29 March 2018 Dr Ingo Borchert is Senior Lecturer in Economics and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Julia Magntorn is Research Assistant in Economics at the Observatory. With one year to go until the UK will leave the European Union (EU), sorting out Britain’s trade relation with the EU is the most important task.  Yet the design of the future UK-EU agreement has implications for trade policy towards non-EU countries.  On account of this, the British Prime Minister in her Mansion House speech ruled out forming a new customs union with the EU because this “would not be compatible with a meaningful independent trade policy.”  Indeed, having sovereignty over its external trade policy post-Brexit has been at the forefront of the UK’s negotiation agenda, and consequently, the provision in the current draft Withdrawal Agreement that the UK may commence Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with other countries during the transition period was perceived as an important concession won. […]