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Leave out the details of this month's Brexit drama: Theresa May's dance steps, Boris Johnson's attacks on May's plan and the latest warnings from European capitals: it's time to get ready for Brexit . Let us focus on the few geopolitical certainties that, as we know, will follow the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, whatever the conditions.
Start on the other side of the Atlantic. Brexit will do no favor to the "privileged relationship" between the United States and Europe. An EU without the UK is a much weaker partner for Washington when the US and EU interests align and a much weaker alignment when these interests meet.
Yes, many of the problems that currently divide the United States and Europe are a longstanding issue – differences over Russian policy, NATO funding, and adventurism in the Middle East. East have already weighed on US-European relations. But Brexit undermines the transatlantic alliance at all levels as Brexit's challenges divert the energy and attention of Brussels from working with Washington to help reduce their divisions.
The UK will also be weaker in a post-Brexit world. It will need more than ever its partnership with the United States, especially as London's place as a global banking center is shrinking. If there is a person who understands the leverage, it's US President Donald Trump, who will have a lot more bargaining power with the UK when will come the time to negotiate a individual commercial agreement.
This is in direct contrast to the economic message that "Quit" activists were gearing up for the Brexit referendum in June 2016. According to the Brexiteers, an unbridled Briton from Brussels would give Downing Street more freedom to forge new business ties with a broadly diversified whole. partners, including rising China.
Things do not look much better on the foreign policy front, another area in which the supporters of the "leave" have said that the UK would do better to go it alone. With a current American President well disposed to Russia and a Europe adopting a policy towards Russian President Vladimir Putin based on a pragmatic acceptance of economic realities, especially on the need to export Russia's energy , the UK chose a bad time to strike on itself.
Friendships matter in geopolitics and, while the UK can certainly become a legitimate world power, it has not had to define its own foreign policy for decades. It will begin to do so in the most unstable geopolitical environment the world has seen since the Second World War, leaving little room for error.
Then there is the future of a post-Brexit European Union. The British boost in the EU will not immediately threaten the EU. In fact, the chaos in British politics has certainly helped to dampen the enthusiasm that some EU countries might have for their own exit.
But in the longer term, a weaker Europe, deprived of one of its most dynamic economies, will lose some of its brilliance on the international scene. The departure of Great Britain will certainly give France and Germany the power to try to strengthen European integration, but it is far from certain that it will is a winning proposition for the EU over time, given the various resistances encountered in the south and east of Europe.
Finally, once completed, Brexit will slow the momentum of trade integration that has done so much to create a global middle class and lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world. In short, it will be the biggest victory so far for populism before any country. Brexit will further fragment a global political system that is already fracturing and will generate more friction in global markets.
The current conflicts between the world's great powers are about trade and investment. The realization of Brexit will mark an important step towards a much more contentious international order.
