The United Kingdom's June 23 referendum has already undone much of the fleeting economic progress that Abe made over the past two years. The vote sent Japan's 20-year bond yields tumbling into the negative realm, where they have joined other Japanese bonds with life spans of less than two decades. At the same time, the value of the yen is being nudged upward as buyers exchange their pounds for yen to purchase Japanese bonds. The strengthening currency, in turn, has effectively made imports cheaper. Now Japan is teetering on the verge of deflation, and its consumer price index has sunk back to -0.4. Each of these developments runs counter to the goals of Abenomics, designed to pull the Japanese economy out of a two-decade slump characterized by low inflation and sluggish growth.