Britain clinched a narrow Brexit trade deal with the European Union on Thursday, just seven days before it exits one of the world’s biggest trading blocs in its most significant global shift since the loss of empire. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wears a mask after giving a statement on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, in Brussels, Belgium December 24, 2020. Francisco Seco/Pool via REUTERS The deal, agreed more than four years after Britain voted to leave the bloc by a slim margin, offers a way out of a chaotic finale to a divorce that has shaken the 70-year project to forge European unity from the ruins of World War Two. It will preserve Britain’s zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the bloc’s single market of 450 million consumers, but will not prevent economic pain and disruption for the United Kingdom or for EU […]