Wednesday 30 December 2020

How will Biden treat the UK now as a trading partner?

I have read a million times how the exit of the UK from the EU will place this country in a far less favourable light vis a vis the United States, and that Joe Biden will be very sniffy about rushing to any sort of trade deal with London. On the face of it, this might seem to be correct. The US has always looked on the UK as the point of reference for any dispute or arrangement between Washington and the EU. Nice to have a known and "special" friend inside the EU camp, in other words. Now that the UK has left and is outside the EU family, the UK will be seen as a lost soul, an island adrift. I am beginning to think this is nonsense. Commentators and analysts always seem to think of the worst-possible scenarios when a major change such as Brexit takes place. But the world is changing so fast that Brexit is just a dot in the world spectrum. Once the Brexit trade arrangements have been worked through over the next few months, things will settle down into a new reality and the world will carry on. The US, under a new president, would be foolish to view the UK as some naughty child who has escaped the clutches of its mother. The UK will develop a firm new-style trade relationship with the EU and will continue to have high-end deals with the US. Eventually there will be hugely beneficial separate trade arrangements with the US. As it is Washington spends much of its time whingeing about the EU because it rivals the US in so many areas, so turning to the UK could be quite a relief. Especially now that the EU is about to sign a massive trade deal with China after so many years of negotiations it makes the UK/EU negotiations look small beer. Seven years it took! So I think over the next year or so, the UK will be fine, standing on its own, and the US, under Biden and whoever follows him, will want to bind even tighter to dear old Blighty. As was pointed out the other day, Britain has the fifth largest economy in the world after jumping one above India. So that's not to be sniffed at.

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