POOLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek December 23, 2019be taken up with negotiating about negotiation—
with little time to hammer out a treaty that covers
more than the basics.
The EU will want commitments on access to
British fishing waters and level-playing-field provi-
sions, as well as a quick deal on tariffs and quotas.
It will also likely insist the U.K. accept restrictions
on the use of place names and product descriptions
called geographic indications (think Champagne or
Parmesan cheese), which may complicate a trade
deal with the U.S. The time pressure could result
in no trade agreement being done at all.
The trade-offs for Johnson are clear: the faster
a deal with the EU, the harder the Brexit—that is,
the greater the economic costs. One attempt to
project the impact on the country’s gross domes-
tic product by Rutter’s UK in a Changing Europe
concludes income per capita would be 2.5% lower
under the deal Johnson has before Parliament than
May’s rejected proposal. A Bloomberg Economics
analysis also suggests the U.K. economy would be
smaller under Johnson’s Brexit deal compared with
any option other than leaving in 2020 with no EU
trade deal at all and trade conducted under World
Trade Organization terms. The irony is these costs
would bite hardest in the northern constituencies
Johnson has just won over from the Labour Party.
Nothing Johnson can get will be easily sellable
as a great achievement, especially the more peo-
ple learn about customs and regulatory checks.
The political and economic costs of the new cus-
tomsborder along the Irish Sea under Johnson’s
deal—though he repeatedly refused to acknowledge
themonthe campaign trail—are another potential
sourceof backlash. (In fact, the greatest hope of
a sensible deal for Johnson would be if the entire
countrysimply tuned out the minutiae. It’s pos-
siblethey will.)
Still, the Brexit that comes with a speedy trade
agreement, while it would impose medium- and
long-term costs, would not be as chaotic as a
no-deal divorce. If the only trade deal Johnson
canget by 2020 is a de minimis one with few
benefits, then he may decide it’s easier to bill
it asan amicable separation, retain the U.K.’s
complete freedom to go its own way, package
thesplit as sovereignty-enhancing, and blame
theEU for any hardships. Holding the line on
Brexit may also be Johnson’s insurance policy
forthe next election, in 2024, a way to fend off
theeuroskeptics who will no doubt find some-
thing to gripe about, whatever deal is struck.
To be as successful in office as he was cam-
paigning for it—that is, to keep his northern
voters on his side in the next election—JohnsonTHEBOTTOMLINE Johnsonhasa morethancomfortable
majority in Parliament, allowing him to do almost anything he wants
about Brexit. The problem is: What does he do now?42
will have to deliver both Brexit and tangible change
in their lives. So the tougher the economic condi-
tions that result from Brexit, the higher the price
Johnson will have to pay out of state coffers to
cushion the blow in his new northern heartlands.
That may betray his traditional political base—
composed of small-government fiscal conserva-
tives who backed the unpopular austerity policies
of the past decade.
It will be hard to both dispel distrust and deliver
on pledges that relied, in large part, on glossing
over the costs ahead. Johnson won his historic
parliamentary victory by being shrewdly tactical.
For his first big decision after the election, he may
instead have to figure on a strategic move: How
close a trading relationship with Europe does he
really want and how big an economic price is he
willing to pay for the separation he promised? In
other words, Johnson has to define not just Brexit,
but Britain’s new normal. —Therese Raphael,
Bloomberg OpinionCongress will ring in the new year as only it can:
with stepped-up partisanship and bitter division,
this time in the form of the Senate’s impeachment
trial of President Trump.
With Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky running the show, the chance
that Trump will be removed from office is all but
nonexistent. Even so, the trial could turn out to be
a meaningful factor in the presidential election—not
because of its effect on Trump, but because of the
wrench it throws into the Democratic primaries.
The trial will tie up five Democratic hopefuls,
including two of the front-runners, Bernie Sanders
of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts,
going into Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus on Feb. 3.
All the Democratic candidates agree that Trump
should be removed from office, so that question on
its own doesn’t divide the field. But the obligationMerry Christmas,
Mr. Biden!
○ Impeachment could turn out to be a gift for
the former vice president’s campaign in Iowa