Brexit

[Bofferbrauer2]

the_dark_lewd said:

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.

That doesn't matter What matters is what needs to be imported - which is practically everything people need in the UK: Food, consumer goods, et cetera. Also, keep in mind that those 80% services doesn't mean 80% of the employed people work in services. But more on that further down. 

As for your examples: You can't import a train journey, but the parts to repair the train if it breaks down. You can't import a restaurant meal, but the foods to prepare that meal are mostly imported already. You can't import an internet connection, but you need to import all the cables, transmitters, and so on to even have internet in the first place, and while you can't import a cinema visit, most movies are imported anyway. Producing mostly services doesn't mean that the UK doesn't need imports, quite the contrary in fact.

I agree that cheaper goods would allow for more money in the pockets (if the retailers drop the prices and don't pocket the earnings, but that's another discussion). However, if UK industries get forced out by cheaper competition, how many will loose their jobs? There could be millions of jobs at stake, directly or indirectly (without income no more spending on services, either). So both effects taken together would still result into a net loss for the UK economy and for it's inhabitants. Labor and LibDem will never allow a 0% WTO import rate in the UK due to this.

I know about the Trump tariffs, but there are none such in place in the EU as the tariffs in the EU are meant to protect local finished goods and foods production, not to punish importers of parts and intermediate goods producers.

By the way, you can check all the tariffs of the EU with other countries here: http://madb.europa.eu/madb/euTariffs.htm

It's a bit tedious to use (10 digit product codes), but you can see all the tariffs for products there. I tried a bit around with some agrarian and mineral products and found that minerals are mostly duty free for instance. Potatoes have a 3% tariff until they hit the quota of the country/region, at which point it rises to 9.60%. Beef (including Bison meat) is rather protected (12.60% + 177€/100kg), but Horsemeat is only 5%. Tropical fruits and their by-products are all duty free.

So yeah, May already said they will copy the schedules of the EU, so all the same tariffs and quotas would apply. These will naturally need to be adapted to UK needs