| Bofferbrauer2 said: The UK lowering their trade barriers would: a) kill the UK economy (that's the ugly truth; it would just be cheaper to import everything that produce anything in the UK anymore) and millions of jobs that way |
The UK economy is already 80% services: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN02786
Most of those can't be imported, even in principle. You can't import a train journey, a meal at a restaurant, a monthly internet connection, or a cinema visit.
Obviously cheaper imports does cause damage in some industries. But you're ignoring the fact that it benefits us in other places. If you have more money left over from your food shopping or clothes shopping, you have more money to spend on other things. Which means other parts of the economy grow instead.
There are also quite a lot of businesses in the UK who'll use those cheaper products for their own business, which allows their own business to profit. This was a big deal with the tariffs Trump has pushed for in the US. Quite a few businesses (like Harley Davidson) started to suffer because the cheap foreign imports of steel was necessary to their own profits.
