I do want to bring in now Jeffries Briginshaw. He's the CEO of BritishAmerican Business. Austan Goolsbee is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and a professor for the Booth School of Business for the University of Chicago, along with Diana Furchtgott-Roth. She's a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor. And now she's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Diane, you first. As well as being an instrumental economic voice, you're also a dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K. You were in favor of Britain exiting the E.U. Tell us about this. Why do you think this is a positive move?
DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: Well, Americans wouldn't like being governed by an American union headquartered in Buenos Aires made up of other countries in America.
The problem is that in England, any law passed by Parliament has to be compliant with E.U. laws. There's a lot of feeling against the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels who do everything from making food sold in kilos to other kinds of environmental and transportation regulations.
The most important thing is that the E.U. is a failed experiment. It has highly educated citizens. It's only growing at about 1 percent. Britain is one of the strongest members. It will be far better off outside the E.U. than in it.
The real loser in this is the E.U., not Britain. When the dust settles, investors are going to go back into the markets and they're going to find that Britain is a good investment and will grow faster without the European Union. We wouldn't want an American union telling us what to do, and they don't want a European Union telling them what to do.
KEILAR: Jeffries, what's your response to that?
JEFFRIES BRIGINSHAW, CEO, BRITISHAMERICAN BUSINESS: So, I think we have been living with the uncertainty of the referendum for a long time. The business community hates uncertainty. We woke up this morning with shock. That's turned into concern.
And I have got to as you know that from a business community point of view, international, domestic, that's probably towards the downside of the risk of what this all means. But we have got to look for sources of calm, for stability.
And we're saying that the transatlantic economy, particularly the U.S.-U.K. part of that, is a huge source of potential stability and opportunity, even as we worry about the downside risks what of exit actually means.
So we're looking for opportunities, hoping that no one acts too fast to pull any triggers that kick off processes that have their own timetables that can't be stopped, but also thinking about where other sources of growth can come from, and the U.S.-U.K. economy is a huge potential for that.
There's $1.1 trillion invested between the countries, $250 billion worth of trade. And that, although it could be affected by exit, is a source for future strength. And so we're trying to say, let's keep calm, let's look around us, let's not act too rashly, but let's also look for some different upsides that can help us through this.
KEILAR: Austan, I want you to respond to that. And just for context, of course, you worked for President Obama, you support Hillary Clinton.
So react to what Jeffries and Diana have said and also tell us what this means here in the U.S.
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: I think it hinges critically on what is the time frame you're thinking about. If you say five years from now, how much will it matter, I don't think it will matter that much, because, over a longer period, they can negotiate a different relationship to Europe than being part of the E.U.
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Switzerland has done that. Norway has done that, Canada. But over the next four or five months, I think the answer to does this hurt Europe or the U.K., the answer is, it's going to hurt both. Nobody knows what's going on.
They have got -- are now the millions of people that are U.K. nationals on the continent, are they all going to have to get work visas? What's going to happen to the financial sector? I think it could easily send the U.K. into a recession in the short run, because any consumers or businesses that were going to invest are at least going to say, well, let's wait a few months and figure out how this is all going to play out.
So I think we're going to have a bumpy ride in the near term. And then over the longer run, these issues of is this just going to start the breakup of Europe and the breakup of the U.K., that the Scots are very likely to say, well, we don't want to have to be in the U.K. if they're going to do this, and then if you consider the Netherlands or Denmark or even Spain or Greece, there are going to be a lot of European countries who say that the country that had its own currency doesn't even want to deal with this, why should we deal with it?
KEILAR: Diana, what do you think about the ramifications here of the U.K.? We certainly would expect that Scotland might again try to have a referendum. What do you think?
FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, Scotland's economy is relatively small compared with the British economy.
The E.U. has every incentive to sign trade agreements with Britain, because Britain has a net deficit with the E.U. The E.U. exports more to Britain than Britain imports from Europe. So, it's very -- it's to the E.U.'s incentive to sign these trade agreements, also the other commonwealth countries, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, that have been in some sense shut out of U.K. markets because of the E.U., the United States so.
So, I think there are a lot of people, including China, by the way, that was pushing for Brexit, that is standing by trying to do business with the United Kingdom. The big loser, as Austan said, is the E.U. Once the U.K. has left, then other countries are going to want to either renegotiate or leave themselves.
The E.U. is a place for weak economies, not for strong economies that don't get as much out of it, and are more hobbled by the different regulations from Brussels.
KEILAR: Jeffries, though, I want to ask you a bit of a -- sorry -- I see you want to respond to what Diana said. Please go ahead.
BRIGINSHAW: Yes, that's not really a scenario I can see.
I think trade deals are tough to negotiate, boil down to economic weight. And Britain will have less economic weight.
Trade deficits are relevant, but it's governments that negotiate trade deals, not business. And so you can see there's a lot of politics building up in this already. And I can't see France or Germany being in a hurry to accommodate British business or their own industries' trade deficits.
So, I think the trade scenarios are much more difficult than, you know, we're putting on the table right now. That doesn't mean that in the longer term...
GOOLSBEE: I totally agree with that.
BRIGINSHAW: ... things don't get worked out.
And at the end of the day, a country's prosperity depends upon its own productivity and innovation and capabilities and the ingenuity of its business community. But politics can help. Market access can help. U.S. business invested in the U.K., is invested in the U.K. for market access in part, not only. And that market access might shrink, so that is a negative that won't easily be solved through new trade negotiations.
But that's what we will have to do. It's just that it's not going to be that easy.
KEILAR: It's not going to be easy.
