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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Being selfish here, wonder how this affects US.

Even though on the surface EU and UK are alies and trade partners, it is not all black and white. I believe US will benefit because they will be able to play UK against EU and vice-versa to gain somehow. Say if EU doesn't allow import of US chicken they can go and try to persuade UK to not allow some import from EU in exchange for some other favor and so on.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if this strengthens US's stock market in short to medium term, as everyone will flee to US stocks due to perceived volatility.

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At the most basic, a strong US Dollar against the UK GBP means that US exports to GB become more costly, which reduces US exports, which hurts the US Economy, which is not good for the US.

And a weak US Dollar against the UK GBP means that US consumers will pay more for goods, which reduces their ability to consume, which is not good for the US.

Therefore all change is bad.

A weak dollar means cost of consumer goods increases.

Luckily most consume goods don't come from the UK.

But yes, with the strong US Dollar (in general) our exports have taken a hit.

There are a number of issues and it likely will affect each industry separately. The main concern are trade agreements that are US-EU vs. ones that are US-UK. The former will have to be renegotiated again or dropped completely with respect to the US-UK trade.

It's impossible to say what will happen in each case as the US will have the upper hand in US-UK negotiations. Also, dropping the UK from the EU is less favorable in EU-US deals than it was as it's dropping a large economy from its market.

However, the election results in the US are probably a bigger consideration in the short term as a huge anti-free trade or anti-immigration election in the US would cause major changes as well.

Afaik the US barely exports to europe (especially your example sounded odd to me, i never saw american food on the shelf except cookies). I dont think it will affect the US a lot.

While the US is in fact known as the manufacturers of several delicious varieties of cookie, you might be surprised to learn that consumer packaged goods as a whole are not among the top 10 categories of goods exported from the US to the UK. So I'm not sure supermarket shelves are a great data point.

(Total US->UK ~$55bn, about 4% of total US exports, top categories: aircraft, oil, cars, machinery, electronics.)

It was just an example. Could be IT services, or other things. The point is, US can take advantage of pitting UK against EU. I read it used to do it, in European politics to separate European countries, before the creation of EU.

This is incorrect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa...

The EU is the largest trade partner of the US.

And when ordered by US Exports, the EU is the 2nd largest trade partner after Canada.

I suspect the problem you saw was related to American Brands (for food) vs the actual company behind the food. Many foods are bottled/packaged in local plants, and/or resold under local brands.

It makes a surge in populism much more likely.

The betting markets were giving a 90%+ chance for Remain yesterday.

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