Page 1 of What are the benefits of allying ourselves with the US?

I have been trying to think this through and cannot come up with any immediate benefits apart from trade and increased kudos on the world stage. As far as trade goes I do not think that the USA imports a great deal of our goods (although I could be wrong) and if that only leaves international standing then surely that has been compromised by recent events.

I am not suggesting that we declare war on the USA or anything like that, I was just wondering if anyone knew what we the Brits get out of it.

(Sorry, had the day off so have been watching the news channels all day)

Not nuked I hope ! :o

Things like fast food shops all over the place , no hang on they are all ready !!! :/



Coops

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As far as trade goes I do not think that the USA imports a great deal of our goods (although I could be wrong)

You`re wrong. :D

The USA is actually our biggest customer as far as exports are concerned - I can`t remember the exact figure, but we exported something like $45 billion worth of goods to the US last year.

Mike

And we`re the US`s biggest customer for second-hand and substandard armaments.

In return for backing the US up to the hilt, they promise not to cripple our economy by currency speculation, not to ruin British companies in the US by introducing punitive taxation and of course not to call in all those armaments debts the Tories got us into pre-1997 (like buying clapped out Chinook and Apache helicopters instead of investing in our own Westland Helicopters); not buying that hugely overpriced Trident missile system and having to build special rubber submarines to house them; buying second-hand AWAX early-warning planes...)

When are people going to realise the "special relationship" involves the phrase "bend over and squeal like a piggy"?

J Mark Oates

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apart from trade and increased kudos on the world stage

Thats everything you`d want really isn`t it? :)

And yes thats certainly true, they are our main exporters with 15.7% of our total goods exported to USA in 2003.

Rich, statto

Its like when you were at school. You had to keep in with the big bully even though you thought he was a bit of a twat.

I thought I might be wrong about the trade, but is the only reason that they give us that trade because we back them.

Do we realistically have any other choice but to support the Americans? Is our economy that interlinked with them that we have to follow their lead, and if that is the case does Tony Blair deserve all the stick that he is getting for doing so?

The UK gets security, plain and simple. This is from a paper I wrote last year
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The UK, it has been argued, cannot fire Tomahawk missiles without the U.S. as Raytheon, the Arizona-based manufacturer, keeps them in working order. In addition, Tomahawks use the U.S. guidance systems Tercom and GPS to find their targets. Furthermore, the U.K. requires U.S. permission to use its nuclear weapons as the U.S. sold Britain the 58 missiles for their four Trident submarines. U.S. Lockheed engineers control Trident from Coulport in Scotland and the missiles must return occasionally to the U.S. Navy`s Kings Bay servicing depot in Georgia .

I don`t think we need permission from any nation to fire any of our weapons, nuclear included.

Rich

..which is a little worrying, if true. `We` being who exactly?

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