mtbc | (Reply)

From:

I agree, Nigeria's not a prime market: the Grauniad reports HMG pursuing interest in trade with India, the US, China, Japan, South Korea. (Scotland faces high tariffs against whisky exports to India!)

I'm fine with taking transition costs as given: I'm interested less in where our current trade is than where it might be in a couple of decades' time after new deals are done and supply chains have reconfigured accordingly. Especially, rather than focusing on that the single market is now largely where economies limp under the lingering shadow of the slow-motion disaster that is the Eurozone, I'm curious about if having a common external tariff that limits one's ability to trade more freely more widely is in the longer term a bad move, especially if the outside of the customs union seems to see rather more growth than the inside.

I think the UK has overall had a trade deficit with the EU anyway so I'd guess in the longer term they might well be open to working something out.

London not hosting euro-based finance is absolutely a large issue and I wonder if it is related to why London voted so strongly to remain. My feelings are mixed, partly because I don't know how much I feel they do anything socially useful anyway (okay, I can see that things like weather derivatives are a good idea).