From the Gully Account
From a trade deal perspective, the UK previously had access to around 43 active trade deals as part of EU membership – a membership that, as one of the largest net contributors it paid billions each year for.
The UK has replicated all but 3 of these (Bosnia, Montenegro, Algeria) and no longer has to pay the EU a subscription fee to access any of them.
True, but I would suspect the loss of trading preference with the EU (aka the free market) dwarfs the value of the trade deals so its a question of did the (net) costs outweight the benefits.
Since leaving the EU, the UK has improved the rolled over deals with Japan, Singapore and Ukraine – and is in the process of improvement with Canada, Mexico, Switzerland and Israel.
As well as striking completely new deals with Australia and New Zealand, the UK is also close to completion on FTA negotiations with India and the six-nation GCC – all not possible within the EU.
Its out of date clearly as we’ve abandoned the talks on a trade deal with Canada, but either way its basically the same point as the first.
By leaving the EU, the UK has been able to align with those markets projecting the highest growth over the coming decades (the so-called Indo-Pacific tilt), as opposed to being tied to a bloc projected to see declining relevance and stagnation.
UK CPTPP accession was signed earlier this year, with ratification expected by Q4 2024.
Projecting and achieving growth are not the same thing, and its all relative to your starting point. Also as a net importer of goods unless these deals have some killer financial/services element we can trade to make us money, then so what? Having a trade deal with most of these countries won’t do much for anyone in the UK.
Its all sort of marginal stuff. For example item 8:
In April this year the UK put into place its Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), which has seen the UK able to provide aid through encouraging trade with 65 developing nations across the globe – going further than EU GSP+ and EBA schemes.
This was simply not possible to do from within the EU.
Sounds great, and its technically true, but actually there’s a 3 tier EU scheme for the exact same 65 countries, so you need to say things like ‘going further than’ if you want to skirt around the fact that the ‘benefit’ is that it could be changed without asking the EU, rather than looking too hard at whether its really a benefit to anyone at all.
