Drop the shekels, trade war nowI'm requoting this: 'It is impossible for the EU to launch a trade war against a departing member under World Trade Organization rules, (...) not that French wine producers or German car manufacturers would allow their governments to threaten access to a market as important as the UK anyway.'
Now I hinge nothing on international law, as it has always been mocked and flaunted whenever convenient and I don't doubt this would be any different. Now here is where the numbers come in:
Germany exported to the UK $105,122,552,228, the UK exported to Germany $51,158,697,462. That means Germany is profiting $54,000,000,000 off of Anglo-German trade. If they try to impose trade barriers, they are kicking the cactus field - and its their own cacti, because that $54,000,000,000 stops going to Germany, and starts going to the USA, to BRIC, to MINT, to the Commonwealth (it is honestly much easier to list the countries we're not trading with than to list the ones we are). The UK will still get her imports but Germany will not be getting sterling, and will have to look attract buyers from elsewhere. I do not think they will bother with the effort unless they believe depriving themselves of $50B a year hurts the UK :
P
Just look at the statistics, less and less British goods (British exports to the EU between May and June even fell $300,000,000 in just one month) because Europe just does not offer us nearly as many opportunities to grow as actually growing economies across the sea. Meanwhile imports rose as European manufacturers have had trouble finding customers like the UK who are nearby, wealthy and buying! If you do not understand how this works, it is the person with the money who has the leverage here, not the person producing the products. Germany dominates the EU and makes the EU fit their agenda, and Germany is much more dependent upon British customers than the other way around. It's very simple - British customers can go abroad to every continent in the world, German products cannot.
The UK cannot survive without EU imports.This is a sneaky one. This argument hinges on the notion that the UK will somehow be isolated from all EU imports and the EU will be able to stop French wine makers from selling wine to the UK and German car manufacturers from selling German cars to the UK e.t.c.
An independent UK would set its own tariffs and would decide on its own whether it wants to charge French wine makers to export to the UK (which it wouldn't, seeing as the UK is the sixth biggest consumer of wine in the world). French wine is perhaps the most significant leverage Germany could ever hope to hold, because the UK can survive entirely independent of EU imports in all things except French wine. In all other cases the UK can just import from another country or just use their domestic industry, but even with recent climate change allowing for excellent domestic UK champagne on a par with champagne from champagne, the brand image, the tradition and the scale of French winemaking is without parallel. Simply put, France holds a monopoly on
French Wine. The most damage that a post-UK EU could possibly inflict on the UK is doing something like imposing a Britwine duty tax on any wine leaving France for Britain to try and raise the price of exporting wine to the UK and force French winemakers to sell more to Germany, the Netherlands, the USA and China. Assuming they also closed any Serbia-esque loopholes where the UK didn't just import French wine through Belgium or Ireland, this would quickly become a wine war between British drinkers and French producers. When it comes to chemical stimulants the rules of free trade do not apply the same way :
D
It is notable I think, that the UK's eurosceptics drink beer and ale, whilst our europhiles drink wine and champagne.
So to summarize, the EU would not be able to stop European countries from exporting to the UK without damaging those countries whilst leaving the UK unscathed. With one exception - stopping French wine. Currently this is no issue for the UK as global wine sales have fallen leaving France even more dependent upon UK consumption, but if France managed to reduce her wine dependency on the UK (maybe just double up domestic drinking?) this one is achievable, and would raise prices on UK wine and result in thousands of cases of horrible sobriety.
The EU could make life difficult for British exporters.This one is much easier for the EU to do, they may not be able to stop Europeans from exporting to the UK but they can at the very least try and discourage British manufacturers from exporting to the EU with extra regulations, tariffs and paper just for the lols. It would help employ more EU bureaucrats too, cos Arkad knows the EU doesn't have enough bureaucrats :
D
Just looking at the import/export statistics of the UK's top trading partners is gleeful:
http://i.imgur.com/2LiI0ro.pngNon-German countries offer us more already without any of the hassle, and any nation that sides with Germany's politicians on this can be cut out of the equation quite easily, exception being Ireland where we already have preexisting free trade deals and citizen benefits which predate the European Union's existence. Well, we already have a lot of free trade deals with Europe, given history and all, but again let's not take anything for granted and assume only by the numbers, as as we've accepted international law is sadly flaunted at will by design or accident.
Let us look at the numbers:
In the last few years we have made a huge difference and built a much stronger bilateral trading relationship between our countries. The figures tell the story - bilateral trade at record levels, our exports to China up 15% in 2013, they have more than doubled in the last 5 years and at £1 billion a month, they are growing faster than France or Germany.
These figures prove once again that Britain is the most open economy in the EU, the most welcoming to Chinese investment including in our nuclear industry and our infrastructure and I’m determined to keep it that way.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-china-agree-14-billion-of-trade-and-investment-deals
The top exports of the United Kingdom are: Cars ($40.7B), Refined Petroleum ($29.8B), Crude Petroleum ($22.7B), Packaged Medicaments ($20.3B), Gas Turbines ($17.2B)
Its top imports are: Cars ($40.3B), Crude Petroleum ($39.6B), Refined Petroleum ($28.8B), Packaged Medicaments ($18B), Computers ($16.2B)
The top export destinations of the United Kingdom are: United States ($50.2B), Germany ($46.6B), the Netherlands ($36B), France ($28.8B), Belgium-Luxembourg ($25.1B)
The top import origins are: Germany ($88.8B), China ($55.2B), the Netherlands ($52.1B), France ($39B), United States ($37.8B)
Most of our cars and engines go to three countries in particular, the USA, Germany and China. Germany may actually be able to profit here by trying to impose restrictions on British engines entering Europe in favour of German car engines, just as long as Germany manages their
carbon emissions scandal. Yet the EU cannot stop us from exporting to the rest of the world which offers more profit anyways, resulting in the situation where export to China increased to $18,070,724,927, to India increased to $3,911,180,179, and trade with the rest of
BRIC and
MINT is healthy. Except with Russia, where trade pretty much halved, but sanctions and all you know.
But they could right?The EU could make life hard for UK exporters within Europe to try and discourage them and encourage local competition, this has good chances of helping European industries avoid British competition (French nuclear vs British nuclear, German cars vs British cars comes to mind), but UK exporters are increasingly exporting outside of the EU, the countries we export to within the EU we already have free trade deals with. That is also assuming the European Union possesses the mechanisms to actually restrict British exports, given just how much Chinese steel has made a mockery of Europe's struggling steel industries (I told you Covenant, I warned you bro, if the UK had not moved on from steel a long time ago we'd be in the same boat as Germany today). Nothing is impossible though, so on the offchance Germany tries to restrict British exports to Europe she will have to give the British market share in German energy to Russia, and she possesses no naval force capable of stopping British exports from going across the world, so there is nothing stopping Britain from using Turkey/Ireland/Switzerland/Norway, hell even Russia, Israel or Ukraine to export British goods to Europe, and there is nothing stopping Britain from merely exporting more to the Americas, to Africa, or any of the burgeoning economies all across Asia. Exports from the UK to EU and non-EU countries have grown on average by 3.6% and 6.5% respectively in each year between 1999 and 2014. However, the stronger export growth to non-EU countries has resulted in the proportion of UK exports destined for the
EU falling from 54.8% in 1999 to 44.6% in 2014. Simply put the much faster growth found elsewhere than within the EU has meant already the economies of the globe are more important to the United Kingdoms. I don't believe the EU under a fully centralized nation state that has abolished all national democracy completely would even be able to stop British exports to Europe just as Napoleon failed to despite having his Berlin decree backed by more than words - he had the greatest military force of his time at his disposal. And from the EU falling from 54.8% in 1999 to 44.6% in 2014? We're better off in the sun and the tropics where the real shekels are at.
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