Being perceived as tough can be an effective negotiating strategy. It backfires though if by “tough” you mean walking back on past agreements. As this is from the Trump playbook, some words on that are in order /1 on.ft.com/3lzudUQ
Trump threatened to bring NAFT down to reach USMCA. And he got what he wanted including rules of origin for the car industry that will be tough (impossible?) to meet for Mexico. So why not copy those tactics? /2
Because the UK-EU relationship is entirely different from the Mexican-US one. Mexico is utterly dependent on trade with the US (the US takes more than 70% of its exports). The UK is not even the EU’s largest trading partner. /3
Cannot help but think this is also a rather unfortunate moment in history for Brexit. The US and the EU both - and independently from Brexit - turn their trade policies towards stronger level-playing field. Plus the EU shifts its emphasis to enforcement anyway. /4
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