b'F in the global economy. rom all this emerges, at the very least, four key facts and truths on the UKs trading relationships and position1. Truths1.1. The first truth: The EU needs us much more as a trading partner than we need it. From 1973 to 2012, our cumulative tradeFrom the point of view of the UKs balance deficit with the Common Market/Europeanof payments, this is a strong negative, and Union reached an astonishing 565.7 billion.a matter of concern. However, on Brexit our If this figure is indexed, it comes to overlarge (and cumulative) trade deficit with the 1,000 billion. This UK trade deficit with theEU countries should, if used intelligently EU continues to grow.enhance our position in a negotiation. No one on the Brexit side of the argument is To bring matters even more up to date, inadvocating a trade war. The scarcely veiled the past ten years in isolation (from 2010- threat of a trade war is the monopoly of 2019), the UK ran a 539 billion cumulativethe europhiles.trade deficit with the EU. By comparison with the rest of the world the UK ran a 286 billion trade surplus. 1 Table 85 CumulativeUK tradedeficit with the EU and surplus with the rest of the world 1999-2014 Source: ONS June 2020179'