Apologies for posting this late, I had to reinstall Mac OS onto my laptop because it wasn’t working. 

Awhile ago, Donald Trump tweeted his enthusiasm for a US-UK trade deal. Inevitably, Brexiteers were ecstatic. Here was irrefutable proof the UK wouldn’t suffer any loss of trade after Brexit. Trade with the US and other countries would replace any losses from leaving the EU. But as usual, the reality is more complex. Partly because the EU and the 45 agreements the EU has with 75 countries around the world account for 60% of our exports, which doesn’t include the abolition of non-tariff barriers that comes with the Single Market. Partly because Trump has made numerous protectionist statements in the past, so the idea that he can be a genuine free trader when it comes to the UK is nonsense. But also because the benefits of a potential US-UK trade deal are mixed at best.

This week’s article comes from George Monbiot in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/25/chlorinated-chicken-trade-britain-us-food-standards-globalisation. Monbiot’s argument is that trade deals are not principally about reducing or eliminating tariffs anymore, because WTO rules already disincentivize them. Instead, trade deals are about the harmonisation of standards, which ought to increase prosperity by encouraging trade and promoting competition. This has very few drawbacks to groups of countries with already-similar standards, like the EU member states or Australia and New Zealand. But to countries with different standards, the policy areas covered by a trade deal become more contentious.

So in the instance of the US and the UK, you have two disparities. The first is in economic clout. The US is the world’s largest economy (excluding the EU), that conducts only a small proportion of its trade with the UK. On the other hand, the UK is a relatively small economy that conducts a much larger proportion with the US than vice versa. Moreover, because the UK has chosen to leave the EU with uncertain consequences, it has far more to lose from a deal not coming to fruition. The second disparity is in standards- the UK currently has the EU’s high standards, whereas America’s standards are much lower. In a negotiation where the US has the upper hand, it is very unlikely that the US will change its standards in order to reap a very small reward. It is far more likely that the UK will dramatically lower its standards, due to a Conservative government comfortable with American standards and sheer desperation.

For Monbiot, the infamous example of chlorinated chickens are but one instance of the UK lowering its standards to the detriment of the country’s wellbeing, even if the deal is good for headline economic growth figures. More severe consequences include the degradation of environmental regulations, the opening up of currently nationalised services to American corporations, a slimmed-down welfare state, weaker health and safety standards, and the rights of employees to holidays and sick pay. The point is that it may not be worth sacrificing our EU-level standards for a trade deal with the US, especially as such a deal probably won’t offset the losses of leaving the EU. Monbiot was a voracious critic of the proposed TTIP agreement between the EU and the US. But in my view, TTIP had the potential to be beneficial because the EU and the US were negotiating as equals. No such parity exists if the UK negotiates alone.

Overall I’m more enthusiastic about free trade generally than Monbiot, provided it is accompanied by high standards on the environment and workers’ rights. The prosperity of much of the EU and the prolonged economic growth of countries crippled by the legacy of Communism proves that economic freedom and quality of life need not be antithetical. I certainly don’t believe there is anything to be gained from intentionally reducing an economy’s openness, as Trump has frequently suggested.

However, on this specific issue, Monbiot has my support. Trump has long expressed a zero-sum view of the world, where any gains made by countries like China or Mexico must have come at the expense of the US. He espouses a mercantilist perspective that emphasises trade balances and not being ‘screwed’ by other countries. So when negotiating with the UK, he is likely to try to enrich the US at the UK’s expense. Industries currently owned by UK companies or the British government will be opened up to American corporate takeovers. Our agriculture industry will have to accept lower US standards and/or significantly less revenue due to American competition. It may be that Britain would have to lower the generosity of agriculture subsidies without America lowering theirs. We would probably lose the right to prevent American energy companies from fracking in Britain. Far from ‘taking back control’, we would be handing it over to corporate America. In any case, I don’t believe a UK-US free trade deal would offset the losses of leaving the EU, especially if TTIP goes ahead. The best case scenario is that economic growth would be the same as it would have done had we remained in the EU, but our standards would be lower. None of this is to say that American corporations are necessarily bad, but that we should be regulating them on our own terms, not theirs.