Trade agreements

The Real Donald Trump: A Free Trader in Protectionist Clothing or Vice Versa?

7 November 2018 Rodney D. Ludema is a Professor of Economics, with a joint appointment in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Economics at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (See bio below) As the fifth meeting of the U.S. and U.K. Trade and Investment Working Group takes place this week in Washington, hope for an eventual U.S.-U.K. trade deal is on the rise, thanks to the White House’s recent notification to Congress of its intent to launch formal negotiations. This new optimism is astonishing in light of Trump’s protectionist moves of the past year and raises questions about the direction of U.S. trade policy more generally. Should Trump’s free trade overtures be taken seriously? Do they represent a change in strategy or even a change in tactics? How ambitious should we expect a U.S.-U.K. trade deal to be? To answer these questions, it is helpful to understand Trump’s motivations and the policy environment in which his policies are being developed. Such is the goal of this essay. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-11-07T08:57:59+00:007 November 2018|UK - Non EU|1 Comment

Would Canada-plus do the trick?

26 September 2018 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Nicolo Tamberi is a Research Assistant in Economics for the Observatory The brusque dismissal of elements of Mrs May’s Chequers plan at the informal meeting in Salzburg last week has stimulated feverish attempts to revive the case for a deep and special UK-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), under the title of a CETA-plus agreement. This effort received substantial reinforcement from the Institute for Economic Affairs’ paper of 24 September 2018. None of the discussion, however, has dealt seriously with the fact that an FTA will require the introduction of border formalities on UK-EU trade and that these will both violate the commitment to the absence of a border in Ireland and create serious congestion at those ports dealing with UK-EU flows, which will increase trading costs and cut trade with the EU. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-09-26T08:46:14+01:0026 September 2018|UK- EU|4 Comments

Decoding the Facilitated Customs Arrangement

23 July 2018 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory and Julia Magntorn is Research Officer in Economics at the UKTPO. There is much to digest in the White Paper on The future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union and much to clarify. This blog is devoted entirely to trying to understand the Facilitated Customs Arrangement (FCA) that aims to deliver frictionless trade in goods between the UK and the EU after Brexit. The FCA matters because trade that is ‘as frictionless as possible’ with the EU is now accepted by nearly everyone as desirable and has been characterised by much of business as essential. It also matters in the short term, however, because it is the UK government’s offer to the EU on how to ensure that there is no border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Without a solution to this latter problem there will be no Withdrawal Agreement and no transition. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-23T11:44:46+01:0023 July 2018|UK - Non EU|6 Comments

Regulatory barriers likely to be contentious and most significant obstacles to UK-US trade

12 July 2018 Rorden Wilkinson is Professor of Global Political Economy and Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sussex and a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Charlotte Humma is Research Communications Manager at the Business School and Business Manager at the Observatory. Standards and technical regulations are likely to be the most significant—and potentially contentious—obstacles to a UK-US trade deal according to leading trade experts. Published today our latest briefing paper states that the UK faces a challenge in whether it stays with EU regulation, moves towards the US approach or tries a pick-and-mix approach of its own. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-12T13:34:00+01:0012 July 2018|UK - Non EU|0 Comments

A New Model for EU Trade Agreements: Trade Only, Association/Economic Partnership Agreements … and … Investment Agreements

Trouble Ahead for post-Brexit Trade with the UK? 24 May 2018 Professor Erika Szyszczak is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. If, and when the UK is able to agree a new trade relationship with the EU it will be negotiating within a new EU approach to conducting trade agreements. This will have consequences for the type of agreement(s) the UK is able to negotiate with the EU, as well as the replication of any trade agreements negotiated by the EU and the rest of the world before the full Brexit process is finalised. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-05-24T11:50:12+01:0024 May 2018|UK- EU|0 Comments

The return of the Norway option?

18 May 2018 Julia Magntorn is Research Officer in Economics at the UKTPO. While Theresa May and her cabinet are trying to agree on whether to back the maximum facilitation proposal or the customs partnership, another option, nicknamed the ‘Norway option’ which would see the UK remaining a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), has made a comeback in the Brexit debate. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-05-18T12:00:22+01:0018 May 2018|UK- EU|3 Comments

Enhance governance of trade policy to ensure ‘Green Brexit’

2 May 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Dr Rob Amos is a Research Fellow in Law, Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, University of Sussex. Rob is conducting a project on Sustainable Trade Post-Brexit in collaboration with the UK Trade Policy Observatory. If the UK is going to live up to its commitments to ‘Green Brexit’, climate change mitigation and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the UK should develop its own Sustainability Impact Assessments framework to minimise negative impacts and maximise benefits of future trade agreements. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-05-02T08:09:44+01:002 May 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

A Customs Union with the EU: A giant step politically but a small step for the economy

1 May 2018 Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the economics of Brexit and Charlotte Humma is the Business Manager at the UKTPO. As the European Union (EU) Withdrawal Bill and the Trade Bill progress through parliament, forming a customs union with the EU has become a key issue. On 18 April 2018, the House of Lords voted to keep open the option of staying in a Customs Union after Brexit, promptly followed by the UK Government reaffirming its intention neither to remain in the EU Customs Union nor to seek to form a new one. So where does this leave us? […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-05-01T08:43:32+01:001 May 2018|UK- EU|8 Comments

Brexit will negatively affect all regions of the UK, but the North East is most vulnerable

26 March 2018 Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the economics of Brexit at the UKTPO The UK economy will be worse off after Brexit regardless of the terms of departure from the EU: this is (with a small number of exceptions) a consensus reached by previous analyses of the impact of Brexit. Anything that differs from the status quo of EU membership – ranging from a ‘soft’ Brexit that involves staying within the Customs Union and/or the Single Market to a ‘hard’ scenario of leaving the EU with no deal – will hurt growth prospects for the UK economy. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-03-26T11:55:36+01:0026 March 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|4 Comments

EU likely to reject bespoke Canada trade deal for UK

22 March 2018 Julia Magntorn is Research Assistant in Economics at the UKTPO and L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory. The European Union is likely to reject a significantly enhanced version of its Canada trade deal for the UK after Brexit. Our in-depth analysis of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada concludes that the EU’s commitment to the Single Market is so deeply ingrained that a substantial loosening of the rules for the UK would be politically impossible. The EU may agree to some exceptions but these would fall far short of a bespoke deal and would be a poor substitute for the Single Market, say the report’s authors Julia Magntorn and L. Alan Winters. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-03-22T08:13:10+00:0022 March 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments