DBWI UK Joins the EU instead of Nafta

Nafta is considered by many to be president Regan's biggest legacy for better or worse. Tarrifs between Canada, Mexico and the US were eliminated as one of the biggest free trades zones in the world was created.

In europe the european counter part was also being created, and Thatcher saw that UK had a choice of going it alone, or joining the EU. She decided to take a third option and through a charm offensive managed to get the UK into Nafta dispite the agreement being created soley for north ameircan countries. Dispite being the lone odd ball of the pact the UK remains a member.

But this wasn't set in stone, Reagan could have failed in his effort to create Nafta, the UK could have chosen to join the EU. What would have happened if the UK was a member of the EU instead of a member of Nafta?
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
OOC: Interesting idea, but I feel you've wrong-footed it a bit by specifying NAFTA is North American. After all, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement would be easier to work with, with by specifying that it's North American it's become increasingly difficult to really accept the situation.

I mean, Thatcher's push back against the EEC is what effectively killed her politically and led to her ousting- and you can't really have Thatcher last as long as she did without those figures in the Cabinet without a radically different political scene in the UK. I mean, to play with the hypothetical, the Atlanticist segment of the Conservative party would need to have control of the Party, with the PoD before 1963- no Wilson and no Heath means no entry into the EEC, which means Britain doesn't emerge as a founding member of the EU. But in such a world, the likelihood of Thatcher and Reagan not only being leaders but synching would be... interesting.
 
Well, it certainly had interesting repercussions for geopolitics in the Anglosphere - having the US, Canada and Great Britain lay the groundwork for a common market turned heads from Sydney to Singapore.

I also have to wonder if without another populated economic heavyweight like Great Britain if NAFTA would have even passed in the USA. With just Canada - a well off, but very underpopulated country - and Mexico - a populous, but poor country - the US didn't have as much to gain from the deal. Toss on Britain though, and the ability to use Britain as a springboard for interests in both Europe and the former British Empire, and the pot just got a lot sweeter for the American consumer.

Also, without Britain, I don't see NAFTA getting expanded to include the likes of Belize, Jamaica and Guyana.
 
OOC: Wouldn't the USA still have more economic power than all the other members combined at this stage,
giving it the power to dictate the rules and structure in its own interest?
 
I thought OTL there was talk of Great Britain joining NAFTA. Maybe I am wrong or maybe it was never serious so please correct me.

If this were to happen, I can see Mexico being less than thrilled because it make what is already an Anglo-Saxon dominated pact that much more of one.

I do think this has interesting butterflies for the Anglo-Sphere as someone else suggested.
 
"I thought OTL there was talk of Great Britain joining NAFTA. Maybe I am wrong or maybe it was never serious so please correct me."

It was a fringe right wing ID pol idea, in the same category as support for Rhodesia.

You have to push the creation of NAFTA back over ten years, and then have it merge with EFTA in the early 1980s.

This is unlikely but not ASB, people were doing crazy things with these regional organizations in the 1970s/ early 1980s. This was about the time Greece joined the EEC, and earlier you had things like SEATO and Egypt-Syria union.
 
You'd probably not see Germany dominate the continent the same way we see today, what with a second none-German major economy backing up the French against Berlin. So no German-led austerity push in southern europe.
 
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