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Imagine if Florida wanted to leave the US and renegotiate their trade and governmental relationship with China/Brazil/Iceland, etc? - Why would a country give

Imagine if Florida wanted to leave the US and renegotiate their trade and governmental relationship with China/Brazil/Iceland, etc? - Why would a country give Florida a better trade deal or more rights than the US? - How do Floridians benefit from suddenly being unable to freely cross the border to the US? And this is why Brexit is so screwed up: the promise was "all the benefits you have now plus we'll renegotiate and get a bunch more when we aren't being held back anymore", but it's really hard to fundamentally see why/how that could happen. EDIT: bunch of replies to this that maybe miss the main thrust of this question which is "Why would a country give a better deal to Florida in this scenario?"

rusk 8y ago
In fairness, it's substantially different in the UK is a sovereign nation. In this instance the UK sees that the EU erodes their sovereignty. If that were the case the UK leaving the EU is a reasonable course of action. Geography is also a factor in that the UK actually can physically separate from the UK, arguments with regards to the land border with Northern Ireland notwithstanding of course!
- zimzam 8y ago
  You’re replying with a discussion of sovereignty in response to a parent that’s discussing trade deals. Braxit was generally sold on two main pillars: sovereignty and making vastly better trade deals. Sure, there are sovereignty issues that make sense to drive Brexit, but it is the second pillar that never made sense. The U.K. is not a very large country by itself (no longer a global empire) so it is puzzling at best to think that the rest of the world is dying to give it amazing trade deals. The U.K. has friends who would be happy to trade with it, but a market 1/10th the size of the EU is unlikely to get many trade deals that are better than the EU.
  - wolco 8y ago
    Trade deals in the EU try to benefit all but could be at the expense of a nation.
malvosenior 8y ago
More accurate: Imagine Florida was an independent country for a thousand years. Then 20 years ago, it joined a newly formed pseudo-state organization. It's since realized that it doesn't like when Maine enacts an insane internet copyright law (because it conflicts with Florida's insane cookie law) and a host of other unforeseen issues. It decides to go back to being an independent entity but Floridians with economic ties to New Hampshire resist.
- qnsi 8y ago
  46 years ago
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    The EU was formally created in 1993 but didn't become a monetary union until 2002.
    - MagnumOpus 8y ago
      The EU is not a monetary union, the EMU is. The UK is not a member of the EMU and never has to be.
    - qnsi 8y ago
      sure, but there were other forms of cooperation before. UK joined EEC in 1975. It's not like there were sovereign countries and all of the sudden in 1993 they decided to create European Union. Also one cannot forget why EU and ancestors was created. To avoid another war in Europe and in my opinion it was pretty successful.
      - dingaling 8y ago
        But you're retro-attributing 'peace in Europe' to organisations that didn't have any substantive existence until the mid-1970s. NATO was formed in 1949 and has more relevance to preventing war in Western Europe than any subsequent organisation. By the time the EU was formed the Berlin Wall had fallen! The EC&SC, EEC and EU could exist because of peace in Europe.
Aromasin 8y ago
While I'm a firm remainer, I'd still say it's not quite the same as you've described. It would be closer to New York leaving the US if we were to do it by GDP (with Germany being California and France Texas) with New York of course having much more political and financial power than Florida. With it would go numerous financial institutions and various other corporate headquarters that are based there. Also, while I know this is a very dumbed down way of looking at the issue, many people felt that the UKs contribution to the EU was not reciprocated, and the EU was only there to funnel money away from the UK down to Greece, Spain, Portugal and the like, place strange legislation that took control away from people, and force us to take in immigrants that take jobs away from British citizens and send their earnings abroad to their families in other countries. Again, this is all the simplified, digestible summaries of arguments that were given to the British public during the referendum, hence the result of the vote. Of course, the MPs should be there make an informed decision because it's their full time job, not the general public that will only have a passing knowledge of it that is often learnt through biased media. 2 years of thorough coverage on the issue has made it clear to most people that the above summaries are not accurate, and mostly fabrications by people with a vested interest in destabilising and shorting the pound.
- zimzam 8y ago
  The idea that the U.K. was getting used is an interesting one considering they are the only one who get/got a rebate on their EU contributions: relative to their GDP the U.K. is/was objectively paying less than other members (when looking st the last couple of decades - the U.K. was struggling economically when the rebate was negotiated).
  - Chris2048 8y ago
    The UK also get proportionally less from the EU that those that didn't get a rebate. This was the reason the rebate was given, why else would the EU agree to it? It's only recently that the matter of the rebate is being spun to bash the UK.
- imtringued 8y ago
  > force us to take in immigrants that take jobs away from British citizens and send their earnings abroad to their families in other countries. UK is not part of the Eurozone. It does not suffer from the downsides of a shared currency. Why would it matter where they send the money to? Every pound sent abroad can only be used to buy goods from the UK. If you were talking about say Germany and Greece then the story would look completely different. If Greece borrows from Germany then the Euro will not be devalued but if it still had the drachma the drachma would become devalued which makes German products more expensive and local products cheaper. Therefore Greece can buy German products and borrow money from German banks cheaply which eliminates the incentive to produce them locally despite the massive trade imbalance. There are many arguments against the Euro but as I said, the UK suffers from none of them.
wolco 8y ago
Start with Hawaii instead of Florida. Maybe having a different policy might make more sense because they are so close to China, Brazil sort of.

rusk 8y ago

In fairness, it's substantially different in the UK is a sovereign nation. In this instance the UK sees that the EU erodes their sovereignty. If that were the case the UK leaving the EU is a reasonable course of action. Geography is also a factor in that the UK actually can physically separate from the UK, arguments with regards to the land border with Northern Ireland notwithstanding of course!

zimzam 8y ago
You’re replying with a discussion of sovereignty in response to a parent that’s discussing trade deals. Braxit was generally sold on two main pillars: sovereignty and making vastly better trade deals. Sure, there are sovereignty issues that make sense to drive Brexit, but it is the second pillar that never made sense. The U.K. is not a very large country by itself (no longer a global empire) so it is puzzling at best to think that the rest of the world is dying to give it amazing trade deals. The U.K. has friends who would be happy to trade with it, but a market 1/10th the size of the EU is unlikely to get many trade deals that are better than the EU.
- wolco 8y ago
  Trade deals in the EU try to benefit all but could be at the expense of a nation.

malvosenior 8y ago

More accurate: Imagine Florida was an independent country for a thousand years. Then 20 years ago, it joined a newly formed pseudo-state organization. It's since realized that it doesn't like when Maine enacts an insane internet copyright law (because it conflicts with Florida's insane cookie law) and a host of other unforeseen issues. It decides to go back to being an independent entity but Floridians with economic ties to New Hampshire resist.

qnsi 8y ago
46 years ago
- malvosenior 8y ago
  The EU was formally created in 1993 but didn't become a monetary union until 2002.
  - MagnumOpus 8y ago
    The EU is not a monetary union, the EMU is. The UK is not a member of the EMU and never has to be.
  - qnsi 8y ago
    sure, but there were other forms of cooperation before. UK joined EEC in 1975. It's not like there were sovereign countries and all of the sudden in 1993 they decided to create European Union. Also one cannot forget why EU and ancestors was created. To avoid another war in Europe and in my opinion it was pretty successful.
    - dingaling 8y ago
      But you're retro-attributing 'peace in Europe' to organisations that didn't have any substantive existence until the mid-1970s. NATO was formed in 1949 and has more relevance to preventing war in Western Europe than any subsequent organisation. By the time the EU was formed the Berlin Wall had fallen! The EC&SC, EEC and EU could exist because of peace in Europe.

Aromasin 8y ago

While I'm a firm remainer, I'd still say it's not quite the same as you've described. It would be closer to New York leaving the US if we were to do it by GDP (with Germany being California and France Texas) with New York of course having much more political and financial power than Florida. With it would go numerous financial institutions and various other corporate headquarters that are based there. Also, while I know this is a very dumbed down way of looking at the issue, many people felt that the UKs contribution to the EU was not reciprocated, and the EU was only there to funnel money away from the UK down to Greece, Spain, Portugal and the like, place strange legislation that took control away from people, and force us to take in immigrants that take jobs away from British citizens and send their earnings abroad to their families in other countries. Again, this is all the simplified, digestible summaries of arguments that were given to the British public during the referendum, hence the result of the vote. Of course, the MPs should be there make an informed decision because it's their full time job, not the general public that will only have a passing knowledge of it that is often learnt through biased media. 2 years of thorough coverage on the issue has made it clear to most people that the above summaries are not accurate, and mostly fabrications by people with a vested interest in destabilising and shorting the pound.

zimzam 8y ago
The idea that the U.K. was getting used is an interesting one considering they are the only one who get/got a rebate on their EU contributions: relative to their GDP the U.K. is/was objectively paying less than other members (when looking st the last couple of decades - the U.K. was struggling economically when the rebate was negotiated).
- Chris2048 8y ago
  The UK also get proportionally less from the EU that those that didn't get a rebate. This was the reason the rebate was given, why else would the EU agree to it? It's only recently that the matter of the rebate is being spun to bash the UK.
imtringued 8y ago
> force us to take in immigrants that take jobs away from British citizens and send their earnings abroad to their families in other countries. UK is not part of the Eurozone. It does not suffer from the downsides of a shared currency. Why would it matter where they send the money to? Every pound sent abroad can only be used to buy goods from the UK. If you were talking about say Germany and Greece then the story would look completely different. If Greece borrows from Germany then the Euro will not be devalued but if it still had the drachma the drachma would become devalued which makes German products more expensive and local products cheaper. Therefore Greece can buy German products and borrow money from German banks cheaply which eliminates the incentive to produce them locally despite the massive trade imbalance. There are many arguments against the Euro but as I said, the UK suffers from none of them.

wolco 8y ago

Start with Hawaii instead of Florida. Maybe having a different policy might make more sense because they are so close to China, Brazil sort of.