Are we surprised?

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This gives Truss carte-blanche to do what she wants with the NI protocol if there's nothing to lose....
 

stowie

Active Member
Absolutely no surprise at all.

The US has a grand total of 20 trade deals. There is the Canada-US-Mexico agreement (NAFTA), a bunch of trade agreements with small developing nations in S. America (intended as part of growth / stability strategy) and then some of the usual suspects who have agreements with many, many countries such as Israel and Singapore.

For comparison, the EU have around double the number of trade deals, and usually with bigger and more complex economies (Japan, Canada etc).

The US has no FTA with any large trading entities such as Japan, or EU, or Mercosur.

There is a reason for this. The US is a huge economy and any FTA will be heavily biased for the US to be interested. In most cases, this inbalance makes a FTA with the US very difficult for the other country.

A Bigly FTA was unlikely even under Trump. And such a FTA would take many years to negotiate rather than a short term "Brexit benefit".

The EU and US got closer than most with TTIP, probably because the gains on either side were somewhat more even. But it took years just to get to a situation where it was ditched.

The Brexiteers who thought this trade deal was a realistic option in the short or medium term were either lying to themselves or to us.
 

deptfordmarmoset

Über Member
But......!
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stowie

Active Member
This gives Truss carte-blanche to do what she wants with the NI protocol if there's nothing to lose....

There are still consequences if Truss really screws with it.

The EU can sanction by dropping parts of the UK FTA. The US can, and has in the past, simply implemented sanctions with scant regard to WTO niceties. The WTO takes a looong time to resolve disputes.

I believe this is why the NIP is in such stasis. Johnson's government might have been talking big about it, but implementing what they threaten wouldn't end well for the UK, and I think they knew it.
 
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