This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 25th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The contrast couldn't have been clearer.

New British Prime Minister Theresa May speaking in Davos about the need for global free trade,

a new US President Donald Trump extolling the virtues of protectionism.

Cato's Tom Clardy and Ryan Bourne sat down with me to discuss Brexit, the European Common

Market, and some politics of global trade.

Theresa May, the new Prime Minister, said Brexit means Brexit, even though she wasn't really a supporter of it and now we have

for people who are watching from afar seemingly out of nowhere, this sudden demand to have a parliament have

its say about this, which seems to go against the very idea of a referendum but please explain why

Parliament is is involved here in something that the people themselves chose.

Well so Britain had a referendum June 2016.

They voted for Brexit.

Problem was it wasn't clear what Brexit meant.

So that referendum had been established

by legislation in the British Parliament. but it really just said when the referendum

would happen. It didn't say what effect it would have. So it didn't obligate the

government to then pursue any particular form of Brexit.

It didn't say anything about the future economic relationship that Britain would have with the

EU.

It didn't actually even give the government the power, it turns out, to implement Brexit. It was simply in

legal terms an advisory referendum which didn't have any immediate legal effects.

...