Thursday 30 June 2016

THE END OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP?


The end of a beautiful friendship?
I watched some of the post BREXIT coverage on CNBC on Sunday evening- it was quite interesting to get a US perspective on some of the consequences of the referendum. The gist was that the US elite was not happy (to put things mildly) with the Brit elite over the BREXIT result largely because the US had effectively lost its inside man in the EU tent. 

The Brits had pushed the EU into imposing economic sanctions on Russia because of Russian interference in Ukraine. Obviously with the Brits on their way out of the EU they are now irrelevant diplomatically within Europe as far as the US is concerned. So basically the US was now seriously going to ramp up its diplomatic contacts and efforts with Germany - in an effort to maintain the sanctions against Russia. 

Incidentally while European (and UK) farmers suffered as a result of the sanctions against Russia over the occupation of the Crimea and Russian support for the unrest in eastern Ukraine, the US farmers upped their production to access the potential new market, clearly true friends indeed. On another matter I wonder how long it's going to be before the next UK PM gets their White House lawn photograph.

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