Future of the European Union

[Montmorency]

Key point is without foreign support. We can be that support.




If the contracts are long term they were written well before the Brexit vote, and I don't see how you wouldn't be obligated to fulfill the terms of the contract up until the moment of Brexit.
I am expected to deliver grain shipment on March 30th, and I don't prepare that shipment because of Brexit but suddenly a deal is signed at the last moment and business continues as usual, am I not violating the contract?

Can you even begin to shift buyers and make commitments before March 29th? No one knows the outcome yet.

Not in our contemporary disposition. We can't outcolonialize or outcorrupt China, and we certainly shouldn't try. Western corps have historically been unleashed to this purpose already of course, but they're more enemy than servant of "free peoples".

The problem is I don't know anything about agricultural markets, but to some extent I imagine Brexit has been priced in starting 2.5 years ago. That is, the process begins with the vote result, not with the deadline.

Here's one report on a WTO/no-deal scenario I found, though just from a glance I can't tell if it describes the actual micro conduct of agribusiness contracts and financials: EU - UK agricultural trade: state of play and possible impacts of Brexit

This report analyzes current UK-EU27 agri-food trade, and quantifies the
impacts of a return to WTO rules after Brexit. Agri-food trade is likely to
decrease steeply, especially for meat and dairy sectors. However, there
might be an opportunity for an increase in production in a reduced
number of European sectors, such as red meat, cattle or wheat, to
replace imports from the UK. More generally, Ireland is likely to be the
most negatively impacted country and deserves particular attention
during the Brexit process

The relationship between the UK and the EU27 is characterized by a marked
dissymmetry. The EU27, as a whole, is a large market (more than 445 million
inhabitants and a GDP of USD 13.8 thousand billion in 2016), while the UK is relatively
smaller (a population of 65.6 million people and a GDP of USD 2.6 thousand billion).
Thus, the EU27 represents a large market and outlet for UK exporters, while the UK is,
in comparison, a small market for EU27 (even if it represents the main export
destination of some agri-food sectors in given EU27 countries). For these reasons,
macroeconomic impacts on the UK are significantly larger (e.g. -2.3% in GDP) than for
EU27 (-0.3%). Nevertheless, the UK is currently the second largest EU28 country and
is highly integrated with the EU27 in terms of trade and value chains. As a result, all
the EU27 countries will be negatively affected by Brexit, the magnitude of the impact
increasing with economic proximity to the UK. Ireland in particular (-3.4% in GDP,
USD -63.4 billion), and to a much lesser extent Belgium and Luxembourg (-0.7%) and
the Netherlands (-0.5%), are the most affected countries.

Agri-food products are less traded than manufactured ones and contribute less in total
GDP. They will face however the largest increases in trade protection, both in terms of
tariffs and non-tariff measures. Agri-food exports of the EU27 to the UK will decrease
by USD 34 billion (62%) and imports by USD 19 billion (with the same relative
decrease, 62%).

Trade diversion will take place; part of the decrease in exports to the UK will be
compensated by an increase in intra-EU27 trade (+1%) as well as in exports to third
countries (+0.9%). This is partly explained by a loss of UK’s competitiveness, due to
higher prices of imported intermediary consumptions. In the end, agri-food exports of
the EU27 to the world will decrease by 4.1% (USD -27 billion). The most affected
sectors (in value terms) are processed food (USD -10.5 billion, -4.7%),1 which is also
the most exported (33% of EU27 agri-food exports), white meat (USD -5.2 billion, -
10.5%) and dairy (USD -4.6 billion, -7%). The Netherlands (USD -6.7 billion, -66%),
Ireland (USD -6.5 billion, -71%) and France (USD -4.7 billion, -51%) undergo the
largest drops in exports.

Agri-food production and value added are also affected by trade with other countries
as well as domestic demand. The relative magnitude of each of these effects
(bilateral trade with the UK, trade with third countries and domestic demand) varies across
countries and sectors and determines Brexit’s impact heterogeneity.
In the UK, agrifood value-added increases (+2%), mainly because local production partially
substitutes imports from the EU27. This takes place at consumers expense since
consumption prices increase by 4%. In the EU27 as a whole, agri-food value-added
decreases by 0.8%; the increase in exports to third countries and in intra-EU trade do
not compensate for the loss of exports to UK. Even if in all EU27 countries, overall
agri-food value-added decreases, some sectors like Red meat (+2.1%) and Cattle
(+1.3%) in France gain thanks to their capacity to fulfill the domestic demand,
replacing imports from the UK. The wheat sector in France is one of the few where
value added increases (+1.7%) thanks to an increase in exports to other EU countries.
The fall in agri-food value-added is particularly large in Ireland (-16%, with a collapse
in white meat, -58%), because of the decrease in exports to UK but also to general
equilibrium effects leading to a strong decrease in domestic demand.

• Because of its tight relationship with the UK, of all EU27 countries, Ireland is affected
the most by Brexit, and not only in agri-food sectors. In relative terms, its GDP
decreases even more than UK's GDP (-3.4% vs -2.4%). This is explained by a drop in
Irish agri-food exports to the UK and to the rest of the World, including EU27 countries
as Irish production relies heavily on imported intermediates from the UK.

Hmm, UK always screwing the Irish.

But the term we're looking for is therefore "trade diversion". For EU producers who have been exporting to the UK, what is the nature of Brexit-related trade diversion? Here's a study on UK but not EU. TLDR

Articles on why EU agricultural policy (CAP) is good or bad. Articles on effect of Brexit on CAP. IDK what on the nitty gritty of how trade is executed.

That's about as much as I'm willing to work on this subject.

Are those workers permanent? Are there Chinese residents across Africa now maintaining and operating it, or is it the local populace doing the day to day maintenance and operations? Makes a big difference between the legal ownership and the de facto ownership if we are talking about hardball politics.

AFAIK yes, Chinese nationals

Small developing countries generally have a bad track record of trying to seize and operate technologically-reliant industry, nah?