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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » PB Video Analysis: What Chance a US-UK Free Trade Deal
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » PB Video Analysis: What Chance a US-UK Free Trade Deal
Brexit is approaching. And with it – in President Trump’s mind – comes an opportunity for a transatlantic free trade deal, bringing together the World’s two largest English speaking democracies. Atlantacists in Britain are excited, those who believe we should be supping with the Europeans are scared.
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A point to add, perhaps, is that an FTA with America could not actually be that much better than we already have as members of the EU. There is no EU/US FTA but generally tariffs are low (except when hiked by the president to MAGA) so there is not much to be gained, and that is true in both directions.
There are more non-tariff barriers but as RCS's video explains, we probably quite like those. And if an FTA includes so-called local content rules (or almost any rules) then there will have to be customs inspections to check those rules are met, which makes trade just a bit slower and more expensive.
But suppose we could agree a magical FTA with the United States that is balanced in our favour, not theirs, well, so what? America is bleeding miles away and so will never match the trade volumes we have with European nations. Even this hypothetical FTA could not compensate for the harm that will be done by Brexit in making trade with the EU slower and more expensive.