Op Ed: Brexit, Who?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you must have heard the word “Brexit” whispered somewhere. But, for most people, Brexit is some complex thing that’s happening in the world and does not impact the U.S. in any way. Wrong.

Let’s start with some “Brexit” basics. Brexit is a mish-mash of the words “Britain” and “exit” and essentially means Britain is exiting the European Union (EU). But, it is not actually Britain leaving the EU, it is the United Kingdom (UK). Before we go any further, we must keep in mind that the UK is actually composed of four countries in one: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Out of these four countries, England is the most important (sorry Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). Britain is the island which has England, Scotland, and Wales. The other large component of this is the EU. The EU is 28 countries that are connected through their economy. The countries in the EU have open borders so people and goods can move freely and there are no extra frills when it comes to trade. Also, those in the EU have a common currency of the Euro, but only 19 countries have adopted it.

So far the EU sounds like a great idea but it has had a lot, a lot of hiccups on the way. CNN used the analogy of a marriage for the EU and it works, so let’s roll with it. The marriage that is the EU has faced a lot of difficult situations where they had to come to a united decision. Of course, like any real marriage, everyone had a different viewpoint on many situations, different ideas on how to solve it and etc. etc. There have been many times where the countries in the EU did not agree. Finally, two years ago, the UK called it quits and asked for a divorce. Although, leaving the fifth largest economy in the world is no easy joke, and it’s no easy split for either the UK or the EU. The EU is losing a strong military power with the split, and the UK has to reconfigure all of its trade deals with the other 27 countries, figure out its border situation since they have open borders now, and figure out the seemingly million other connections they’ve made with the EU in the past 45 years.

So how does this impact the United States? Well, let’s think of the EU as this seemingly happy marriage and the United States was one of their closest friends. I mean the United States is the UK’s seventh largest trading partner. This divorce is going to impact the United State’s friendship with them. The United State’s has to figure out another trade deal with the UK and the EU which will further impact global markets. And the EU and UK have a lot of friends like the U.S. that they need to sort things out with. This is one of the reasons why two years after Britain voted to leave the European Union the UK is still figuring out how to leave the European Union. There are so many countries being impacted by this split and the risk of many things going wrong is very possible. But, after several negotiations and heated debates, it has been decided that the UK will leave the EU on March 29, 2019. Until then, the UK will remain in the EU and be subject to its rules and regulations. This will give the UK and EU enough time to reconstruct all of its deals and connections.