4 ms·
You've misunderstood. Practically speaking, the UK needs to buy shit, the US needs to sell shit. UK has effectively blocked out 1/3 of the world (Europe) from a
by morrbo 8y ago
You've misunderstood. Practically speaking, the UK needs to buy shit, the US needs to sell shit. UK has effectively blocked out 1/3 of the world (Europe) from a trade deal because we'd never get one as good as the current free trade agreement with the EU. Our politicians won't be stupid enough to say "we've left the EU, but have made a worse deal with Europe than we had before". Similarly EU won't make a deal with the UK which disallows freedom of movement and other "core" EU values, so any deal made would either require circumstances similar to pre-brexit EU to happen, or would just flat out be a worse deal.
Distance really isn't much of an issue at scale, when your cheap stuff comes from China - - edit - to clarify, the point i'm trying to make is that it really doesn't cost much to ship stuff halfway around the world, especially en masse. -, or meat from New Zealand, this isn't much of an argument. This would be a purely US beneficial deal, the UK wouldn't really be bringing anything into the US, other than maybe finance services, specialist products or (i guess) softer products like educational visas?
There's quite a big controversy over here at the moment about the possibility of a US trade deal. We are being told that for it to happen we would have to accept terms like chlorinated chicken/steroid injected beef, and then agree to other things like labeling the origin of the product (so you would never really know if you were eating US or UK products). There's a whole other host of subtleties which would degrade the UK whilst being beneficial to the US, just do a bit of googling about the proposed deals.
- rusk 8y ago> when your cheap stuff comes from China Yeah except neither party to this deal is producing "cheap stuff". Both consider themselves to be very much "top tier". > edit - to clarify, the point i'm trying to make is that it really doesn't cost much to ship stuff halfway around the world, especially en masse Yeah, if the stuff is "cheap". Like dramatically cheaper than what you can produce at home.
- morrbo 8y agolol mate you're really not getting it. You said "the geography is a bit of an issue for physical goods". I'm saying, when you can order a sheep from new zealand, or a USB stick from China, and have it show up a few days or a week later, this isn't really a good argument.
- louisswiss 8y agoThere is a kernel of truth to this, in that today geography is less an issue than it used to be. Unfortunately for Brexiteers who use this as an argument for No-Deal Brexit being an opportunity, however, geography was a big consideration for how pretty much every company in the world has set up its supply chains and partners.
- rusk 8y ago"lol mate" what is this snapchat? , you're the one that's not getting it. "The geography is a bit of an issue for physical goods" when you're not producing goods cheap enough to cover the cost of transit. The UK does not produce cheap goods. Quite the opposite. I don't think racing to the bottom in living standards to compete productively with China is something that people voting for Brexit had in mind.
- morrbo 8y agoThe UK would be IMPORTING goods from the US.. I don't get where you're getting this idea we'd be exporting cheap goods from the UK to the US. The examples i explicitly stated were things like education, specialized tech (which would be fine for shipping), and access to financial services, which once again doesn't need shipping. For the last time, i'm not saying that the UK is going suddenly start mass producing cheap goods to export to the US? I dont know where you've got that idea from. The US, however, does create a lot of cheap goods which they'd be exporting TO the UK, such as your corn, meats, etc. The main issue people are concerned about is that the UK would be flooded with cheaper/sub standard goods (re. chlorinated chicken) that they can't differentiate between standard UK/EU products which are of a higher quality. Currently, US meat is outright banned in the EU, if there's an influx in cheap/chemically altered meats coming from the US which people can't differentiate from (this is partially due to the terms of the trading deal banning branding of goods as "Produced in the UK") then people are worried they'd accidentally end up buying them.
- rusk 8y agoI’m understanding you alright ... so a massive trade deficit in USA’s favour so! Not such a concern about where you’re going to get the £££ if all you’re buying is cheap junk in $$$ but even so there’s got to be cheaper places to buy cheap junk from and sure with the rules lifted why not just start producing cheap junk yourself!
- krona 8y agochlorinated chicken/steroid injected beef Such things would be clearly labelled and no worse than the US standard. If consumers want it, they will buy it. If they don't, they won't.