Why Politicians Lie About Trade... and What You Need to Know About It

“I became a semi-public figure and commentator during the first Trump term, and especially during Brexit. Those were really the first times in a very long while where trade was consistently in the news, where trade would lead newspapers, and when trade would be one of the first couple of segments on the nightly news. And the debate was frankly appalling in terms of its quality. A lot of very confident people sold things that were complete fabrications and that, for a lot of us watching it, was not only annoying—as it always is when someone is wrong about your field—but actively dangerous…Some of the proposals that were being floated around by very credentialed, well-placed people would have been disastrous. For instance, if the UK had crashed out of the European Union with no deal and no transition period a month after the referendum, as some people were suggesting, it would not only have been disastrous for the UK economy at a level that is difficult to convey, but would almost certainly have had human casualties—farmer suicides and so on, as people just completely lost their livelihoods…The tone I’ve tried to go for is one where you have made the horrible mistake of being seated next to me at a bar and asking me a question about trade, and now I have trapped you…and I’m delivering the answers” Read more...

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Dmitry Grozoubinski, Economist