Brexit Britain’s exports reach record high

USA continues to be UK’s biggest export market – by a long way

Mr Corbyn, before you snub a state dinner with the US President again, please read this

Yesterday the BBC reported that: “Dramatic fall in car output hits UK economy.” (This didn’t stop UK from growing again in the last quarter, but this wasn’t headline news.) What the BBC failed to report were the latest official ONS figures released yesterday, showing that British exports reached a new record high in the last 12 months.

The BBC failed to report the jump in exports in their main news on their website. They failed to report it in their Business News. And they even failed to report it in their Global Trade section.

Accordingly, Brexit Facts4EU.Org are bringing readers a summary of the good news.

Brexit Facts4EU.org Summary

Latest export figures up to April 2019

UK exports of goods and services in the 12 months to April 2019 increased by 4.0% to £645.8 billion
Goods exports worldwide increased by 4.7% to £356.6 billion
Goods exports to the USA increased by 11.9% to £57.6 billion, largest increase for any major partner
Total trade between the UK and USA in 2018 was worth £190.5 billion

This chart shows the UK’s top 3 goods export markets in 2018 (excluding the latest figures for Q1 2019)

Note: Technically the Netherlands comes third, just ahead of France, but these figures are distorted by the fact that a great deal of UK exports to the world pass through Rotterdam and other Dutch ports first. They are then simply trans-shipped globally, but are bizarrely still recorded as being exports to the Netherlands.

US demand was the strongest driver of UK export growth in the 12 months to April 2019

As readers can see in the chart above, the USA dwarfs Germany and France in terms of how much it buys from the UK. This is yet another sign of the special relationship following the US State Visit last week.

Liam Fox’s Dept for International trade summed things up well:-

“Overall, British goods exports to the world over the past year increased by £16 billion. The US was by far the largest contributor of any single country to this increase, with British exports to our closest trading partner increasing by £6.1 billion - accounting for 38.4% of the total increase in value of British goods exports.
“In terms of both goods and services, in 2018, the USA was by far the UKs biggest export market. The UK was the USA’s largest European export market.”
“Everyday around 1 million Americans work for British companies in America, whilst around 1 million Britons do the same for American companies in the UK.”

Observations

British companies sell to other companies in countries around the world, including those countries which are in the EU. What is so often misunderstood is that British companies do not “sell to the EU”. They sell to companies (and consumers) in other countries. And the USA is the biggest buyer of UK goods, buying almost as much as Germany and France combined.

For many businesses, the first consideration is where there is a ready market for their goods, not whether that country is in the EU or not, and their first consideration is not whether tariffs exist or not. They go where the demand is.

As newly-elected Brexit Party MEP and businessman Lance Forman put it to our editor in an interview before the EU elections:

“You look for customers where you think there’s a market for your product. If your country happens to have a trade deal with that country – brilliant. It comes in handy when you export. But it doesn’t mean that’s where you start.”

These facts are important

We would like to think that the facts we’ve brought you above are important. Not only is the USA the UK’s top customer by a long way, it is also the fastest-growing major overseas market at a time when the Eurozone’s economy is stuttering.

We find it unacceptable that the BBC, the state-funded broadcaster – did not find any room for this important story yesterday. They were able to find room for negative stories about car manufacturing figures, but not about record UK export figures.

Politicians of all hues are forever talking about trade in relation to the Customs Union and the Single Market, so this information is highly relevant to Brexit. Of course, the vast majority of our readers voted Leave on the basis of democracy and sovereignty, not trade, but as politicians witter on all the time about the Customs Union, we believe that this information is important to report.

We will leave readers with an uplifting quote yesterday from the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP:-

“I encourage exporters right across the country to use today’s statistics as evidence that despite global headwinds, the most prosperous countries in the world are demanding British goods at unprecedented levels.”
- The Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP, Secretary of State for International Trade, 10 June 2019

[ Sources: Office for National Statistics, latest trade figures | The Dept for International Trade ] Note: Politicians and jouranlists are welcome to contact us for details.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 11 June 2019

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Reader Comments 17

11. barbara jell , Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 17:34:

James - comment 10 - this is exciting stuff, when I signed the petition this morning it stood at 14,000 - have written also to Electoral Commission and Registration asking for a full investigation - watch this space!!

12. barbara jell , Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 17:38:

Ban postal voting - recipe for fraud!!

13. Steven , Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 19:19:

I agree with you Adam about the USA. In the past at least the US government has shown scant regard for this country beginning with President Roosevelt who openly threatened to give us no help during WW2 and said to Winston Churchill that if we wanted US aid it wouldn’t be given on a plate to us but would come with a demand to dismantle the British Empire so that this closed British market for our goods would go into the dustbin of history thus opening up these ex colonies and their markets for US companies and goods. The US ambassador to Britain during the war, one Joseph Kennedy, mocked our resistance to Nazi Germany and half wanted us to lose the Battle of Britain. Then, after extracting their pound of flesh during the war, President Eisenhower threatened us with a run on the pound if we didn’t immediately withdraw from Egypt during the Suez crisis. Also, many US presidents have done very little to combat the evil people in America associated with groups like NORAID who raised funds for the IRA to butcher and maim British citizens.They were also pretty slow and rather ambivalent at first in supporting us when the Falkland Islands war started.
In short, I think it would be wise to be wary of US ‘friendship’ towards us as the only real ‘special relationships’ it has are with itself and Israel. That being said, I do think President Trump at least seems to have some genuine affection and friendship towards this country and perhaps this is to do with his partial British ancestry?

14. Richard , Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 19:22:

Barbara - comment 11 - It seems there are 2 separate petitions!
1) https://petition.parliament...
2) https://www.change.org/p/me...

15. Steven , Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 19:26:

To be frank, I am more worried about free trade deals with the likes of India than the US as no doubt the Indians will demand visa free access to this country for their teeming millions of people as the price and that worries me because this wretched and incompetent Tory government doesn’t bother to control our borders even with regard to legal migrants let alone those who deliberately overstay their visa etc ie illegal migrant students from places like India etc.

16. Steven , Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 19:41:

Barbara Jell, Yes, there is no doubt postal voting should be almost entirely banned (apart from people who have genuine difficulties in voting ie old people, the disabled ect).
I happen to think the process of voting is rather special in its way and some care and thought should be put into it on the part of the voter. There are enough idiots in the British electorate as it is without encouraging some people who wouldn’t normally vote to just aimlessly vote by postal voting whilst watching gormless trash tv like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here or the latest episode of an inane soap opera. Aren’t the formation of potential governments and councils and sending representatives to the House of Commons/council chambers important?
Widespread postal voting on demand for any reason was Labour’s response back in the early 2000’s to the rise of the BNP who were often getting councillors elected because staunch Labour voters were too lazy to vote thus lowering turnouts enough for BNP councillors to win. The Tories at the time should have voted to stop this needless expansion of postal voting with all its potential for massive fraud but they also voted for it for very similar reasons.

17. barbara jell , Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 00:18:

Thank you Richard - comment 14 - have now signed petition to ban postal voting, which now has well over 15,000 signatures - and Steven - comment 16 - friends, neighbours and organised groups would be MORE than happy to take older people and others to polling booths, just like they used to do before we had this corrupt system of postal voting, which was introduced for less than altruistic reasons.
For those who might be away on the day of voting, a watertight form of postal voting should be available with ID and other forms of authentication. Not rocket science surely!

17 comments, page 2 of 2

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