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The fallout from Brexit will spread across the Atlantic

This isn’t good for us either.

European Council President Donald Tusk holds up the document from the UK during a media conference at the Europa building in Brussels on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo
European Council President Donald Tusk holds up the document from the UK during a media conference at the Europa building in Brussels on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo

The UK began the process to officially leave the European Union on Wednesday, nine months after the country first voted to do so.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May sent a formal notice to the head of the European Council, Donald Tusk, informing him of the U.K.’s decision to leave the union, thus beginning the two-year negotiations for what that withdrawal would look like.

There are still a lot of questions that the U.K. will have to deal with — like trade, immigration, and even the unity of its own state. But Brexit isn’t just an issue for those across the pond; it will also have a major impact on the United States.

For one thing, Brexit will seriously affect the global economy. One of the key issues in UK-EU negotiations will be whether the U.K. will continue to be included in the union’s free trade and migration agreements.

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Such a large amount of uncertainty isn’t good for the British economy, or the global one — especially since it will take a long time to come to an agreement. Before last year’s referendum, the Bank of England warned about the “risks of adverse spill-overs to the global economy” if the U.K. leaves the union.

“Negotiations on post-exit arrangements would likely be protracted, resulting in an extended period of heightened uncertainty that could weigh heavily on confidence and investment, all the while increasing financial market volatility,” the International Monetary Fund (IMF) similarly warned last April. “A U.K. exit from Europe’s single market would also likely disrupt and reduce mutual trade and financial flows, curtailing key benefits from economic cooperation and integration, such as those resulting from economies of scale and efficient specialization.”

And regardless of what the final deal looks like, the rest of the world will feel its impact. The EU is a huge market, and it accepts about 44 percent of all British exports. As a result, the U.K. Treasury has warned that the country will be “permanently poorer” under any deal it negotiates after leaving the union.

U.S. companies often invest in the U.K. to gain access to European markets — which soon may no longer exist.

Brexit also has significant implications for U.S. national security.

Many British national security experts urged the U.K. to remain in the European Union. They included MI6 Chief John Sawers, then-UK Home Secretary and current Prime Minister Theresa May, former Chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee Pauline Neville-Jones, former Director General of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller, and Europol Chief Rob Wainwright. The gist of their argument was that the United Kingdom would be cut off from important inter-European intelligence sharing if it leaves the union.

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The U.K. is America’s biggest ally in the European Union — meaning that, if the U.K. loses routine access to other European intelligence sources, the United States could also feel the effects. Many U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials have also warned about the repercussions Brexit would have on other areas of international concern, like NATO.

“You clearly have a much weaker Britain whose sway in European capitals is lessened by the vote,” Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told Reuters after last year’s referendum. That will affect its ability to push its views in NATO, where it often backs the United States, he added.

Phil Gordon, a former senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, also told Reuters he was concerned that Europe’s focus on regional upheavals such as Brexit will act as a drain on its ability to tackle other international concerns.

“The more time it spends on doing that, the more resources it spends on coping with the consequences of that, the less time and money and political capital it is going to have to help us with global challenges,” Gordon said.