Are you suggesting Mexicans have benefitted the most from NAFTA?
Probably due to the price advantage unless we did through the education advantage. But they can educate themselves, we can't undersell them easily.
The problem with the EU is that it isn't just a trade deal, it's a change in sovereignty. I don't know why any Brits fell for it in the first place.
Any trade deal involves a sovereignty trade off. That's why we call it a deal. Unilaterally dropping tariffs is as far as you can go without compromising sovereignty, but tariffs are quite low worldwide now. Unilaterally dropping tariffs might make UK products 1% cheaper on average. You can't drop tariffs by much when they're already low.
Most trade deals today involve eliminating non-tariff barriers, which requires adopting common standards and thus a degree of sovereignty. The more standardisation you accept, the more market access you get on exchange for sacrificing more sovereignty. That's the trade-off of modern trade agreements. The EU involves sacrificing much more sovereignty than NAFTA does but also allows much more market access than NAFTA does. No country can avoid that trade-off. Even NAFTA involves sacrificing some sovereignty for access to each other's markets for services.
A major British expert is banking and financial services. Free trade in financial services inevitably requires much more uniformity of rules like in the EU. NAFTA might ask a smaller sacrifice of sovereignty, but US and Canadian banking are not nearly as integrated.NAFTA is fine for exporting goods and some services, but to export financials, you need something more akin to the EU.
Sure I find the EU to be too protectionist, but at least within the EU the UK could combat it somewhat and the EU has been lowering tariffs over the years and negotiating ever freer trade.
The problem with the EU is that it isn't just a trade deal, it's a change in sovereignty. I don't know why any Brits fell for it in the first place.
The UK initially joined because the EEC imposed much higher tariffs than the EU does now and the UK's economy was stagnant due to being locked out of the markets of its nearest trading partners and the EEC gaining new members.
Once the UK joined, its economy boomed.
Norway hates the EU because, as a trading bloc, the EU has Norway by the nuts. Norway joined the European Economic Area hich means that it still pays the EU 80% of what the UK does per capita as administration fees to run the various services of the customs Union from which Norway benefits and must still adhere to the 'four freedoms' of goods, services, people, and I forget the fourth one. Plus the Norwegian Parliament must adopt most EU rules to standardise their industries. Norway has no representative at the European Parliament so has no say in these rules but it can negotiate its own trade agreements with non-EU states if it wants to. But since it must standardize many industrial, labour market, banking, country-of-origin, and other rules to the EU's, its power to negotiate such agreements with non-EU states is limited to reducing tariff barriers for the most part. And with the EU's barriers being mostly non-tariff, that can benefit Norway only so much.
Then there's Switzerland's à la carte approach. The Swiss hate the EU even more than Norway does, but they're small, landlocked and surrounded! Switzerland pays about 40% of what the UK does per capita to the EU budget, must also accept the 'four Freedoms,' and though it can opt out of certain EU programmes, the EU can also choose to not offer certain programmes. For example, Switzerland wants access to the EU's banking market but the EU won't grant it. Switzerland could do like Norway and join the European Economic Area, but that is not à la carte and Switzerland doesn't want that, so by by Swiss access to the EU's banking market.
The problem with either of the above is that they both require free movement of people and control over migration is a major reason many Brexiters wanted out. So either of these deals would violate the spirit of Brexit for them.
The UK could choose to remain in the European Free Trade Agreement which all EU states must join and any European state is free to join. With that, the UK pays nothing to the EU budget but EFTA is primitive, a 1960's era tariff-reduction agreement. That might explain why every EFTA member is also a member of the EU, the EEA like Norway, or has other agreements like Switzerland. Tariffs are low worldwide already thanks to the WTO, but non-tariff barriers resulting from conflicting regulations are what modern treaties try to eliminate. That's why Canada is in NAFTA. To just be a member of EFTA would throw the UK back to the 1960's! No developed economy today stops at reducing tariff barriers only. But anything beyond unilaterally dropping tariffs will require sacrificing some sovereignty in exchange for market access.
Even Canada can feel the power of the EU's unity. As an example, the EU threatened to impose travel visas on Canadians because Canada had imposed them on some EU states. It's like saying, 'If you mess with one of us, we will all mess with you.' 'You scratch my back, I scratch yours.' It's like the economic equivalent of NATO.
Already the EU is saying no compromise on the 'four freedoms,' which will inevitably anger those Brexiters who thought they could control migration and still access the EU market. Switzerland is always complaining about the migration rule but the EU keeps saying, you block any of the 'four freedoms,' no more more EU market access for you. Take it or leave it. So Switzerland can whine about its freedom all it wants but the EU is sovereign too and so Switzerland has no power over whom the EU trades with.
The UK's only hope would be if enough pressure from within the EU forces the EU to take people out of the 'four freedoms,' otherwise the EU will have the UK by the nuts just as it has Norway and Switzerland by the nuts and the US has Canada by the nuts.
One reason many EU states treat the 'four freedoms' as sacrosanct (somewhat like how Canadians think of official bilingualism, the Canada Health Act, or the separate school system, as a seemingly primordial God-given right) is WWII. While most states see free trade as a part of economic policy, the EU sees it as part of security policy. The idea goes that the more economically interdependent states are, the less likely they will go to war with one another. This might explain why the EU is like free trade on steroids, at least within the Bloc, covering goods, services (including financial), even people, and has even standardised educational standards for different trades and professional to put even cooperation between Canadian ministries of education in inter-provincial agreements to shame.
Even NAFTA is primitive compared to the EU. In some cases, there are fewer trade barriers between European states than between Canadian provinces, such as educational standards for different trades and professions!
They even have the Europass, a 'language passport' that indicates a person's linguistic knowledge and that is recognised in all EU states. We don't even have that between Ontario and Quebec except withing the Federal Government but not the private sector!
To leave the EU and unilaterally stop free movement if people would immediately push the UK out of the common market. All the UK can do is complain about it like Switzerland does.
That said, nationalism is growing in Europe, so if the EU itself should decide to take people out of the 'four freedoms,' fine. Otherwise it'll be take it or leave it for the UK. And about 40% if UK trade is with the EU, only about 5% if EU trade is with the UK. So who needs whom more?
The reason why we fell for it was because in the early 1970s Edward Heath, who took us into it without even asking the people, told us it was merely for trade.
At that time, it mostly was.
Now, it's gone way beyond tariff barriers to include standardising rules for services, banking, financial services, etc. But NAFTA and other such agreements bow extend beyond tariff barriers too.
The most sovereign state in the world is North Korea. Remember that.
