We shouldn't leave the quote there. We need to continue with Mr. Allgeier's response:
"I said, 'Well, yes, we had that experience about 200 years ago, and it proved to be [quite beneficial.]'"
Those last two words are in brackets because they are a guess. On the recording that was the source for this quote laughter drowns out the end of Mr. Allgeier' s sentence.
Context. Today,
Peter Allgeier is enjoying his first day of retirement. Last Wednesday, however, this former U.S. Ambassador to the WTO was still in his job as president of the Coalition of Service Industries. In that role, he was one of two featured speakers at the February 24 GBD event,
"Breakfast of Champions II." The other was
William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. Mr. Allgeier had a lot to say about services and trade, and we shall highlight some of that in a later entry.
Today's quote was taken from his response to the very last question of the morning. In short, Mr. Allgeier and Mr. Reinsch - both experts in U.S. trade policy - were asked if there were any external events on the horizon that might affect U.S. trade. The questioner suggested as possible candidates the Canada-EU trade agreement, known as CETA; the China-led negotiations in Asia for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP; and Brexit, the upcoming referendum in the United Kingdom on that country's membership in the European Union. Our experts talked about both Brexit and RCEP, though here we shall stick to the Brexit comments.
The context for the issue is that on June 23 of this year, a little more than three months from now, British voters will go to the polls and give their individual answers to this question:
"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or Leave the European Union?"
Lady or the tiger, each voter will decide either:
a) "Remain a member of the European Union" or
b) "Leave the European Union."
Here is a bit more of what Mr. Allgeier and Mr. Reinsch had to say about Brexit.
MR. ALLGEIER: "I think the Brexit -- potential Brexit [vote] -- is probably the most impending issue. And if that goes the way of Britain leaving the EU, that would require a huge adjustment. I assume that there would be support in the United States to find some way of applying what we have with Europe to Britain, but I don't know how the British feel about that. They would have some other changes that they would want."
MR. REINSCH: "I haven't thought enough about the British thing yet and need to [consider it] more. One of the issues that will no doubt be coming up in the next month or so is, what is the U.S. Government's attitude toward it? And there is quite a bit that we could say or do that would have an impact on that, I would think. I mean the assumption of the people that want to leave the EU, I assume, is, has to be, that they're not going to be worse off for having left. And whether they are going to be better or worse off in trade terms will depend a little bit on what their trade relationship with us would be in post-EU circumstances. Would all the benefits that they currently have continue to exist? I think the answer to that is, it depends a lot on what the U.S. government has to say.
"You know, we could probably influence this debate one way or the other or choose not to influence it at all. And I don't know what the right thing for us to do is at this point."
