01-17-2017, 02:23 PM
Without favoured treatment, many exports to the EU could face tariffs in some cases of 10% or a lot more. Robust customs barriers will add significant export costs and expensive delays, and many exports of services will be blocked once we abandon Europe’s single regulatory rulebook. This means not just a hard Brexit but a destructive and harmful rupture that will, over time, reduce trade, shrink manufacturing investment and destroy jobs. May will claim that this can be mitigated by special new trade arrangements between Britain and the EU. There are indeed options: an agreement that eliminates tariffs; a customs agreement to limit trade delays; mutual recognition of standards and regulations to smooth trade in services; and possibly an investment protection agreement. A transitional period could tide Britain over the lengthy time all this will take to negotiate and implement. But none of these will fall into place just because we want them to.