member. what is often forgotten in all of the talk of the european union s rules and regulations is that its central project for decades was the creation of a single market. harmonizing taxes, eliminating tariffs, eliminating barriers. that vision was urged more aggressively by brittain s free market prime minister margaret thatcher. washington s former ambassador explains that brittain was always america s closest ally on substantive issues within europe. he writes, with brexit, the united states would lose a major supporter on a range of important trade and regulatory issues where the uk s more free market approach mirrored ours more closely than most eu states. sanctions again iran, russia and other countries, on data privacy and anti-trust matters. on counter terrorism and on
liberalism and autonomy. but what s astounding is hong kong has managed to exist as part of the largest modern authoritarian regime in the world and still remain any degree of autonomy in the first place. the root of this contradiction lies further back than you might think. a war between the british and the chinese that began in 1839. in the years leading up to it, chinese cities were effectively closed to international trade, except where british merchants flocked to buy tea. they exchanged it for the only commodity that the chinese wanted from brittain, opium, which flooded china even though it was illegal. eventually the chinese emperor noticed the drug scourge and dumped all the opium in the
for brittain, europe and the world. then if i wanted to win that war, afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth. that comment sent shock waves through afghanistan. i ll talk to the afghan ambassador to the united states about what her government has called trump s unacceptable remark. also from the opium wars of the 1800s to the protests that have been rocking hong kong for weeks. how did we get here and what makes hong kong such a flash point? i ll explain. first here s my take. brittain has a new prime minister and donald trump approves. he s tough and he s smart. they re saying brittain trump and people are saying that s a good thing. they like me over there.
in fact, only 28% of brittains have konch dense in trump compared to 79% who had confidence in obama. the biggest issue is that boris johnson s rise to 10 downing street is bad for brittain and europe and the united states. johnson has assured the house of commons that brittain will be out of the union in less than 100 days. how he can manage this without sharp divisions to the economy is a mystery. it would accelerate the decline of europe as global actor on the world stage. brittain has always been an organizing force in europe. it was the british government that took the lead making the marshal plan work in organizing the coalition that became natury. brittain took a while to enter the community, but once it joined in 1973, it became perhaps the most influential
national security issues. brittain is poised to withdraw from europe at a time when europe is withdrawing from the world. the continent was once led by figures like thatcher and cole who all believed europe had to play a priv toll role in global affairs. they built the single market, navigated the collapse of the soviet empire, welcomed in the countries of eastern and central europe, and projected western values onto the post cold war world. today, european leaders are consumed with europe s economic strains, populus politics and anti-european back lashes. jaer i mean is in caretaker mode. macron wants a stronger europe but is bedeviled by troubles. and europe suspect businessly preparing for an exit. the main challenge to gloeblt