Just in case you were still
thinking that there was some economic logic to the madness of Brexit, let me
enlighten those of you who might give some credence to an open vista of
exciting trade opportunities outside the EU. After all, there are many things
most British politicians (and journalists), even those who are against Brexit,
do not generally understand.
One is that a so-called ‘customs
union’ deal with the EU would not involve services – not simply
financial services, but also legal, accounting, software, design and general
business services. Just ask Turkey, which has such a customs union deal.
Another major point is that the
great world outside the stagnating, troublesome EU is already, how shall I put
it, divided up. This is something that Liam Fox, the airmile-hogging chancer
who is currently the UK’s Secretary of State for International Trade, has been
finding out. After two years or so, he has done post-Brexit trade deals with …
Switzerland, Chile, the Faroe Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
The following table highlights
this latter point. It shows the top 20 countries by nominal GDP in 2018, on IMF data measured in
terms of how many billions of US dollars, and also the major trade deals that
each one has with other countries. (Also note that the EU bloc of 28 countries
is the second largest economic area, having a single market among members and
trade agreements with 36 non-member countries.) The focus here is on economic
deals relating to trade, rather than other more purely political or military
cooperation agreements.
In the table, the following abbreviations apply:
APEC: Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation group of 21 Pacific Rim economies
ASEAN: Association of
South East Asian Nations, including 10 countries in South East Asia
CPTPP: Comprehensive and
Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership of 11 countries, including
Mexico, Canada and Japan. This is something the UK could join post-Brexit, but
there has been no news on any such developments. The US pulled out of the previous
TPP, but the remaining members went ahead with this CPTPP excluding the US,
after suspending 22 provisions the US favoured that the others opposed.
Gulf Cooperation Council:
a grouping of six Arab states, the main members being Saudi Arabia and the UAE (with
Qatar now under an embargo).
Mercosur: a changing
membership of around six countries, due to political disagreements. Principal
members are Argentina and Brazil.
NAFTA/USMCA: The US
pulled out of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico
under Trump, but will replace it with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
SCO:
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, key members of which are China, Russia,
India and Pakistan, plus four East European ex-Soviet states and many observer
and ‘dialogue’ states.
For other details, of which
there are many, look up Wikipedia!
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