title: clinton camp desperate russia trains for wwiii
text: britain should embrace unilateral free trade right now unilateralism is not simply a utopian libertarian ideal louis rouanet  misesorg   image credits iker merodio  flickr  
  if we read the newspapers or listen to the experts britain faces two ways to negotiate its way out of the european union without succumbing to the protectionists sirens 
  the first is a deal à la norway not only with full access to the common market but also with full implementation of eu law and a contribution to the eu budget as is the case for every member state the second option would be a trade treaty such as the one negotiated between the eu and canada however a viable third opportunity exists unilateral freetrade 
  contrary to what is often assumed unilateralism is not simply a utopian libertarian ideal which cannot be reached in todays world unilateral free trade is genuine freetrade it is also the most pragmatic and efficient strategy to foster commerce and peace theresa may seems ready to conduct an interventionist industrial and economic policy which oddly resembles french planning as it existed in the s and s but the freemarket policy paradigm is more likely to transform postbrexit britain into a flourishing economy 
  unilateral free trade the british tradition 
  the tradition of unilateral free trade is tightly linked to the uk with the victory of the liberals in the s britain became strongly committed to unilateral free trade and from  to at least  free trade was politically unassailable trade treaties however were seen as inherently suspicious sir robert peel when announcing the repeal of the corn laws in the house of commons in  brilliantly warned 
  i trust the government  will not resume the policy which they and we have found most inconvenient namely the haggling with foreign countries about reciprocal concessions instead of taking that independent course which we believe to be conducive to our own interests  let us trust that our example with the proof of practical benefits we derive from it will at no remote period insure the adoption of the principles on which we have acted  let therefore our commerce be as free as our institutions let us proclaim commerce free and nation after nation will follow our example this repeal of the corn laws was the result of an intense political effort especially by cobden and the anticorn law league who made the case for unilateral free trade cobden in his later years explained 
  we came to the conclusion that the less we attempted to persuade foreigners to adopt our trade principles the better for we discovered so much suspicion of the motives of england that it was lending an argument to the protectionists abroad to incite the popular feeling against the freetraders  to take away this pretense we avowed our total indifference whether other nations became freetraders or not but we should abolish protection for our own selves and leave other countries to take whatever course they liked best some will argue that the uk soon departed from unilateral free trade with the cobdenchevalier treaty of  which cobden himself supported and negotiated it is less known however that this treaty was primarily a way to avoid conflict after orsinis attempt to murder napoléon iii in  the emperor was convinced by this same orsini to support the cause of italian independence this italian question brought england to the edge of war with france being strongly antimilitarists both cobden and chevalier looked at a trade treaty not primarily as a way to adopt free trade but as a way to establish friendship between france and england gladstone himself an ardent unilateralist in retrospect held that there were only two alternatives one of them the french treaty  the other war with france and cobden felt that the treaty was gods own method to produce an entente cordiale 
  commercially the treaty was an incredible success mainly because it was not supervised by bureaucrats  as is the case today with trade treaties  but by two prominent free traders as cobden was aware of all the dangers for real free trade contained in the negotiations of trade treaties he proceeded very carefully cobden wrote in a letter to the great british free trader john bright i will undertake that there is not a syllable on our side of the treaty that is inconsistent with the soundest principles of free trade nonetheless bright remained a skeptic and remarked 
  governments seem as a rule to be standing conspiracies to rob and bamboozle people and why should that of louis napoleon be an exception the more i see of the rulers of the world the less of wisdom or greatness do i find necessary for the government of mankind to convince cobden of the benefits brought about by a treaty michel chevalier showed that the unilateral reductions of tariffs that bright asked for could constitute the british side of the bargain and could be extended to all other nations thus avoiding a clear violation of british unilateralism 
  free trade with or without you 
  the unilateral free trade program is very simple the british parliament declares the abolition of all tariffs to avoid a race in nontariff barriers the parliament can pass a law declaring that every product which conforms to the eu norms and regulations can be sold freely in the uk this should not be a problem since the uk still is a member of the eu by parliaments act most of the nontariff barrier problem withers away without any need for regulatory harmonization if the eu legislator considers it necessary to regulate the curvature of vegetables so be it but although eu producers will be free to sell their product in the uk the british legislator may deem it unnecessary to regulate its producers in the same absurd way 
  the advantages of this approach are many first the uk can have free trade now instead of waiting through years of negotiations no need to wait for bureaucrats to agree on which laws we burden consumers and producers with 
  the comprehensive economic and trade agreement ceta for example between the eu and canada contrasts the expediency of unilateralism with endless negotiations negotiations about ceta were started in october  and finished in august  but for the treaty to be effective each eu member state still has to ratify it worse in some european federal member states the treaty must be agreed upon by the local federated states this is why wallonia recently vetoed ceta thus threatening the work of a sixyearlong negotiation in the case of the uk  and whether or not trade treaties are actually advancing free trade  the british economy cannot afford to wait that long for free trade 
  the second major advantage of unilateralism is the message you send to brussels you are signifying to the eu apparatus that with or without you we will have free trade at this point the eu will have no leverage left with the uk the negotiation of a trade treaty on the other hand is a hopelessly utopian solution not only because of the obvious coordination problem between the  eu member states but also because the eu has a vested interest in making sure brexit fails eurocrats starting from the contestable assumption that the uk has much more to lose than the eu will try to concoct a deal as bad as possible for their fellow anglosaxon neighbors 
  free trade first negotiations later 
  still it is possible that after having declared free trade unilaterally the eu will decide to restrict the access of british corporations to the single market this is a particularly valid concern in the financial sector were banks and other financial institutions need licenses to operate in the eu member states the concern with unilateral free trade is that by respecting it it will remove any leverage the british government has to negotiate a favorable access to other actual and potential commercial partners without a treaty commercial partners it is thought will soon erect protectionist barriers 
  unilateral free trade however does not mean the uk producers will be bullied without their government being able to respond first by declaring unilateral free trade the maintained strength of commercial links made will make it much easier to negotiate with the eu to antagonize a good client would be foolish lets not forget that this past decade british exports to the eu grew much slower than exports to the rest of the world at the same time the uk is a major consumer of eu products and its balance of commerce with the eu was negative by about  billion in  
  but how can a country committed to unilateralism make sure other countries will not close their markets let us first remark that maintaining trade barriers to negotiate later with other nations is a selfdefeating strategy sir robert peel whom we mentioned earlier said in  that in the case of wine and brandy he did not reduce the duty because he hoped that they might employ these duties as instruments of negotiation with a view of effecting a reduction in the duties imposed by other countries on the produce of our own country such a strategy was selfdefeating tariffs in view of a negotiation by reducing the capacity of foreigners to produce for the british market were destroying the very interests that wanted free trade peel finally admitted in  during a debate in the house of commons i am bound to say that it is our interest to buy cheap whether other countries will buy cheap or no 
  there certainly is a more efficient policy than maintaining trade barriers or threatening to raise some in order to force trade partners to keep their markets open indeed the british government can make it clear that if the eu unfairly penalizes british interests in some sectors eg finance then the british government will work to maintain the competitiveness of the industry in question by aggressively lowering their taxes imagine that the eu wants to damage britains car manufacturers then the british government should not be afraid to create a loophole and to lower manufacturers corporate taxes  even to zero in an economy which was never as globalized and competitive as today the uk would have good chances of prevailing over the eu interests 
  perhaps the eu will consider making trading conditions with the uk harder but they would have way too much to lose if doing so means creating a fiscally ultraattractive market just next door in the short run unilateralism in trade can achieve what multilateralism cannot a quick and radical liberalization of exchanges in the long run unilateralism can achieve what multilateralism cannot genuine free trade