Brexit hasn’t been in the news much since Covid-19, but we’re still leaving the European Union in January 2020, which means we haven’t got long to get some trade-deals in place with several different countries.
The United States is one of the UK’s largest trade partners, with around $250 of trade between the countries every year.
We’ve actually been in trade negotiations with the United States since we knew there would be a Brexit in 2017, and we’ve just started up another round of talks, although a deal is apparently unlikely before the US elections in November 2020.
If we look back at the documents from the trade-talks since 2017, it seems that the US is pushing for the following:
- The privatisation of the NHS and other public sector companies
- Higher prices for US drugs companies
- Protections for digital companies such as Facebook and Google
- The UK has to accept ‘chlorinated chicken’
- Oh, and they banned climate change from the talks too.
The above is according to some analysis from Global Justice Now and can be found here.
A trade deal with the US: A shift towards neoliberalism?
For an outline of what neoliberalism is see this post.
The trade talks so far have consisted of the US arguing for a pro free-market pro-Corporation agenda – a trade deal that allows large drug and digital companies more freedom to profit from our public services.
The fact that we haven’t caved into their demands yet suggests there is some resistance to the idea of too much neoliberalism, however, now that Brexit and a recession are looming, it will be interesting to see what kind of deal will be struck.
Especially since the NHS are now our heroes, this kind of deal might get some very negative publicity and mass resistance!
Global politics could get very interesting in the next few years!
If you’re and A-level sociology teacher, it might be a good time to switch to teaching the Global Development option!
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