Through its membership of the EU, the UK is currently party to just over 80 trade agreements (31 in force, and over 50 partly in place). Outside the EU Customs Union, the UK will be free to negotiate its own trade arrangements with any country or trading bloc, including the EU. But which to pursue first? And how will the complex inter-relationships and sequencing of negotiations affect the overall results?
Our Trade Partnerships section provides material that delves into the key issues surrounding the UK’s future place in the international trading system.
Commentary
The EU’s new approach to trade policy is based around the idea of “strategic autonomy”. The expression covers a number of proposals. One set of proposals reflects the EU’s desire to punish trade partners for “bad behaviour”. This might include state financial support to businesses that the engage in mergers and acquisitions in the EU; […]
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This year we decided to try something new with TKE and launched our very first podcast, ‘Trade Knowledge Matters’. When we first had the idea, we hadn’t anticipated the upheavals that would affect us all this year. Creating this medium for us has been quite the adventure and encouraged each of us to step out […]
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And so, in the final watch of the night, the WTO’s negotiators cast their nets one final time, and reeled in a collection of declarations and decisions. The “Geneva Package” isn’t a haul of biblical proportions. But it did include a multilateral agreement, that has been over 20 years in the making, on eliminating the […]
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The UK and Switzerland jointly announced that they would begin exploratory work this year on negotiating a “modernised and enhanced” Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The two countries also announced that they would try and conclude a mutual recognition agreement on financial services by the end of 2023. We consider some of the issues. Some quirky […]
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The consequences of the war in Ukraine will be far reaching because the conflict is acting as a catalyst for deep-seated shifts in global economic governance, and trade in particular. Nearly fifty days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the costs of war are escalating at every level. The death toll, difficult to determine for a variety […]
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With COP-26 starting today and one month to go until the 12th WTO ministerial conference, the trade-climate nexus is under the spotlight yet again. We will host a panel to discuss these questions. You can register here. In the meantime, here is a quick overview of some of the questions by way of background. We […]
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In our post entitled Brexit and the Irish border issue dated 9 February 2018, we wrote: The Issue of Brexit and the Irish border – how to avoid creating some form of border within the island of Ireland – has emerged as one of the most difficult in the entire Brexit negotiation. Three and a […]
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Agreement at last After more than four years of seemingly interminable negotiation following the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum decision to leave the European Union, the parties finally concluded a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) at the very last practicable moment, on Christmas Eve 2020. Ratification was rushed through both Houses of the UK Parliament on […]
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After long and arduous negotiations, the European Union and the United Kingdom signed a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on 24 December 2020. The agreement establishes the basis for the relationship between the two parties from 1 January 2021 onwards. The TCA largely corresponds to what we projected close to 3 years ago, given the […]
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What could the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. mean for US trade policy? Trade policy did not feature highly in the run up to the election (in contrast to 2016). And the immediate focus of the Biden administration is likely to be on dealing with Covid-19 and recovering from it. Its “Build back better” […]
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