Second paragraph of third chapter:
This book exists in large part because trade policy, where selling across borders meets government policy, procedure and regulations, is ludicrously vulnerable to rhetorical handwaving. It can feel, intuitively, like something which just should not be that hard. Fill a container, ship it, maybe pay some taxes at the border, and bing bang boom little Tyler has the new Lego pieces your bare feet will be stepping on in the dark for the next decade.
Grozoubinski, a former Australian trade negotiator, gained prominence during the online Brexit wars as one of the few sensible commentators on international trade. He was particularly good at deflating British government and pro-government chest-beating statements about how they were going to biff the Europeans and ensure future prosperity by better trade with the rest of the world. (You may recall a particularly amusing example when Liz Truss, then trade minister, announced to the media that she was going to give her Australian counterpart a severe finger-wagging, and very soon after Boris Johnson, then prime minister, sat down with the Australian and conceded pretty much everything the Aussies were looking for.)
This book is only tangentially about Brexit and more about the general nuts and bolts of trade negotiations, and perhaps more importantly, how trade negotiation is talked about by political leaders. Grozoubinski regretfully makes the case that the complexity of the subject disincentivises clarity, and politicians therefore are incentivised to downplay the details (or, if you like, “lie”) because i) it’s complicated, ii) they need to disguise their own lack of understanding and iii) it is tempting to claim quick and visible wins when you know that disproving such claims will be tedious and detailed (“if you’re explaining, you’re losing”).
It’s not only government politicians who lie about this. I vividly remember the TTIP wars, when imaginary threats to the NHS and other public services in the EU through the proposed dispute settlement mechanism of the draft treaty were used to undermine a treaty which would have ensured shared regulatory standards on both sides of the Atlantic and locked those in for much of the rest of the world. Some of the people making those arguments probably believed them, but some must have known that they were false. Grozoubinski takes us painstakingly through why any big treaty negotiation is going to look much the same. He explains the reasons for the relative opacity of the process (though by the standards of many international discussions, they are crystal clear), while admitting that a bit more transparency might make the process as a whole an easier public sell.
It’s lucid and self-deprecating, and well worth a read. I’m glad to say that I got an autographed copy in Brussels in June directly from the author. You can get it here.
