Posted on 04/13/2025 10:10:56 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs.
The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting a run for its money across the Atlantic.
Even Mr. Trump’s abrupt reversal last week of some of his tariffs, in the face of a bond-market revolt, recalled Britain, where Liz Truss, a short-lived prime minister, was forced to retreat from radical tax cuts that frightened the markets. Her misbegotten experiment was the culmination of a cycle of extreme policies set off by Britain’s decision to forsake the world’s largest trading bloc.
“In a way, some of the worst legacies of Brexit are still ahead,” said Mark Malloch Brown, a British diplomat who served as deputy secretary-general of the United Nations. Britain, he said, now faces a hard choice between rebuilding trade ties with Europe or preserving them with Mr. Trump’s America.
“The fundamental issue remains the breach with our biggest trading partner,” Mr. Malloch Brown said, adding, “If the U.K. ends up in the arms of Europe because neither of them can work with the U.S. anymore, that’s only half a victory.”
Mr. Trump was a full-throated champion of Brexit in 2016, drawing explicit parallels between it and the political movement he was marshaling. He initially imposed lower tariffs on Britain than the European Union, which some cast as a reward...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No matter how much you despise journalists, it isn’t enough.
.
TRUE
“How Brexit, a Startling Act of Economic Self-Harm, Foreshadowed Trump’s Tariffs”
yep, it’s now so awful to do business in the U.K. that, Shell, the world’s 2nd largest invester-owned energy corporation moved it’s world headquarters from it’s lifelong home country to the U.K. to escape the insane government in the netherlands ...
The euro/pound rate has been essentially level for nearly a decade, well before Brexit. I guess the EU also committed self-harm to keep the exchange rates even.
I’m not saying they didn’t both hurt themselves, via migration, regulation, and taxation, but I don’t see how Pres. Trump is related to any of that. (“Yeah, that’s the ticket. It’s Trump’s fault.”)
NY Times says bad....it is therefore good.
Update. As id this morning, the illusion that the UK was ever allowed to Brexit is now dead...
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2057049/six-key-changes-keir-starmers
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/hold-britain-poised-reset-trade-defence-ties-with-eu-2025-05-18/
The EU’s cash cow is back in the barn.
God help the UK’s taxpayers.
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