Donald Trump says US-UK trade deal will increase trade 'very substantially' after Brexit

Daily Mail
Well...let's see. Anyway I assume that means we're not at the back of the queue then...?

 

Donald Trump says a lot of things. He often doesn't understand the full complexity of things like this. As a CEO he has doubtless left the nitty gritty of contracts for others to sort out - he set the vision.

The idea that a master negotiator like President Trump would do anything other than nail the UK to the floor in any trade deals seems fanciful to me - especially when he has repeatedly said that any future trade deals would be weighted very heavily in the US' favour.

I find it difficult to believe that a UK/US trade deal would be weighted more in favour of the UK than the existing EU/US deals that the UK trades under - especially in view of the fact that President Trump has repeatedly called those deals unfair.

It may very well be that the US is prepared to come to a quick agreement with the UK but I'd be shocked if it was on anything other than fire-sale terms.

 

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the U.S. trading with Europe.
Europe has a higher cost of living like the U.S., and even more regulations than the U.S., so it's not like countries in Western Europe have any unfair advantage over the U.S.

One of the issues though is that with Western Europe in a Free Trade zone with Eastern Europe and Turkey, goods from poorer low wage countries can enter Western Europe, and then if the U.S. opens itself up to trade with Western Europe, it is also effectively opening itself up to trade from Eastern Europe and Turkey.
With the U.K. exiting from these agreements, that may no longer necessarily be the case.
(I don't know how the UK leaving the EU will affect the EEC)