Trade agreements will have to be renegotiated, stock prices will be pressured for a time, affecting anyone who has a 401(k) retirement account. And the economy in general will be unsettled.
“Stunning,” Schlagheck said.
Harry “Harvey” Casell, owner of Wise Choice British Foods in Huber Heights and a native of Wales, said the EU project didn’t work for Britain. It’s a “strong country, a strong people” that has prospered on its own, he said.
“Passing all those governmental issues to strangers hasn’t really worked well, I don’t think,” Cassell said. “The Brits are an independent people in lots of ways.”
British voters chose Thursday to leave the 28-member EU after a bitterly divisive referendum campaign, toppling the government, sending global markets plunging and shattering the stability of a project in continental unity designed half a century ago to prevent World War III.
The decision launches a process to renegotiate trade, business and political links between the United Kingdom and what would become a 27-nation bloc — one that’s even bigger in population than the United States.
“The dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom,” said Nigel Farage, leader of the U.K. Independence Party. “Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day!”
Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the campaign to keep Britain in the EU, said he would resign by October and left it to his successor to decide when to invoke Article 50, which triggers a departure from European Union.
Here are 5 things you need to know about the vote:
1. IMMIGRATION
Schlagheck believes British voters signaled how important the immigration issue is to them, an issue that resounds on American shores, too. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, has pledged to better control American borders while the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has pledged to pursue comprehensive immigration reform “with a path to full and equal citizenship” for undocumented immigrants.
“I genuinely think it was the (terrorist) attacks that we’ve seen in Europe, starting with Charlie Hebdo, etc.,” Schlagheck said, referring to the French magazine that was attacked by terrorists in 2011 and 2015. “Britain has a substantial Asian and Middle Eastern immigrant community, as well.”
2. STOCK MARKET
The British pound plummeted and Asian stock markets swooned on the news Friday. The turmoil spread to Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped some 500 points in the first five minutes after markets opened Friday, and was down about the same amount four hours after trading began.
Investment experts said they don’t expect it will have a long-range impact on U.S. markets. Josh Taylor, a financial advisor with the Kettering Edward Jones office, has some simple advice: Don’t panic.
Corrections happen about once a year and bear markets happen perhaps every three to four years, Taylor said.
“These are normal events,” he said. “We feel like time has shown us that owning quality stocks and bonds, and having the appropriate mix of those, you can weather markets like this.”
U.S. stock market performance in the month leading up to Friday
U.S. stock market performance drops on Friday
3. BUSINESS
The vote could weaken U.S. diplomatic leverage in Europe and upend the corporate strategies of U.S. companies based in Britain, the world’s fifth-largest market.
“The U.K. vote to exit the European Union could have significant economic repercussions,” Janet Yellen, chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, told Congress this week. A Brexit would “usher in a period of uncertainty” and fuel volatility in world markets. “That would negatively affect financial conditions and the U.S. economy.”
Said Schlagheck, “We’re going to write a new trade treaty with the British, obviously. We’ve never seen this happen before. We’re talking about a conscious uncoupling.”
4. IMPACT IN DAYTON
The parent company of LexisNexis, which has a large presence in the Dayton area with more than 2,000 employees, is based in the United Kingdom. Relx Group (formerly Reed Elsevier) has said it will decline comment on the possible effects of the decision.
“EU membership is a matter for the British people. As a company we have no plans to get involved in the public debate or react to it,” the company said in statement.
The impact in Ohio will be limited and short-term, said Terence Lau, a marketing and management professor at the University of Dayton.
>>>Remember when Obama brought Prime Minister Cameron to Dayton?
Ohio’s biggest exporting destinations are Canada and Mexico — with about $20 billion of Ohio goods going to Canada annually and about about $6 billion of goods to Mexico. Lau said. China and France are bigger trading partners with Ohio than the United Kingdom.
“Our trade with the U.K. (United Kingdom) has always been with the U.K.,” Lau added. “It’s not necessarily with the European market. We look at each country separately, anyway.
“There are obviously a lot of dimensions to this. It will take some time for all of this to work itself out. But I think the impact on Ohio will ultimately be pretty limited.”
5. OFF WALL STREET
U.S. stocks plunged in early trading Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 500 points, or 2.8 percent, to 17,515 in the first few minutes of trading Friday.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 57 points, or 2.7 percent, to 2,056. The Nasdaq composite sank 158 points, or 3.2 percent, to 4,751.
It was the biggest drop for U.S. stocks since September.
European markets fell even more. France’s benchmark index lost 8 percent and Britain’s fell 4 percent. The British pound plummeted to a 31-year low.
Bond prices rose sharply. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note dropped to 1.56 percent from 1.75 percent a day earlier, a huge move.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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