Reminder of how trade works:

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Brace: Britain’s government is preparing for the “very real prospect” of leaving the European Union without a deal, Michael Gove, the new minister in charge of no-deal preparations, said in an op-ed for the Sunday Times. The U.K. “must operate on the assumption” that EU leaders do not agree to change the Withdrawal Agreement and that Britain will therefore leave without a deal, Gove wrote.

VDL on Boris: “We both went to the European school in Brussels, but the conclusions he drew are obviously different from mine,” Ursula von der Leyen said Friday, speaking of Johnson, before adding the two hadn’t had any contact yet.

Donald Trump said he and Boris Johnson have already begun working on a free trade deal, which will be much bigger than would have been special lead possible under EU membership. “We’re working already on a trade agreement,” Trump told reporters after speaking to Johnson over the phone. “And I think it’ll be a very substantial trade agreement, you know we can do with the U.K., we can do three to four times, we were actually impeded by their relationship with the European Union.”

The bigger one’s side is, the better its chances of getting what it wants. Whether Britain should consider it good news that Trump sees an opportunity in a massive trade agreement, the U.S. president didn’t specify. But Johnson’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is pleased with the “kind of warmth we haven’t heard for quite a long period of time.” He told the Times of a phone call with his American counterpart Mark Pompeo: “I explained how pleased we were to have a U.S. administration, including the president, speaking so warmly about this country.”