UK – Non EU – Page 2

Russian MFN suspension: Implications for UK trade

11 March 2022 Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School President Biden announced today that the US, the EU, and the G7 countries (which includes the UK) will be suspending Russia’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status at the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this blog we look at what this actually means for the UK and what the potential trade implications are for the UK. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-03-11T17:59:04+00:0011 March 2022|UK - Non EU|2 Comments

The UK-Australia FTA – Can we call it a good deal?

4 March 2022 Minako Morita-Jaeger is Policy Research Fellow at the UK Trade Policy ObservatorySenior Research Fellow in International Trade in the Department of Economics, University of Sussex The UK signed a bilateral FTA with Australia on 17th December 2021. The Agreement is currently under UK parliamentary scrutiny for a three-month period until the middle of March. This is the first FTA the UK has negotiated with a trade partner ‘from scratch’. The Agreement is potentially an important benchmark for future trade negotiations, notably the ongoing application by the UK for accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-03-04T15:58:48+00:004 March 2022|UK - Non EU|2 Comments

WTO reform: Plurilateral Agreements

13 January 2022 L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of UK Trade Policy Observatory and Bernard Hoekman is Professor of Global Economics, European University Institute and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory It is widely accepted that international economic relations depend upon a smoothly functioning multilateral trading system. That trading system, institutionally underpinned by the World Trade Organization (WTO), can both stimulate economic activity and help to promote international cooperation in spheres such as climate change and migration. However, the WTO is becoming less relevant to a world in which services account for a growing share of trade, interest in environmental regulation (notably on CO2 emissions) is growing, and digital technology is reshaping our lives. These issues impinge directly on international trade and thus fall within the broad remit of international rulemaking in the WTO. However, decision making in the WTO typically requires consensus from all the Members, which is difficult to achieve when Members have different ideas about what the appropriate rules for dealing with such challenges are. Thus, not only has it become difficult for countries to agree on how to move forward, but these differences are creating new tensions in the global [...]

By Nick Phipps|2022-01-13T08:39:02+00:0013 January 2022|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

China and the WTO

10 December 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex and L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of UKTPO China acceded to the World Trade Organisation twenty years ago. Yet despite being a member of the international trading club for two decades, China’s ‘role’ in the trading system continues to generate controversy across a range of areas such as the alleged support to state-owned enterprises boosting their international competitiveness, restrictions on foreign direct investment in China and the ineffective intellectual property protection in China. In addition, and sometimes conflated with trade, there are technology-related security concerns and human rights abuses, notably with regard to the Uyghurs. The Covid-19 pandemic has also raised worries in some quarters about the vulnerability of supply chains, including over-reliance on particular suppliers such as China in critical sectors. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-12-11T08:15:46+00:0011 December 2021|UK - Non EU|0 Comments

The UK’s new trade deals – what should happen before they are signed?

26 November 2021 Chloe Anthony is an ESRC-funded doctoral researcher in environmental law at the University of Sussex Law School. Minako Morita-Jaeger is a Policy Research Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and a Senior Research Fellow of the University of Sussex Business School. L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of UKTPO. Trade deals primarily aim to facilitate trade between countries by lowering barriers to trade in both goods and services. Many of these barriers are increasingly concerned with different regulations across countries and also with so-called ‘non-trade policy areas’ such as labour or environmental standards. The UK’s most recent FTAs – for example, the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership – aim for cooperation beyond trade. The domestic impacts of trade deals – economic, social and environmental – can be significant, so it is important that UK trade deals are scrutinised domestically before they are signed. For example, trade agreements with larger partners, such as the EU or the US, may have significant domestic impacts. Even if aggregate impacts of a trade deal with one country are small, there still may be significant implications for certain sectors or groups within [...]

By Nick Phipps|2021-11-26T14:59:33+00:0026 November 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|2 Comments

The UK’s new Trade Agreements: Curb your Enthusiasm

8 November 2021 L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTP0 and Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. Key Findings: To date, the UK government has signed no new trade agreements relative to what it would have had as a continuing member of the EU. The Government estimates that the two agreements in principle announced this year (Australia and New Zealand) will increase UK Gross Domestic Product by between £200 and £500 million annually – that is, 0.01% to 0.02% (one to two ten-thousandths) of GDP or between £3 and £7 per head of population – and that only after they have bedded down over 15 years or so . We were asked to sum up the economic benefits of the UK’s new post-Brexit trade agreements. Our first observation is that if we take as a starting point the trade agreements that the UK would have been party to as a member of the EU, the government has, to date, signed no new trade agreements! […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-11-08T09:51:54+00:008 November 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|44 Comments

The economics and politics of China’s accession to the CPTPP

7 October 2021 Minako Morita-Jaeger is a Policy Research Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and a Senior Research Fellow of the University of Sussex Business School. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. Complex geopolitical landscape Trade policy concerns, national security and defence are increasingly intertwined in the Indo-Pacific region. This is partly driven by geo-political strategic interests and Sino-US rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region, and partly by the shifting economic balance of power towards the region. China formally applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) on 16 September, one day after Australia, UK and the US announced the creation of the new security partnership: Australia-UK-US (AUKUS). This should also be seen in the context of the Biden administration’s China containment strategy and an absence of US leadership in trade policy since the Trump era due to a greater focus on domestic priorities. China is thus trying to use the CPTPP as a tool in the geo-political power game in the Asia-Pacific region. By joining the CPTPP, China aims to cement its lead in trade and economic cooperation following the successful conclusion [...]

By Nick Phipps|2021-10-07T10:39:30+01:007 October 2021|UK - Non EU|1 Comment

Safeguard tariff rate quotas on steel imports: The Computor says ‘no’, but the Government says ‘yes’

8 July 2021 L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. On 1st June 2021, as part of its post-Brexit trade architecture, the UK Government launched the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA). On 11th June the TRA recommended the extension of only some of the quotas and tariffs on steel imports that the UK had inherited from the EU. On 30th June, one day before these measures were due to expire, the Government rejected the TRA’s recommendation and extended the policies on several categories of steel for which the TRA had recommended the revocation. It also announced a review to check whether the TRA was ‘fit for purpose’. What was going on? And does it matter? […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-07-08T13:03:45+01:008 July 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

UK-Australia FTA – Elbow bumps and all

16 June 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. Indications of a trade deal between the UK and Australia first surfaced soon after the Brexit referendum. This week it was announced that the two nations had agreed on the broad terms of the deal. The news was accompanied by images of PM Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, bumping elbows (the new handshake, if you will) and exchanging chocolate bars over baskets of British and Australian products. The deal has significance for several reasons. First, it is the first trade deal outside the EU that was designed from scratch. So far, UK trade agreements with other non-EU countries have been “continuity agreements” that were almost entirely based on pre-existing deals between the EU and the other nations (we include UK-Japan as de facto in this category). Secondly, it signifies the UK’s continued commitment to liberalising and opening trade, particularly with those countries with shared values, as part of its post-Brexit and Global Britain campaign. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-06-16T16:17:11+01:0016 June 2021|UK - Non EU|13 Comments

‘Global Britain’ is a slogan: global Britain is a fact

5 May 2021. L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. The Government’s Integrated Review, Global Britain in a competitive age, published in March 2021, presents the Government’s vision for the UK in 2030 and outlines plans to achieve it. It emphasises the importance of Britain asserting its influence on the world stage by sustaining advancements in science and technology, shaping the rules-based international order, and strengthening security and defences at home and overseas. It has a section titled “Putting trade at the heart of Global Britain” and expresses support for the multilateral system, designing rules and ensuring trade is fair and efficient. The document says that it is a “guide for action”; it says lots of the right things, but on the ground the UK is going backwards. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-05-05T13:11:00+01:005 May 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment