Doubling down on yesterday‘s demands for Britain to remain a member of the European Union, President Obama today threatened to punish Britain on trade if they dare to leave, saying they’d go to “the back of the queue” and the US would focus on growing trade with the EU itself.
Despite the overt threat, Obama insisted he wasn’t in Britain “to fix any votes,” but that British voters should welcome his comments, as they “enhance the debate.” Prime Minister David Cameron is accused to recruiting Obama to “bully” UK voters to shift the polls, which have recently shown voters split roughly down the middle.
The US is a significant export market for Britain, though fellow EU member Germany is actually their largest trading partner. Despite Obama’s threat, it is unthinkable that the US would spurn trade with a country with one of the world’s top 5 GDPs.
Euroskeptics are calling Obama’s bluff on the comments as well, with Leave.EU co-founder Richard Tice noting that Obama will be out of office long before a trade deal would be needed. Tice also claimed that the EU-US trade deal being negotiated was actually bad for the British economy in the first place.
If the EU is such a good idea why don’t we have one? Including Canada, Mexico and Latin America? So if we don’t, why do we care if others do?
Because our President wants the job of head of the UN. I think if you add up the pieces: refusing to bomb ISIS oil fields as they posted videos of children being executed, recognizing Cuba before any legal details were worked out, choosing Iran over Israel- I think it is a safe bet he is running for the head of the UN.
You do have one, it’s called the USA, and it has a similar size and population to the EU – and even more constituent states.
but wasnt the USA formed organically and not some bunch of countries which have little in common other than geography as in the case of the EU?
I’m not sure organically is the right way of putting it. The USA was born in the war with Britain, grew through war with Mexicans and native Americans, and then fought a very brutal civil war to stop the southern states from leaving.
The EU was similarly born of war, with the goal of establishing peace, prosperity and interdependency to prevent another European war occurring. Yes, there are a lot of different languages and cultures, but then the modern world is all about diversity, tolerance and individualism. If the EU can’t work, I’m not sure anything else in the globalised world can either.
the EU seems an unnatrual union – and to be clear I am a general supporter of it…however I am not a supporter of the Euro as to me thats giving up economic control of your country…which is why I think the Brits will say no to a EU exit
Thatcher warned that the second one nation in the group had a crisis they all would, which is why she opposed it. Greece gave up airports and parks to re-negotiate its debt and then refused to close any government agencies or fire any government employees. That crisis is not over. Americans would be wise to watch events unfold in Greece. They are in the same mess cities like Chicago are. One political party hires- in the case of Illinois 350,000 employees. That is 350,000 votes. Add in a spouse, that is 700,000 votes. Then one person dependent on the money the government employee makes 1,000,000 votes. End pension plans or begin doing mass firings you lose votes You lose 3 votes total for every person let go. Greece has done the same as cities like Chicago. Though Chicago is broke, police get $12,000 a month on average in pension money. How Greece goes, we will go.
Our geography goes from Canada to the tip of Latin America. It is one unified land mass. There is no reason for the President to be lecturing Europe either based on his record or the fact we don’t practice what we preach. If an economic model works, it has nothing to do with the size of the population.
If we look at the land, the US is just one part of the Americas. There is no geographic or population size to prevent someone from any Latin American nation calling themselves American. In military strategy Rome would have unified this side of the world before going off to the Middle East. From a military standpoint it would make perfect sense. From an economic standpoint it is fraught with danger. One nation going down could drag all down. Greece gave up airports and parks to re-negotiate its debt with the EU, but then refused to close any government agencies or fire government employees. That is not over yet. We didn’t form an EU because it was not to our economic benefit to do so. But the question remains, why is Obama there and what does it have to do with us? That is why I believe he wants to head the UN. His entire Presidency has been a campaign for that job.
I could really see the Congress agree to an EU situation where another country decides YOUR LAWS oh hang on that IS what the US Congress tries to do! Make laws for other countries to follow!
So he’s basically using the same extortionist argument against the Brits that Saudi Arabia used against the US. What a second-rate president — can’t even think up his own threats. With Obama’s low standing in America and the world, he just may have convinced the Brits to get out of the EU.