The terms of the United Kingdom’s (UK) exit from the European Union (EU) – “Brexit” – are of great significance not just to UK and EU citizens, but for those in the United States and around the world who value economic liberty (see my Heritage Foundation memorandum giving the reasons why, here).
If Brexit is to promote economic freedom and enhanced economic welfare, Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU must not limit the ability of the United Kingdom to pursue (1) efficiency-enhancing regulatory reform and (2) trade liberalizing agreements with non-EU nations. These points are expounded upon in a recent economic study (The Brexit Inflection Point) by the non-profit UK think tank the Legatum Institute, which has produced an impressive body of research on the benefits of Brexit, if implemented in a procompetitive, economically desirable fashion. (As a matter of full disclosure, I am a member of Legatum’s “Special Trade Commission,” which “seeks to re-focus the public discussion on Brexit to a positive conversation on opportunities, rather than challenges, while presenting empirical evidence of the dangers of not following an expansive trade negotiating path.” Members of the Special Trade Commission are unpaid – they serve on a voluntary pro bono basis.)
Unfortunately, however, leading UK press commentators have urged the UK Government to accede to a full harmonization of UK domestic regulations and trade policy with the EU. Such a deal would be disastrous. It would prevent the UK from entering into mutually beneficial trade liberalization pacts with other nations or groups of nations (e.g., with the U.S. and with the members of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement), because such arrangements by necessity would lead to a divergence with EU trade strictures. It would also preclude the UK from unilaterally reducing harmful regulatory burdens that are a byproduct of economically inefficient and excessive EU rules. In short, it would be antithetical to economic freedom and economic welfare.
Notably, in a November 30 article (Six Impossible Notions About “Global Britain”), a well-known business journalist, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, sharply criticized The Brexit Inflection Point’s recommendation that the UK should pursue trade and regulatory policies that would diverge from EU standards. Notably, Wolf characterized as an “impossible thing” Legatum’s point that the UK should not “’allow itself to be bound by the EU’s negotiating mandate.’ We all now know this is infeasible. The EU holds the cards and it knows it holds the cards. The Legatum authors still do not.”
Shanker Singham, Director of Economic Policy and Prosperity Studies at Legatum, brilliantly responded to Wolf’s critique in a December 4 article (published online by CAPX) entitled A Narrow-Minded Brexit Is Doomed to Fail. Singham’s trenchant analysis merits being set forth in its entirety (by permission of the author):
“Last week, the Financial Times’s chief economics commentator, Martin Wolf, dedicated his column to criticising The Brexit Inflection Point, a report for the Legatum Institute in which Victoria Hewson, Radomir Tylecote and I discuss what would constitute a good end state for the UK as it seeks to exercise an independent trade and regulatory policy post Brexit, and how we get from here to there.
We write these reports to advance ideas that we think will help policymakers as they tackle the single biggest challenge this country has faced since the Second World War. We believe in a market place of ideas, and we welcome challenge. . . .
[W]e are thankful that Martin Wolf, an eminent economist, has chosen to engage with the substance of our arguments. However, his article misunderstands the nature of modern international trade negotiations, as well as the reality of the European Union’s regulatory system – and so his claim that, like the White Queen, we “believe in impossible things” simply doesn’t stack up.
Mr Wolf claims there are six impossible things that we argue. We will address his rebuttals in turn.
But first, in discussions about the UK’s trade policy, it is important to bear in mind that the British government is currently discussing the manner in which it will retake its independent WTO membership. This includes agricultural import quotas, and its WTO rectification processes with other WTO members.
If other countries believe that the UK will adopt the position of maintaining regulatory alignment with the EU, as advocated by Mr Wolf and others, the UK’s negotiating strategy would be substantially weaker. It would quite wrongly suggest that the UK will be unable to lower trade barriers and offer the kind of liberalisation that our trading partners seek and that would work best for the UK economy. This could negatively impact both the UK and the EU’s ongoing discussions in the WTO.
Has the EU’s trading system constrained growth in the World?
The first impossible thing Mr Wolf claims we argue is that the EU system of protectionism and harmonised regulation has constrained economic growth for Britain and the world. He is right to point out that the volume of world trade has increased, and the UK has, of course, experienced GDP growth while a member of the EU.
However, as our report points out, the EU’s prescriptive approach to regulation, especially in the recent past (for example, its approach on data protection, audio-visual regulation, the restrictive application of the precautionary principle, REACH chemicals regulation, and financial services regulations to name just a few) has led to an increase in anti-competitive regulation and market distortions that are wealth destructive.
As the OECD notes in various reports on regulatory reform, regulation can act as a behind-the-border barrier to trade and impede market openness for trade and investment. Inefficient regulation imposes unnecessary burdens on firms, increases barriers to entry, impacts on competition and incentives for innovation, and ultimately hurts productivity. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an example of regulation that is disproportionate to its objectives; it is highly prescriptive and imposes substantial compliance costs for business that want to use data to innovate.
Rapid growth during the post-war period is in part thanks to the progressive elimination of border trade barriers. But, in terms of wealth creation, we are no longer growing at that rate. Since before the financial crisis, measures of actual wealth creation (not GDP which includes consumer and government spending) such as industrial output have stalled, and the number of behind-the-border regulatory barriers has been increasing.
The global trading system is in difficulty. The lack of negotiation of a global trade round since the Uruguay Round, the lack of serious services liberalisation in either the built-in agenda of the WTO or sectorally following on from the Basic Telecoms Agreement and its Reference Paper on Competition Safeguards in 1997 has led to an increase in behind-the-border barriers and anti-competitive distortions and regulation all over the world. This stasis in international trade negotiations is an important contributory factor to what many economists have talked about as a “new normal” of limited growth, and a global decline in innovation.
Meanwhile the EU has sought to force its regulatory system on the rest of the world (the GDPR is an example of this). If it succeeds, the result would be the kind of wealth destruction that pushes more people into poverty. It is against this backdrop that the UK is negotiating with both the EU and the rest of the world.
The question is whether an independent UK, the world’s sixth biggest economy and second biggest exporter of services, is able to contribute to improving the dynamics of the global economic architecture, which means further trade liberalisation. The EU is protectionist against outside countries, which is antithetical to the overall objectives of the WTO. This is true in agriculture and beyond. For example, the EU imposes tariffs on cars at four times the rate applied by the US, while another large auto manufacturing country, Japan, has unilaterally removed its auto tariffs.
In addition, the EU27 represents a declining share of UK exports, which is rather counter-intuitive for a Customs Union and single market. In 1999, the EU represented 55 per cent of UK exports, and by 2016, this was 43 per cent. That said, the EU will remain an important, albeit declining, market for the UK, which is why we advocate a comprehensive free trade agreement with it.
Can the UK secure meaningful regulatory recognition from the EU without being identical to it?
Second, Mr Wolf suggests that regulatory recognition between the UK and EU is possible only if there is harmonisation or identical regulation between the UK and EU.
This is at odds with WTO practice, stretching back to its rules on domestic laws and regulation as encapsulated in Article III of the GATT and Article VI of the GATS, and as expressed in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreements.
This is the critical issue. The direction of travel of international trade thinking is towards countries recognising each other’s regulatory systems if they achieve the same ultimate goal of regulation, even if the underlying regulation differs, and to regulate in ways that are least distortive to international trade and competition. There will be areas where this level of recognition will not be possible, in which case UK exports into the EU will of course have to satisfy the standards of the EU. But even here we can mitigate the trade costs to some extent by Mutual Recognition Agreements on conformity assessment and market surveillance.
Had the US taken the view that it would not receive regulatory recognition unless their regulatory systems were the same, the recent agreement on prudential measures in insurance and reinsurance services between the EU and US would not exist. In fact this point highlights the crucial issue which the UK must successfully negotiate, and one in which its interests are aligned with other countries and with the direction of travel of the WTO itself. The TBT and SPS agreements broadly provide that mutual recognition should not be denied where regulatory goals are aligned but technical regulation differs.
Global trade and regulatory policy increasingly looks for regulation that promotes competition. The EU is on a different track, as the GDPR demonstrates. This is the reason that both the Canada-EU agreement (CETA) and the EU offer in the Trade in Services agreement (TiSA) does not include new services. If GDPR were to become the global standard, trade in data would be severely constrained, slowing the development of big data solutions, the fourth industrial revolution, and new services trade generally.
As many firms recognise, this would be extremely damaging to global prosperity. In arguing that regulatory recognition is only available if the UK is fully harmonised with the EU, Mr Wolf may be in harmony with the EU approach to regulation. But that is exactly the approach that is damaging the global trading environment.
Can the UK exercise trade policy leadership?
Third, Mr Wolf suggests that other countries do not, and will not, look to the UK for trade leadership. He cites the US’s withdrawal from the trade negotiating space as an example. But surely the absence of the world’s biggest services exporter means that the world’s second biggest exporter of services will be expected to advocate for its own interests, and argue for greater services liberalisation.
Mr Wolf believes that the UK is a second-rank power in decline. We take a different view of the world’s sixth biggest economy, the financial capital of the world and the second biggest exporter of services. As former New Zealand High Commissioner, Sir Lockwood Smith, has said, the rest of the world does not see the UK as the UK too often seems to see itself.
The global companies that have their headquarters in the UK do not see things the same way as Mr Wolf. In fact, the lack of trade leadership since 1997 means that a country with significant services exports would be expected to show some leadership.
Mr Wolf’s point is that far from seeking to grandiosely lead global trade negotiations, the UK should stick to its current knitting, which consists of its WTO rectification, and includes the negotiation of its agricultural import quotas and production subsidies in agriculture. This is perhaps the most concerning part of his argument. Yes, the UK must rectify its tariff schedules, but for that process to be successful, especially on agricultural import quotas, it must be able to demonstrate to its partners that it will be able to grant further liberalisation in the near term future. If it can’t, then its trading partners will have no choice but to demand as much liberalisation as they can secure right now in the rectification process.
This will complicate that process, and cause damage to the UK as it takes up its independent WTO membership. Those WTO partners who see the UK as vulnerable on this point will no doubt see validation in Mr Wolf’s article and assume it means that no real liberalisation will be possible from the UK. The EU should note that complicating this process for the UK will not help the EU in its own WTO processes, where it is vulnerable.
Trade negotiations are dynamic not static and the UK must act quickly
Fourth, Mr Wolf suggests that the UK is not under time pressure to “escape from the EU”. This statement does not account for how international trade negotiations work in practice. In order for countries to cooperate with the UK on its WTO rectification, and its TRQ negotiations, as well to seriously negotiate with it, they have to believe that the UK will have control over tariff schedules and regulatory autonomy from day one of Brexit (even if we may choose not to make changes to it for an implementation period).
If non-EU countries think that the UK will not be able to exercise its freedom for several years, they will simply demand their pound of flesh in the negotiations now, and get on with the rest of their trade policy agenda. Trade negotiations are not static. The US executive could lose trade-negotiating authority in the summer of next year if the NAFTA renegotiation is not going well. Other countries will seek to accede to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). China is moving forward with its Regional Cooperation and Economic Partnership, which does not meaningfully touch on domestic regulatory barriers. Much as we might criticise Donald Trump, his administration has expressed strong political will for a UK-US agreement, and in that regard has broken with traditional US trade policy thinking. The UK has an opportunity to strike and must take it.
The UK should prevail on the EU to allow Customs Agencies to be inter-operable from day one
Fifth, with respect to the challenges raised on customs agencies working together, our report argued that UK customs and the customs agencies of the EU member states should discuss customs arrangements at a practical and technical level now. What stands in the way of this is the EU’s stubbornness. Customs agencies are in regular contact on a business-as-usual basis, so the inability of UK and member-state customs agencies to talk to each other about the critical issue of new arrangements would seem to border on negligence. Of course, the EU should allow member states to have these critical conversations now. Given the importance of customs agencies interoperating smoothly from day one, the UK Government must press its case with the European Commission to allow such conversations to start happening as a matter of urgency.
Does the EU hold all the cards?
Sixth, Mr Wolf argues that the EU holds all the cards and knows it holds all the cards, and therefore disagrees with our claim that the the UK should “not allow itself to be bound by the EU’s negotiating mandate”. As with his other claims, Mr Wolf finds himself agreeing with the EU’s negotiators. But that does not make him right.
While absence of a trade deal will of course damage UK industries, the cost to EU industries is also very significant. Beef and dairy in Ireland, cars and dairy in Bavaria, cars in Catalonia, textiles and dairy in Northern Italy – all over Europe (and in politically sensitive areas), industries stands to lose billions of Euros and thousands of jobs. This is without considering the impact of no financial services deal, which would increase the cost of capital in the EU, aborting corporate transactions and raising the cost of the supply chain. The EU has chosen a mandate that risks neither party getting what it wants.
The notion that the EU is a masterful negotiator, while the UK’s negotiators are hopeless is not the global view of the EU and the UK. Far from it. The EU in international trade negotiations has a reputation for being slow moving, lacking in creative vision, and unable to conclude agreements. Indeed, others have generally gone to the UK when they have been met with intransigence in Brussels.
What do we do now?
Mr Wolf’s argument amounts to a claim that the UK is not capable of the kind of further and deeper liberalisation that its economy would suggest is both possible and highly desirable both for the UK and the rest of the world. According to Mr Wolf, the UK can only consign itself to a highly aligned regulatory orbit around the EU, unable to realise any other agreements, and unable to influence the regulatory system around which it revolves, even as that system becomes ever more prescriptive and anti-competitive. Such a position is at odds with the facts and would guarantee a poor result for the UK and also cause opportunities to be lost for the rest of the world.
In all of our [Legatum Brexit-related] papers, we have started from the assumption that the British people have voted to leave the EU, and the government is implementing that outcome. We have then sought to produce policy recommendations based on what would constitute a good outcome as a result of that decision. This can be achieved only if we maximise the opportunities and minimise the disruptions.
We all recognise that the UK has embarked on a very difficult process. But there is a difference between difficult and impossible. There is also a difference between tasks that must be done and take time, and genuine negotiation points. We welcome the debate that comes from constructive challenge of our proposals; and we ask in turn that those who criticise us suggest alternative plans that might achieve positive outcomes. We look forward to the opportunity of a broader debate so that collectively the country can find the best path forward.”