I think people are viewing Brexit in static terms and not realising the potential damage that the UK could wreak on the EU if they continue to be nasty. We have at least half a dozen potential 'weapons' at our command.
Like you said, they export everywhere so the effect is not as significant. Japanese makers in UK only export to EU (and sell in UK). The Japanese already produce in other regions and I doubt shipping cars from UK to Brazil or Africa makes financial sense. To illustrate, a BMW 5-series is already sold everywhere, losing UK sales would be bad but wouldn't stop manufacturing. Meanwhile a Toyota Avensis is only sold in Europe, losing that market means it doesn't make sense to sell that model only for the UK market.
We can open the border so that thousands of illegal immigrants can go to the UK. Do you really think only the UK can damage the EU? In France and Belgium there are camps full of refugees that want to cross the channel. There are "weapons" on both sides. Threatening will only result in two losing parties. And then the bill might be much higher than the membership contribution.
The German cars are sold to consumers. these consumers want these German cars, so not many of them will stop buying them. So sales will not drop much. But if BMW closes the Mini factories, 8,000 people will lose their job and 100% of the production will disappear. The financial damage for the UK (loss of income for thousands of people, less taxable salaries so less money for the government, unemployment support for the fired workers, no taxes from the BMW plants as they will not exist anymore...) will be hugely more then the few BMW's that will not be sold anymore. Many years ago Renault closed a huge plant in Vilvoorde (Belgium). All unions asked not to buy Renault cars anymore. The sales never dropped, so people didn't care.
You are not the smartes in the UK, are you? Will you put guards along the thousands miles of coast? Any idea what that will cost? There is a huge difference between what you want and reality. The UK will find that out soon.
Indeed, currently France is actually helping the UK by stopping some of the migrants, they might as well choose not to do that. Brits remind me more and more of Russians the more I see their attitude.
Yeah, I see how good you can keep them out: EXCLUSIVE: Cameron's migration figures don't include UK's 1.1 MILLION illegal immigrants https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/601419/Britain-net-migration-figures-illegal-immigrants And that was already before the real problem started. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ants-in-britain-hits-250-000-a-year-8nx2tw6lp Secret Home Office estimates put the level of illegal immigration at up to 250,000 people a year and ministers are suppressing the true scale of the issue, a report by two former officials published today has claimed.
If we rid ourselves of our pathetic leader and elect a hardline Trump like leader instead, here are some options that could be deployed against the EU empire: From marketoracle.com UK Brexit Strategy Bribing Eastern Europe - In addition to the Trump cards already mentioned such as NATO, Intelligence agencies and the trade imbalance, Britain could also undermine the position of the European Union through a myriad of measures such as by bribing the large recipient eastern European nations that are already heavily reliant on UK funding such as Poland and Hungary. And thus the UK could encourage eastern European nations to demand that the EU allow UK single market access in exchange for continuing UK funding for some years beyond Brexit. Financial Armageddon - The UK is Europe's financial centre, therefore Britain could use this to its advantage in threatening to make foreign investment in Europe via London much harder if not impossible. Therefore seeking to financially destabilise the European Union by using weapons of mass financial destruction such as hitting the European Union member states already crippled bond markets. EU Nationals - One of the biggest cards Britain can play are the 4 million EU citizens who reside in the UK against 1.2 million Brit's in the EU. Whilst both sides today say that they do not want to use citizens as bargaining chips, however it would be stupid for Britain to give up one of its major trump cards. Tax Bomb - Britain could threaten to detonate the tax nuclear option, one of cutting corporation tax to 10% or even lower to 5% which would have a devastating effect on the European Union economies as it would encourage especially financial services corporations to move to the UK from the EU. Putin Doctrine - Britain could take a leaf out of the Putin doctrine of undermining the EU through migration via the Middle East and North Africa through taking military action for instance in Syria, perhaps in conjunction with a change of mind from the Trump regime. This would further encourage migration into the EU and thus keep the EU occupied with an even bigger crisis than Brexit over the next couple of years as several more millions of migrants seek to flow into the European Union. Trade Tariffs and Unemployment - The EU putting trade tariffs on UK Exports and the UK putting trade tariffs on EU exports will mean job losses on both side. However as there exists a huge trade imbalance between the two economies then Britain will earn at least twice as much in tariffs than EU will from UK imports. Thus an intelligent British government could use this windfall income to reimburse UK companies on the costs of tariffs paid to the EU. Theoretically this would mean NO UK job need be lost as UK companies would be being reimbursed in totality. Economic Boom - Britain should once more play its ace card which is that Britain has its own currency which means that Britain can print money to monetize debt. The advantage of this during the BrExit negotiations is that the UK government could engineer an economic boom! All it would take would be about £150 billion of fresh QE. Which would induce a feel good factor and galvanise the British population and foreign investors behind Brexit. Therefore defeating the EU's strategy for inflicting pain on Britain, for if the British economy by 2 years from now is growing at the rate of more than 3% per annum far beyond that of a stagnating European Union, then that would act to strengthen British resolve no matter what the outcome of the Brexit negotiations are. At the end of the day Britain has a trump card to play, which was apparent in my recent analysis on the impact of Tory Brexit chaos on Britains housing market, and that Trump card is QE, or good old Bank of England money printing. The BoE can do today what they did 10 years ago during the financial crisis which is to print money to inflate asset prices though buying Bank stocks and Government bonds which the banks hold. This would have the effect of allowing the Government to run a large budget deficit to offset BrExit economic consequences and thus Britain could just about avoid an economic recession (at least 2 consecutive quarters of a fall in GDP). Though in reality it is highly probable there will be a mild NO DEAL recession, probably resulting in a contraction of about 1.5% of GDP. Or about 1/3rd that of the 2008-2009 Bankster recession.
Relative to the size of the country, Mexico and Canada benefit much more from USMCA than the U.S. And yet, and this is my point all along, its not a zero sum game! As a result, the U.S. is far better off with it than without it. It doesn't matter how much more Mexico or Canada benefit from it if the U.S. benefits from it! Do we have free movement, not quite but pretty close. I was able to quite easily obtain a work visa under NAFTA for myself and several of my employees which would be much harder without it. I would have preferred it was easier but it wasn't a showstopper. Do we have a common national anthem? Since every EU country maintains their own national anthem that's a strawman argument. But in reality I could give fuck-all about our national anthem, it impacts me not even a little tiny bit. I actually gave blood sweat and tears for my country, so I don't have much sympathy for anyone who rails on about anthems and flags in the obstensive pursuit of patriotism and nationalism. Do we have a common army? Again, a bit of a strawman given your penis size bragging earlier about the British army being the biggest in Europe. Even more of a strawman given that for nearly 70 years the U.S. has had as close to a common army in NATO as the EU has achieved with the U.K. It's worked out pretty well, I've personally been a cog in that wheel and never felt that again, it was anything but additive to the U.S.