How the U.S. Took a Shiv to Britain’s Back, Edging Them Closer to Doomsday
The U.S. and 6 other countries object to an agriculture deal between the E.U. and U.K., destroying among the only results of negotiations between them as a deadline fast approaches.
The Trump Administration has a soft spot for Brexit, as he supported its campaign against the conventional wisdom of every U.S. administration (including Saint Reagan, loe!) since World War II. They supposed we could use our close ally to keep a huge sphere of influence over E.U. affairs, especially as all members of the E.U. gained veto power over any proposal. Yet as the U.K. has struggled to come up with a game plan yet alone implement one that is agreeable to the Brexit faction and the E.U., it’s become increasingly clear they’re not the only parties that have to be appeased.
The U.K. supposed its former colonies would make erstwhile allies in trade as it began the Brexit experiment. Yet it has became even clearer since Trump took office amidst a far right revolt that the U.K. can’t count on us, as Trump continues to attack both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, hitting their clout and lessening the chance either can afford to give concessions to avoid the prospect of no deal. Under E.U. rules, the U.K. is only allowed 2 years of negotiations before it’s given the boot, a year of which has already been largely squandered. If that happens, the U.K. faces the prospect of being barely able to access any of its export markets, the E.U. being the majority of its exporters’ destination. The little agriculture deal they could agree to seems to be threatened by a well placed shiv at the World Trade Organization by the U.S. and 6 other food exporters, including New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, Thailand, and Argentina.
The dispute centers around the World Trade Organization, where those 7 food exporting countries objected to the deal that called for a shuffling of import caps among the E.U. and U.K. You see, the E.U. negotiates trade deals as a bloc to increase their leverage, similar to what unions do for workers. So if they allow, say, 1,000,000 tons of produce to be imported, that gets broken down across all E.U. members, so every country imports part of that total, with a max amount set for each member state. If the U.S. wanted to export more produce to say, France, we couldn’t exceed the cap set for France, say 50,000 tons. Instead we could choose other E.U. countries to export to, up until we reach that 1,000,000 ton cap across the E.U. Now that the U.K. is leaving this system, it’s trading leverage is severely diminished, and it must offer a comparable cap to what was in place before — which is of course nearly impossible without destroying the domestic economy. It would be akin to allowing all imports but being boxed out of the export market.
Rather than allowing the U.K. to use their previous cap though, these 7 countries want more, because whereas before if they reached that cap in the U.K. they could still export more to the rest of the E.U. Now, however, the U.K. seeks new trade deals, they inevitably must offer higher import caps, which means their domestic farmers are the ones taking the hit here. Instead of Brexit increasing domestic production, here it quashes it, and puts the U.K. in a terrible position. Not only this, but they’re under the 2 year window to negotiate all the deals they had before via the E.U., or else have no agreements at all and lose both on imports and on exports. All countries are incentivized virtually to drag their feet, and as the U.K. gets more desperate it will offer better terms. If you haven’t been following Brexit, I can tell you it’s been a shitshow. No one can agree to anything, partly for this reason. When they finally got a tiny agreement in a tiny area in agriculture, the U.S. and these 6 countries stick a shiv in their back, once again dragging the U.K. back to the prospect of having no deals with anyone by the deadline; the doomsday scenario.
Trump fundamentally doesn’t understand what he’s doing here. While cheering for Brexit, he is at the same time assuring a terrible outcome for the U.K. and harming our allies with this, his trade wars and his incessant insults and pettiness. Therein lies the problem with all nationalists; while they cheer for nationalists globally, eventually you will encounter nationalists who actually oppose you. Not all brands of nationalism carry the same ideas, they just carry the nationalistic ideas of their country that inherently oppose the nationalistic ideas of another country. Hell, that’s jihad for some nationalists. Not every country can promote their own interests above all else without the world falling apart. We must compromise, work multilaterally with allies and even foes. The world hates Trump to incredible degrees, and those countries united in that belief will have a brand of nationalism even more hostile to U.S. interests.
The irony here is that Trump outright encourages nationalists because he thinks they’re ideological allies. He encouraged them in Brexit, only to shank them in the back when it came to even the smallest compromise on U.S. interests. Our major ally in crisis needs our backing and we sold them down the river to bleed every drop of blood we can get out of them while they are vulnerable. As a matter of policy, yet alone decency, this atrocious, regardless of what you think about any of these issues. We’re increasing losing our major allies due to Trump’s reckless behavior, in word and deed.
This can only leave our allies asking themselves one major question. As one European diplomat said, “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”
