Why Is The P M Wasting Time On The E U S S R ?

[ToraToraTora]

https://news.sky.com/story/starmer-should-be-rediverting-his-plane-to-us-to-see-trump-instead-of-flying-to-eu-talks-says-shadow-business-secretary-13301651

We have only geography in common with Europe.

[newmodarmy]

Mine was meant to be on Hymie's Alan Sugar Brexit EU thread.

 

[Old_Geezer]

According to the paper, apparently president Moron is busy creating ludicrous soundbites for gulliver.

[DTCwordfan]

very simply, the EU is much bigger than the States - in 2023 the Gov stats were exports of £65 bln to the US and France, Germany, Ireland and the Neths alone accounted for £115 bln, never mind adding in the others.....

[New Judge]

“very simply, the EU is much bigger than the States.”

Very simply, it certainly is. But it isn’t that simple.

The EU isn’t bigger than the rest of the world. Around 57% of UK exports are sold to the rest of the World. The USA is by far and away the UK’s biggest single trading partner, accounting for about 21% of exports.

Europe is not a single nation state and there is no more justification to accumulate its figures into one total than there is for doing so with the rest of the World. The largest UK export market in Europe is Germany, at around a third of the value of the USA. As well as that, the UK’s exports to Europe are heavily skewed towards the west. Seven countries – Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy -  account for 32% of the UK’s total global exports. The remaining 11% is spread over the other 20 EU nations. 

“In 2023 the Gov stats were exports of £65 bln to the US and France, Germany, Ireland and the Neths alone accounted for £115 bln, never mind adding in the others.....”

I don’t know where your figures come from, DT, but the official government figures are shown at para. 2 of this document:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/trade-and-investment-core-statistics-book/trade-and-investment-core-statistics-book

£186bn to USA
£217bn to the four countries you mentioned
£282bn to the seven countries I mentioned
£386bn to the EU in total
£505bn to the rest of the world in total

Few companies export to the EU in its entirety and, looking at the figures, it seems not many export outside the main western nations. With three-quarters of UK exports to Europe going to just seven of the twenty-seven countries, the idea that those exports are to “The EU” is misleading.

The share of UK exports going to the EU has been in steady decline. In 2000 it was around 54% and is now around 42%. Interestingly, since the referendum in 2016, despite the prophesies of doom and gloom, that percentage has remained fairly static. However, the balance of trade between the UK and the EU has changed significantly. In 2000, the EU enjoyed a small surplus of around £10bn. Now that has grown tenfold to more than £100bn.

The EU has an ambition (which it has achieved in my view) of becoming a “regulatory superpower”. In doing so it has regulated many of its imports from outside the bloc out of existence. The UK - and indeed the US, which also suffers a serious trade deficit with the EU - would be better off allowing the EU to crack on with its world-beating regulation and instead divert their efforts to markets which are slightly less restrictive. 

[DTCwordfan]

for the record, this was my source....

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-trade-in-numbers/uk-trade-in-numbers-web-version

[New Judge]

That shows £188bn of exports to the US, DT (para. 3,2)

[bednobs]

So was it 188 or 186? a discrepancy of 2 billion seems quite big

[Ellipsis]

> Europe is not a single nation state and there is no more justification to accumulate its figures into one total than there is for doing so with the rest of the World.

Yes there is. As trading areas, the EU is a federal system and  the United States is a federal constitutional republic. For UK trading, it's reasonable for us to treat the USA as more similar to the EU than, say, Spain. And vice versa, than, say, Florida.

> The EU has an ambition (which it has achieved in my view) of becoming a “regulatory superpower”.

I agree, which is why it's reasonable to think of it in the same way as the USA.

> Seven countries – Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy - account for 32% of the UK’s total global exports.

Similarly, the UK trades with some US states more than others.

[New Judge]

"As trading areas, the EU is a federal system"

The EU (and its supporters) would like you to believe that it is. But it isn’t. It is a bloc of independent nation states. It has no single tax system, no single fiscal system, no currency used by all its members and no common legal system. Most importantly it has no central federal government.  Once again, the EU would have you believe it’s a “government” but it isn’t. A federal system involves a central government with the member states having some level of autonomy. 

“Similarly, the UK trades with some US states more than others.”

I’m sure that’s true (in fact I would be amazed if it did as much trade with Alaska as it does with California). I would suggest that the UK also does more trade with some French Departments than it does with others. The difference is the US States and the French Departments are divisions of a single nation state. Members of the EU are not. They are single nation states and it is misleading to anonymise their individual trading figures together as if they were not.

“I agree, which is why it's reasonable to think of it in the same way as the USA.”

The regulatory ambitions of the EU are designed to enable its apparatchiks to control its members in their dealings with each other and with the rest of the world. It needs more than this to be considered a federation. Federations do not generally allow their constituent parts to secede from the federation (at least no without a struggle). Such a move resulted in a civil war in the USA and more recently involved violence and intimidation, together with imprisonment of the organisers of a referendum in Spain, in pursuit of Catalonia’s independence.

That doesn’t happen in the EU. Members are free to leave. There is simply no comparison between the USA and the EU in this respect.

There are many trading blocs in the world but none, as far as I know, lays claim to being a federal system and none, so far as I know, combine its trading figures into single totals. The EU does so to convince the world that it is a single entity, which is all part of its ambitions towards the implemenation of a European Federal State. But it’s not there yet and people should not conspire to give its leaders he idea that it is.