UK – Non EU – Page 3

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

Two months in: the impact of Brexit on UK trade

20 April 2021. Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UKTPO. Yohannes Ayele is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. A decline in trade with the EU was expected following the coming into force of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the UK and the EU on the 1st of January. Nevertheless, when the UK January trade figures were released in early March, almost unanimously commentators were surprised by the extent of the decline. We now have the data for February and so in this blog we update the numbers and discuss their significance. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-04-20T12:22:52+01:0020 April 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|17 Comments

Challenges ahead for the UK to join CPTPP

16 April 2021 Minako Morita-Jaeger is an International Trade Policy Consultant and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. On 1st February, the UK asked to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)[1]. While the request appears motivated more by foreign policy than economic benefit, joining the CPTPP will require the UK to accept CPTPP rules which may impact on UK economy and society in specific ways. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-04-16T15:37:18+01:0016 April 2021|UK - Non EU|8 Comments

The Craft of Trade Warfare

31 March 2021 Erika Szyszczak is Professor Emerita and a Fellow of the UKTPO. Trade has become a new tool of political and economic warfare. Recent years have seen a rise in threats and the disruptive use of use tariffs, export and import bans to further political aims by the two economic superpowers, the US and China. Other countries wishing to assert greater political influence, such as Russia or Turkey, have joined the fray. Although the disputes are characterized as being between States, the real impact of trade wars is felt by businesses, workers, consumers and ordinary citizens. The impact is felt in the COVID-19 pandemic, where critical supplies of medical products or Personal Protective Equipment are essential in a health emergency. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-03-31T12:20:12+01:0031 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

A Fine Kettle of Fish

23 March 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. Suzannah Walmsley is Principal Consultant and Fisheries and Aquaculture Business Development Manager at ABPmer. Last week the UK’s trade data for January 2021 came out and the evidence was pretty striking. It showed a dramatic decline in UK exports and imports in January, and particularly so with the EU. Now some of this will have been driven by Covid-related lockdown restrictions, and some of the dramatic fall in trade with the EU itself may have been driven by firms’ stockpiling in November and December to protect themselves against the much-publicised potential border difficulties arising from the UK’s exit from the EU and the end of the transition period. In this blog we dig a bit deeper into those numbers and focus just on fisheries. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-03-23T16:10:39+00:0023 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment