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Obama Weighs in on UK "Brexit" From EU

Accepted submission by takyon at 2016-04-23 01:49:13
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President Obama has urged the UK not to leave the EU [theguardian.com], and has said that the UK will not automatically receive special treatment on trade (leaving the EU would allow the UK to reject TTIP [wikipedia.org]):

Barack Obama has warned that the UK would be at the "back of the queue" in any trade deal with the US if the country chose to leave the EU, as he made an emotional plea to Britons to vote for staying in. The US president used a keenly awaited press conference with David Cameron, held at the Foreign Office, to explain why he had the "temerity to weigh in" over the high-stakes British question in an intervention that delighted remain campaigners.

Obama argued that he had a right to respond to the claims of Brexit campaigners that Britain would easily be able to negotiate a fresh trade deal with the US. "They are voicing an opinion about what the United States is going to do, I figured you might want to hear from the president of the United States what I think the United States is going to do. And on that matter, for example, I think it's fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it's not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done".

He added: "The UK is going to be in the back of the queue."


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