But America won’t do a trade deal with the EU, because it doesn’t want to have to make accessions to the likes of Lithuania, to better terms with the UK. The EU represents the whole block as individuals under a collective agreement, and the States won’t lower their ego enough for that
OVLOV JAY:
But America won’t do a trade deal with the EU, because it doesn’t want to have to make accessions to the likes of Lithuania, to better terms with the UK. The EU represents the whole block as individuals under a collective agreement, and the States won’t lower their ego enough for that
Do countries sign trade deals for reasons of ego? I always thought they did so for economic advantage.
The absence of a deal between the EU and the US is probably just an indicator that there aren’t any great mutual advantages to be had, and their broadly equal bargaining power means that neither is able to exploit the other either.
There’s definitely advantages to be had, but the US won’t be dictated to by the likes of Poland and Romania because there’s no advantage to be gained with those countries, as the US don’t want or need anything from them. But those countries hold the power of veto over the deal if they don’t get what they want with the US. The only countries America want to deal with are the UK, Germany and possibly France and Italy. I’d say their ego is a massive factor in not kneeling before the Poles, so they can sign a deal to buy cheaper BMWs
Why don’t we just buy cheap food that is off trees and out of fields, rather than any fancy treated/processed stuff?
We can also sell them stuff like Instant Coffee and UK Beers, which are hard to come by on the American continent otherwise.
All foodstuffs that we’re currently obliged to import from the EU - can be re-sourced from the USA and we’d save a mint!
(It would also take a lot of Johnny Foreigner truckers off our roads as well, bringing this EU stuff here. We’d be sending our own trucks to fetch it from ports of entry - right?)
hkloss1:
Chlorinated chicken, NHS privatised by US multinationals, no 350 million per week for the NHS, as promised.
Brexit looking better by the day, isn’t it?
While 60% of private bankruptcies in the US is due to costs of healthcare, but UK’s turkeys still voting for an early Christmas.
The EU has a maximum limit of 0.01mg of chlorate residue per kilo of food, a very low level indeed. Recent tests showed that 10% of fruit and vegetables in the EU contained chlorate residue over this level, perhaps suggesting that consumer fears of the safety of ingesting chlorine washed foods are unfounded and exaggerated by the media.
malcolmgbell:
hkloss1:
Chlorinated chicken, NHS privatised by US multinationals, no 350 million per week for the NHS, as promised.
Brexit looking better by the day, isn’t it?
While 60% of private bankruptcies in the US is due to costs of healthcare, but UK’s turkeys still voting for an early Christmas.The EU has a maximum limit of 0.01mg of chlorate residue per kilo of food, a very low level indeed. Recent tests showed that 10% of fruit and vegetables in the EU contained chlorate residue over this level, perhaps suggesting that consumer fears of the safety of ingesting chlorine washed foods are unfounded and exaggerated by the media.
I don’t think so, because the argument is not that chlorine is unsafe to ingest, it is that abbattoirs take far greater risks with hygiene, in the belief that the chlorine wash will wash away all the filth afterwards.
Imagine I take a packet of bacon, use it to wipe around the toilet bowl, then give it a chlorine wash before cooking it up and serving it to you.
You’ll be outraged and disgusted, but not because of the danger of the chlorine.
Franglais:
OVLOV JAY:
We will only get a free trade deal with the u.s if we get a free trade deal with the EU. So there will be no need for any chlorinated chicken (even though we currently eat home grown chicken, I’ll allow that scaremongering story for the purpose of debate) as we will carry on our trade in the same way as we currently do with the EUThe problem with the chicken isn’t that it’s chlorine washed. Some of our supermarket salads are chlorine washed, no problems.
The chlorine washing is needed for US chicken, but not our chicken because of differences in raising, slaughtering, and butchering.
US chickens are raised much more intensively than in the EU and UK. They are not butchered as carefully as here.
For these reasons it’s necessary to wash the US carcases. That isn’t necessary here.
There is controversy over whether or not there is more food poisonings there or here.
But ignoring safety (!) the US methods produce cheaper chicken meat. By using lower welfare cages for the birds, and differing slaughterhouse standards they can undercut UK farmers.
That is the problem: should we allow birds raised in conditions illegal here into our market? Should US farmers put our farmers out of business because they use what we mostly think of as unacceptably cruel and unhygenic methods?
Is it ok to contaminate meat with faeces so long as it’s washed off?
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And in a Free Trade deal they will be free to send all their chickens here…
If not it ain’t Free Trade is it?
The way people bang on about “Chlorine washed” when the people moaning are those who don’t even EAT chicken - is like saying that “Microsoft Hoovers - the only Microsoft Product that doesn’t ■■■■” or "The only thing not Chlorine Washed in our shops - is Domestos! "
In a free trade environment, people will choose to buy the same quality goods from the supplier that can put sell it to us for less than the other supplier. For all we know, Chlorine Washed Chicken - might be really expensive compared to our home-grown East Anglia variety, for instance. Perhaps that price is pushed still higher - because for some “Chlorine Washed” might be an acquired taste?
I happen to LOVE a chippy right after I’ve got home from a swimming session for example… There’s something about having a nose full of Chlorine - that just makes a chippy taste even better than usual. 
Then there’s all this “unsold lamb that would have to be skipped” - No need. Just sell it on to UK buyers on the cheap, with the government ready to step in IF IF IF any of the Lambing farms - go ■■■■-up.
Why do we need to buy Strawberries from any EU member state (or further afield, come to that…) when we surely are self-sufficient in Strawberries, albeit in season to get them at their cheapest?
What can we NOT grow at places like “Thanet Earth”? Citrus? - We’re already growing our own Wine Grapes in this country now, and have done for some time…
How much food are we actually ALREADY not able to source from the EU■■?
The EU would have a problem with their growing mountain of unsold food, as as past experience tells us - the EU are RUBBISH at getting rid of their food mountains ALREADY.
If they cannot sell to the UK any longer, because we’ve already re-sourced from elsewhere - then the EU economy is well and truly f—ed.
The EU should be begging us “not to leave” and offering us massive concessions to stay - NOT offering to bugger us with a slightly less knobbly stick with blunter nails embedded in it, as they have been doing these past three years…
If we leave with no deal, we wake up on Nov 1st in a pretty crap situation in regard to international trade. Sat shoulder to shoulder with Afghanistan on WTO trading terms, desperate to get around the table with the worlds biggest powers and negotiate trade deals. We will be weak, pretty much void in the way of any leverage and frankly primed for a bumming.
This is exactly why Trump is so pro Boris & no deal, it’s a fantastic opportunity for the USA to exploit the UK into a trade deal that is heavily stacked in their favour. And it’s the same for any of the worlds other super powers; China, Japan, India etc. Nobodies in this to do us a favour. This is where I think the idea that Brexit furnishes us with loads of power falls apart somewhat.
Oh & one of the world super powers we will have to get around the table with is of course the EU. Which answers the question as to why they aren’t falling over themselves to accommodate us now, post- no deal Brexit we will still have to go back to them cap in hand for a trade deal so that we can trade frictionlessly with our neighbours and probably spend years going round in circles until we eventually end up with an offer like Theresa Mays again. Exactly the reason why I think if Brexit is to happen we should fall back to that agreement we have and accept the compromise.
I am completely failing to see the appeal of swapping our current frictionless trading relationships with our neighbouring countries for one with the USA, where goods arguably of lower quality would have to be shipped thousands of miles over a big dock off ocean to get here at a great environmental cost. It is a fact that the UK has never been and never will be self sufficient when it comes to food, so lets get real.
Relax. There’s no way that the EU nor the UK will be cancelling all goods in transit on November 1st.
If anything, things will carry on just the way they always did - because it will actually take some time for the EU to shut down the UK’s access across the borders, just the same as it will take quite a while in practice for the UK to “close it’s borders enough to at least end freedom of movement”.
Brexit is DONE when the EU contributions cease. Everything else associated with Brexit, such as trade barriers going up, walls/fences/border posts going up - takes time for such infrastructure to be built, let alone staffed.
How easy is it to “stop paying” then, compared to actually building stuff?
Brexit has been made politically difficult by Remainers - but it is the actual practice that is hard to implement.
Imagine how it would look when say, this coming Christmas - Ulster/Eire trade has carried on regardless long after November 1st - and against all EU attempts to deny and shut down that two-way trade?
The UK have already committed “not to build any border barriers”. Does that mean the EU needs to throw up a wall pretty darned quickly from November 1st?
Nope. The wheels move too slowly. It ain’t gonna get built, and thus the single market ceasing the so-called “cliff edge” - isn’t going to happen AT ALL.
Once the other member states see that Britain seems to still have full access to the single market for free - they themselves, will be wondering what their contributions are all about…
The EU will collapse under the weight of it’s own debt and own withering currency. They’ve got massive amounts of unemployment, a German government that doesn’t spend on it’s own population, even when in surplus for years and years! When the crunch comes - it will be Germany paying for everything, or letting the entire project go, and the member states fragment back into the former nations again, The European Central Bank - busted, along with Deutsche Bank - the dead bank walking already.
Individual former member nations - bring back their old currencies, and immediately devalue them (if touting their tourist industries) or mark them higher (if having a decent industrial base)
We’ll intially have this “Two Tier” transition period then, where our politicians and business leaders actually get to earn their money for the first time in living memory.
What’s wrong with THAT?
Britain - won’t be short of cash, as we’re £39billion better off as of November 1st, with the option of raising even MORE cash by shifting this country’s “foreign financial policy” further to the Right - NOT bailing out foreign countries NOT donating billions to Foreign Aid, and NOT obeying Foreign Treaties that say we MUST do (1) and (2) under “legal obligation”.
Already, the clever money is fleeing into USD (dollar at it’s highest level against a basket of currencies for some time…) US Bonds (approaching negative yields, suggesting lower interest rates, rather than a recession is imminent) and of course GOLD - (A safe haven whenever a major currency is close to collapse, but it’s not known “which one” as yet.
Idiots - think it is the USD or GBP “about to collapse”.
The clever money? - will be moving slowly at first, but then the tide turns into a torrent…
Watch this market over the coming weeks - the EURO’s level against the Pound…
rob22888:
If we leave with no deal, we wake up on Nov 1st in a pretty crap situation in regard to international trade. Sat shoulder to shoulder with Afghanistan on WTO trading terms, desperate to get around the table with the worlds biggest powers and negotiate trade deals. We will be weak, pretty much void in the way of any leverage and frankly primed for a bumming.This is exactly why Trump is so pro Boris & no deal, it’s a fantastic opportunity for the USA to exploit the UK into a trade deal that is heavily stacked in their favour. And it’s the same for any of the worlds other super powers; China, Japan, India etc. Nobodies in this to do us a favour. This is where I think the idea that Brexit furnishes us with loads of power falls apart somewhat.
Oh & one of the world super powers we will have to get around the table with is of course the EU. Which answers the question as to why they aren’t falling over themselves to accommodate us now, post- no deal Brexit we will still have to go back to them cap in hand for a trade deal so that we can trade frictionlessly with our neighbours and probably spend years going round in circles until we eventually end up with an offer like Theresa Mays again. Exactly the reason why I think if Brexit is to happen we should fall back to that agreement we have and accept the compromise.
I am completely failing to see the appeal of swapping our current frictionless trading relationships with our neighbouring countries for one with the USA, where goods arguably of lower quality would have to be shipped thousands of miles over a big dock off ocean to get here at a great environmental cost. It is a fact that the UK has never been and never will be self sufficient when it comes to food, so lets get real.
Pretty realistic summary of it I’d say.
John Bolton says we can get a good, quick, trade deal.
‘Quick’ and ‘good’ rarely go together for both sides in negotiations. Especially for the weaker party.
Anyway since he is not a trade negotiator, he has other priorities.
Nancy Pelosi may hamper and slow any deal put up.
Trump scuppered NAFTA talks but USMCA are stalled now too.
His quickest negotiations were about Greenland…which did good for no-one.
Trump says “America First” and we should best remember that. We may be of use as a trade or defence pawn, but Trump does favours for nobody.
Encouraging our exit will just split us off to make us more vulnerable.
.
“Airstrip One”?
;-(
Franglais:
Trump says “America First” and we should best remember that. We may be of use as a trade or defence pawn, but Trump does favours for nobody.
Encouraging our exit will just split us off to make us more vulnerable.
.
“Airstrip One”?
;-(
I actually wonder who international trade is good for.
Obviously, we must trade with those who have natural raw materials, but does trade between equal partners in finished goods actually benefit either of them?
The argument used to be that it provided increased scale, but most of that potential is squandered by increased competition and variation.
Rjan:
Franglais:
Trump says “America First” and we should best remember that. We may be of use as a trade or defence pawn, but Trump does favours for nobody.
Encouraging our exit will just split us off to make us more vulnerable.
.
“Airstrip One”?
;-(I actually wonder who international trade is good for.
Obviously, we must trade with those who have natural raw materials, but does trade between equal partners in finished goods actually benefit either of them?
The argument used to be that it provided increased scale, but most of that potential is squandered by increased competition and variation.
Isn’t trade a tool to spread wealth and influence behaviour?
Rich countries can trade with poorer ones who offer cheaper labour giving their workers better conditions? (Assuming equitable governance) While refusing to trade with dirty polluting, or corrupt countries cleans up the world for all of us.
(Assuming we aren’t dirty and corrupt)
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Trade is a tool, it can be used for good or ill.
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And economic interdependence must help with lowering the risk of wars, surely?
.
.
Franglais:
Rjan:
Franglais:
Trump says “America First” and we should best remember that. We may be of use as a trade or defence pawn, but Trump does favours for nobody.
Encouraging our exit will just split us off to make us more vulnerable.
.
“Airstrip One”?
;-(I actually wonder who international trade is good for.
Obviously, we must trade with those who have natural raw materials, but does trade between equal partners in finished goods actually benefit either of them?
The argument used to be that it provided increased scale, but most of that potential is squandered by increased competition and variation.
Isn’t trade a tool to spread wealth and influence behaviour?
Rich countries can trade with poorer ones who offer cheaper labour giving their workers better conditions? (Assuming equitable governance) While refusing to trade with dirty polluting, or corrupt countries cleans up the world for all of us.
(Assuming we aren’t dirty and corrupt)
.
Trade is a tool, it can be used for good or ill.
.
And economic interdependence must help with lowering the risk of wars, surely?
In terms of using trade to govern other nations, that merely presupposes an inequality of power to begin with.
Inequitable trade with poorer countries obviously is not to their benefit, and it is obvious why stronger nations want to trade on inequitable terms in their own favour.
I’m more interested in the case of trade between equal nations. Who does this benefit?
You say it avoids war, but I’m not sure that it does - at least not as a panacea. It simply conducts workers into war by other means - mutually competing down wages and lifestyles.
It is the enlargement and integration of civil systems and democracies that resolve conflicts, which then conduct (what becomes…) internal trade, not external trade.
It seems strange that there’s this expectation for Trump to totally stitch-up Britain with any coming trade deal.
Is this “Perception” more about “trying to put people off Brexit” though, rather than any regular everyday deal that would be taking place regardless of Britian leavinging or Remaining?
If Trump is going to stitch anyone up, methinks he’ll start with the EU before getting around to Britain. The EU want to be seen as the “4th Superpower” in the world rather than the 4th Reich like they actually act like, and the 2nd Union of Socialist Republics like they actually SEEM like.
I would expect Trump to treat any future trade deals to be gotten between the USA and EU in the same derision as any would-be trade arrangements between Mr “We will Bury You” Khrushchev and Eisenhower in the fifties, at the height of the nuclear arms race…
After all, look at how Trump is currently treating the other two superpowers right now…! 
Winseer:
It seems strange that there’s this expectation for Trump to totally stitch-up Britain with any coming trade deal.
What advantage does he have to gain by not stitching up British workers? The American rich aren’t going to strike a trade deal just so their own workers, who actually vote, can have work taken away by British workers, nor are they going to strike a trade deal that leads to reduced profits for the rich, so where is it you think the mutual advantage is going to come from?
The reason the EU has to try and form at least a modicum of solidarity amongst it’s members, is precisely to form a large economic bloc able to punch it’s weight externally.
The Americans meanwhile simply don’t need to form a bloc with Britain and don’t intend to, because they are already the world’s economic and military superpower.
malcolmgbell:
hkloss1:
Chlorinated chicken, NHS privatised by US multinationals, no 350 million per week for the NHS, as promised.
Brexit looking better by the day, isn’t it?
While 60% of private bankruptcies in the US is due to costs of healthcare, but UK’s turkeys still voting for an early Christmas.The EU has a maximum limit of 0.01mg of chlorate residue per kilo of food, a very low level indeed. Recent tests showed that 10% of fruit and vegetables in the EU contained chlorate residue over this level, perhaps suggesting that consumer fears of the safety of ingesting chlorine washed foods are unfounded and exaggerated by the media.
“Chlorate” ClO3- is a totally different animal from ChlorIDE Cl- and if found as “residue” is far more likely to be as a result of “excess weedkiller” than any fancy chemical treatment put there for “preservative properties”.
The main source of “Chloride” contamination is in fact simple SALT, which isn’t harmful in such miniscule amounts.
FFS If we’re not careful, we’ll have Fish ‘n’ Chips banned next by the Green EnvironMENTALly Damaged Lobby. “Too much Chloride in THAT” if you wanna be funny about it.
I’m worried by Quality and Price when I am considering what food to stuff my face with next.
Would I buy “Organic” at twice the price because some pillock has told me that “It’s Healthy” when it’s had ■■■ all over it as “natural fertilizer” rather than something that actually IS a natural Fertilizer such as Sodium Nitrate? “Oooh - Can’t have that, it’s got Nitrates and Sodium in it!”
If I wanted to put ■■■ in my mouth, I need venture no further than my Cat’s tray, whilst giving our nasty supermarkets a complete Boycott (who’ve kept the price of food down “despite Brexit” as the BBC always like to say) … Yeh Right!! 
The problem with chlorinated chicken isn’t the chlorine, it’s why it is chlorinated in the first place. The answer is lower animal welfare standards than what we have in the EU, something some people might not care about but many (including myself) do. The EU leads the world on animal welfare, something I believe is very much a positive and I wouldn’t like to see the standards we currently follow being abandoned.
Lets quit pretending that importing tons of food thousands of miles over the Atlantic from Trumps America is in any way a step forward.
The Chloride ion present in aqueus solution - disinfects the water, and more importantly - KEEPS it “disinfected.”
If a swimming pool had too little chlorine in it - people would catch all manner of water-bourne infections. Public Health England investigation report into outbreak of norovirus at Splashes leisure centre, Rainham
(This outbreak of Norovirus happened - because the previous “haloween session” the normal Chlorine level reacted with the red dye put in the pool for “theme effect” - only to break down, and cause a chemical contamination. SO… The pool decided to run the red dye with LESS Chlorine in the water, and hey presto - A Norovirus outbreak that affected a rather large number of kids attending this “pool party”…)
If swimming water had NO Chlorine in it - swimmers would probably catch “Legionaire’s Disease”. Hot Tub Care - Swim University
“Salted Meat” in the days of old - worked by having some of that salt go into aqueus solution on the surface of the meat, acting as a preservative, and not letting bacterial decomposition to set in.
Moisture that was deeper down in the meat however - would be out of reach of any “salting”, which of course would be on the outside first and foremost.
People like Sir Francis Bacon - found out the hard way when experimenting with “preserving chicken” no less…