EU sales in constant decline since Brexit

[japancool]

The UKs biggest trading partner is the US.

Taken as a whole, the UK does more trade with the EU than the US.

 

[IanSuth]

So whether Brexit was good or bad overall depends on which are greater.

The UKs biggest trading partner is the US. Furthermore, for many years, even prior to the Brexit vote the proportion of EU to non-EU trade was moving steadily towards the latter (because European economies are low growth).

Also, the EU is changing. We should not only look at pros and cons of things as they are now, but also whether we want to be part of greater political integration.

Finally, this is a political as well as economic decision. The economic arguments against Scotland leaving the union are far stronger than those against Brexit, but it does not stop people supporting it. A lot of former colonies would have better off economically remaining part of the British Empire, but they still wanted independence and I doubt you could find a single one that would vote to be ruled by Britian again, even where independence has been a clear failure economically.

Yes i said it comes down to how you see the efficiency/inefficiency trade of developing over time both through changes in the relationship and from internal changes in how we manage our market and the EU manages theirs. From a pure economics viewpoint this is the most obvious difference between leave and remain as it is subjective (it depends on your prediction of future trends - you see the balance one way and I foresaw the failure of Truss' direction of travel so think the other)

The other bits are far less relevant - when it comes to trade distance matters and if energy is rising in price then it matters more. You cant move America or the EU so that is fixed

Similar for past colonies - Lamb form NZ has to cost a lot less to produce to undercut Welsh lamb due to transport costs (it does) but if a NZ producer could get the same price from Aus or China it would be stupid to send it here not there because of transport costs.

 

[IanSuth]

Taken as a whole, the UK does more trade with the EU than the US.

From the July 2022 ONS dataset https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nati...sets/uktradegoodsandservicespublicationtables

This is from the top 50 countries we deal with, you obv have to agregate the EU countries but it is simple to see that EU far outstrips the US when the 2nd to 5th placed export destination are all eu countries and combine to give 30.8% of our exports (compared to the US 14.9%) 7th, 9th & 10th are also EU countries

Exports​

United States inc Puerto Rico​

2021 46,271m​

2022 48,044m​

14.9%​

Exports​	Germany​	32 570​	29 647​	9.2​
Exports​	Netherlands​	20 077​	28 287​	8.7​
Exports​	Ireland​	21 864​	21 882​	6.8​
Exports​	France​	18 721​	19 658​	6.1​

Imports Germany is bigger than the US so you could argue on balance we make more from our balance of trade with the US but that is very different from "doing more trade with"

1​	Imports​	China​	55 388​	63 718​	13.4​
2​	Imports​	Germany​	56 939​	53 768​	11.3​
3​	Imports​	United States inc Puerto Rico​	37 641​	39 357​	8.2​
4​	Imports​	Netherlands​	36 469​	30 563​	6.4​
5​	Imports​	Norway​	11 334​	27 071​	5.7​
6​	Imports​	Belgium​	23 397​	23 417​	4.9​
7​	Imports​	France​	24 361​	23 038​	4.8​
8​	Imports​	Italy​	17 560​	17 504​	3.7​
9​	Imports​	Spain​	14 987​	14 435​	3.0​
10​	Imports​	Ireland​	13 438​	13 902​	2.9​

 

[gpietersz]

Imports Germany is bigger than the US so you could argue on balance we make more from our balance of trade with the US but that is very different from "doing more trade with"

There is another aspect to this. The gains from trade (increase in GDP - a value added measure) is different from the value of trade. It is similar to the difference between revenue and profit. However the "right" measure is not measured (probably not practical to measure and would involve a lot of estimated), however,as a general principle, the biggest gains come from trade with economies that are very different where comparative advantage is biggest.