At last, the UK has been able to negotiate a free trade agreement with a major economy. The government had previously clocked up agreements with the Faroe Islands and Papua New Guinea but anything large seemed to elude them. Now however, Japan can be added to the list of countries which will be free trading with the UK. A big achievement? Well, no actually. Membership of the EU gave us a free trade deal with Japan which came into operation in 2019. It was the world's biggest trade agreement. So, what has the government achieved in dealing with Japan themselves? Little more than a photocopy of the EU-Japan free trade agreement. In other words, the UK gained what it already had! Let's hope for the sake of the UK economy in the future that we can ensure all trade deals allow us to import photocopiers tariff free!
1 comment:
Actually this is not as good a deal from a UK view as we might want to believe it is. The one thing that the EU agreement with Japan did was make for tariff free trade in cars and this in one fell swoop undermined the UK car industry in the EU. Although Brexit had a fair bit to do with it as well, immediately after the deal was implemented on 1st Feb 2019, Honda announced it was closing its Swindon plant (19th Feb 2019). Sunderland and Derby are looking increasingly dodgy now.
The one thing the UK is desperately short of is quality jobs, not things to buy tariff free.
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