Observations

“As time goes by…”

It takes time to negotiate trade deals. When the UK finally left the EU it had to start from scratch, as the EU forbids its members from negotiating on their own behalf. Nevertheless the UK now has deals in place with 94 countries – more than the EU.

Reading through the EU Commission’s information about the state of play with its trade negotiations, the best description would probably be “it’s a total mess”. There are a great many different categories of agreement, many of which barely come under the label of ‘free trade agreement’. Indeed the Commission itself only describes three as ‘free trade agreements’: those with Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam.

When investigating some of the EU’s deals in detail it transpires that many of these are still not approved by a significant number of member countries. To give a random example, the EU’s Central Africa “Economic Partnership Agreement” was agreed in principle in January 2009. 14 years later the EU Commission states that :-

“8 Member States have not ratified the agreement so far: Belgium, Germany, Estonia, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia.”

EU Commission, accessed 02 Apr 2023

The UK can trade globally without ceding sovereignty to the EU

This will obviously come as a shock to many Rejoiners, but the UK doesn’t have to be a member of the EU’s empire, nor to be under its laws, nor to have to subsidise its other members with billions of pounds in annual payments, in order to trade internationally.

It might also surprise Rejoiners to learn that in all its years of existence the EU has never managed to do a trade deal with the world’s largest economy, the United States, nor with the second-largest, China. Nor indeed with India which overtook France in the economic rankings last year.

The UK has had just two years since it finally exited the EU’s Customs Union and there is no question that it has done well. The EU’s average time to negotiate trade deals is more than 10 years.

There is obviously still a long way to go but the newly-independent United Kingdom is starting to take off on the global stage again. We hope readers found this four-part ‘Brexit Britain Trade’ series interesting and informative. If so, we hope you will help to keep us going. After all, you won’t hear any of this news on the BBC….

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