THE UK could take up to 10 years to negotiate trade deals with the US if it leaves the EU, Barack Obama has said.
In a BBC interview on Sunday, the outgoing US president said: ‘It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done.’
The Tories seized on his statement like drowning men and women clutching at straws, while the leader of the Labour Opposition, Corbyn, issued a statement about his meeting with Obama.
The statement said: ‘They discussed the power of global corporations, the impact of globalisation on working people and the need to take action to reduce inequality across the world. They agreed on the case for Britain to remain a member of the European Union, and that there would be further contact between their teams to discuss measures to deal with international tax avoidance and evasion.’
There is no information available as to whether Corbyn was in a kneeling position during the audience, or whether he kissed the hand of the ‘outgoing’ leader of the ‘free world’, who in fact has feet of clay, since in a few weeks time he will represent nobody but himself.
To give the British ruling class a sense of continuity, a statement was also made about the crisis in the UK by Hillary Clinton, Obama’s candidate to replace himself as president. Clinton’s senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said: ‘Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic co-operation is essential, and that co-operation is strongest when Europe is united.’
Her presumption that she will be the next President of the US will anger the hundreds of thousands of US workers who are supporting Sanders to be the Democratic Party (DP) presidential candidate.
What has being confirmed by this crisis is that Obama is on the way out. He is an Emperor only in appearance, while Clinton is assuming too much and is heading for a fall, while UK capitalism is no longer a major imperialist power. It is broken and has been humiliated publicly. Its Cameron wing has got used to the idea that on its own it is a zero, and that its only realistic role is that of the US’ man in the EU camp!
Currently Obama is pushing hard for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal, to cut tariffs and regulatory barriers between the US and EU countries, and allow governments and the big US corporations to privatise services in Europe with no prospect of them ever being renationalised.
The US is in fact a rival of the EU and the UK is to be its man on the inside. This situation has become more desperate because the world crisis of capitalism that erupted in 2007-8 is rapidly worsening. Banking collapses are already taking place and major industries are on the brink of the abyss.
In fact, Obama’s chosen successor Hillary Clinton is fighting for her political life as the US Democratic Party itself is undergoing a political revolution. Hundreds of thousands of youth have joined the party to try to make sure that Clinton is not the DP’s presidential candidate. She is being confronted by Sanders, a democratic socialist. The working class in the US is entering the scene of history and hates the TTIP that Obama is desperate to sign and it despises Clinton!
While the masses are beginning to surge forward in the USA, the EU is disintegrating, and with it its aim to be a major imperialist power, able to stand up to the USA. It has attempted to move east, but all that it has produced in the Ukraine is a neo-fascist regime and a civil war.
It forced austerity onto Greece, Ireland and southern Europe, and is now receiving a massive kickback with mass strikes raging in France, Greece and Italy, while in the UK it has been reckoned that if Cameron loses the forthcoming referendum, he will last some 30 seconds or so. The EU has now to employ Turkey for 6 billion euros to traffic back to Asia refugees that its policies have caused, but whom it refuses to take!
Sarkozy and Cameron bombed Libya and sought to smash the Assad government in Syria, creating the refugee crisis. Now Italy, France and the UK are plotting to send thousands of troops to Libya as trainers, and then to bomb the country into smithereens when the ‘trainers’ are attacked.
This policy will have the support of Clinton, if selected and elected, no doubt. After all when she heard that Gadaffi had been murdered and hacked to death she told CBS: ‘We came, We saw, he died.’
This is why we must vote to leave the bankers and bosses EU on June 23rd, to bring down the Cameron regime and to go forward to a workers government in the UK. Then alongside the workers of the EU and US we must struggle for the victory of the world socialist revolution.
