was related in any way to the green Camellia sinensis bush.
I believe that in a lot of the cases, there was quite an incentive to prevent the removal of seeds, cuttings, etc. IIRC there were laws that would punish people caught smuggling out such items. Don’t have a cite, though, sorry.