Brexit’s parallels with Trump tariffs tell a tale

IN FIGURING out why the US tariff shock has not sent the economy or financial world into a tailspin, Britain’s exit from the European Union trade bloc provides something of a playbook – and without a particularly happy ending.

Aside from vast differences in economic scale and global reach, the two episodes bear some comparison in how they upended years of deeply integrated free trade and possibly in how business, the economy at large and financial markets reacted.

The 2016 Brexit referendum and US President Donald Trump’s tariffs this year were each widely billed as economic shocks that would send the financial world into paroxysms. They did not, at least not at the outset.