TLDR News: What Boris Johnson Doesn't Understand About Brexit

In a recent interview, Boris Johnson admitted to not understanding GATT Article 24 Paragraph 5(c). Now that sounds very very niche, but it's actually fundamental to his Brexit plan. In this video, we explain what it is that Johnson doesn't understand and what this means for him and his plan.

Politico: EU and China break ultimate trade taboo to hit back at Trump

Brussels and Beijing on Wednesday launched explosive cases at the World Trade Organization, in which they will argue that Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, imposed in May, cannot be justified on grounds of national security, as the White House claims. The EU and China were joined in their protest by Mexico, Norway, Russia and Canada. [...]

Whichever way the WTO rules, Pandora’s box has been opened. If it rules that national security can justify tariffs, the decision could inspire other countries to play the security card. On the other hand, if Washington finds itself backed into a corner, it could simply quit the WTO.[...]

A common position from the EU and China is a blow to many European and American officials, who had hoped that the trade war would morph into a united front against Beijing. The Trump administration has just unveiled a hardline policy on China. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence last week delivered a blistering speech against China, saying that Washington was in no rush to end the trade war and “would not change course until China changes it ways.”

The cases against the national security justification are not the first to reach WTO panels. There are two other cases still under investigation — involving Qatar and Russia — but the U.S. case is by far the most geopolitically significant. There has never been a ruling on the legitimacy of the national security defense.

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WorldAffairs: Trade Wars: US, China, and Europe, Who Has the Most to Lose?

In recent weeks, searing rhetoric from President Trump has pushed our trading relations with both Europe and with China onto center stage. In the case of China, an escalating trade war has begun, and with Europe, President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker first clashed before agreeing in principle to work toward lowering barriers to commerce. Is Trump simply solving problems of his own making or is this part of a smart negotiating strategy that will ultimately benefit American consumers, producers and farmers? Can trade wars actually be won? Tyler Cowen, Holbert L. Harris chair of economics at George Mason University, and Gillian Tett, US managing editor for the Financial Times, discuss the ramifications of Trump's trade policy with Ray Suarez, former chief national correspondent for PBS NewsHour.

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Politico: Britain just can’t shake the ECJ

The U.K. Conservative Party’s base won’t rest until all traces of the European Court of Justice are erased from British life. High profile Brexiteer and former minister Iain Duncan Smith referred to it ahead of the Brexit referendum vote last year, for example, as an “illegitimate challenge to our sovereignty.” [...]

The first is that anyone living or doing business in the EU, including any government body, is subject to ECJ jurisdiction. To be free of it would be to reject the rule of law. So unless the U.K. proposes to stop doing business with Europe altogether it cannot escape the ECJ.

More significantly, the Brexiteers reserve a special hatred for the ECJ while forgetting those other supranational judicial bodies the U.K. is signed up to. Britain is a member of many international law bodies, most prominently as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (Britain is hardly about to give up its Security Council seat on sovereignty grounds).

The U.K. is also a member of the World Trade Organization, a body whose rules it will rely upon in case it fails to strike a Brexit deal with the EU. The irony there is that if the U.K.’s hard-line stance on the ECJ derails Brexit talks, it will force the U.K. into the arms of another international body with the power to dictate its affairs.

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