Time to Include Britain in NAFTA?

On Monday, I sent this letter to the editor of the Financial Times in response to an appalling column by former British apparatchik Jonathan Powell:

Dear Sir,

It was disappointing to see such a prominent former diplomat as Jonathan Powell subscribe to the notion that Anglo-US relations are reducible to the friendliness or otherwise between US and British leaders. In fact, Britain and the US are tied together by an almost invisible web of culture, shared experience, and history. Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, such as the current President, have done their best to downplay or cut these links, but they do remain. They could indeed continue to form the basis for a profitable relationship between the two nations. If Europe does not want an independent, free-market-loving country like Britain as part of its monolithic customs union, perhaps the United States should invite Britain to join NAFTA, to form a North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement.

Sincerely,

Iain Murray

Free trade can play an important role in solving the world’s current problems. It is unfortunate that most countries (and in Europe’s case, the Eurozone) seem to be withdrawing into mercantilism.