Currently, according to the encyclopedia, the merchant reputation badge is earned when a country has a trade route through a third party. In this way, even a single country (A) that trades with only one other country (B) can obtain the merchant badge if country B resells its resources. However, a country with many trade relations and reselling, such as B, which in fact is a merchant, does not earn the badge. 

Often, if your country acquires most of the resources and is diplomatically well connected, there is a strong tendency for others to buy the resources from you rather than the original owner. And this entails that the various nations that buy resources through you earn the merchant's badge for their commercial performance.

Therefore, my suggestion is that the badge be earned by one country when reselling a resource from another country. So the badge of reputation becomes the country that actually makes commerce flow, and not the person responsible for extracting the resource.