That trade deal is prized by Brexiters as proof it was all worth it. The U.S. is Britain’s largest single-country export market, though it is well behind the EU, where about 43 percent of U.K. goods and services exports go and which is the source of 54 percent of imports. But it’s difficult to believe it matters that much to Trump. The U.S. does more trade with Canada, Mexico and China. A U.K.-U.S. trade agreement would be nice, especially as a reward for Britain’s security support. But it’s not the kind of deal that is going to keep Trump up at night. [...]
It’s becoming clear now to Britons that the promised benefits of Brexit aren’t likely to materialize, and that the best they can hope for is a divorce settlement with Europe that minimizes the disadvantages of leaving. [...]
May’s plan is so offensive to hardcore Brexiters that two senior ministers resigned in the days after her plan was revealed to the cabinet, and many more have been plotting to undermine it. And yet, it’s just an opening bid in negotiations that have a long way to run. There’s every possibility that the EU — which insists that its single market freedoms of goods, labor, capital and services cannot be turned into an a la carte buffet — will reject the offer. There’s still a possibility that the U.K. and the EU will not reach a deal, in which case a very harsh Brexit that exposes Britain to hostile economic relations with longtime allies indeed is possible. [...]
Both Brexiters and Trump channeled dissatisfaction with the status quo and capitalized on the emotional draw of a clean break with an established order. But both movements lacked a workable vision of a new order. Trump stumbles from border-control edicts to tariffs to summit-wrecking. In the same way, British hard-leavers still haven’t articulated a vision of Brexit that is workable, as the new Brexit minister Dominic Raab noted on Thursday.
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