Trade

Farewell to the UK/US trade deal. That's the news from Liz Truss's trip to the UN assembly in New York. The Prime Minister has told hacks on the flight over that the UK will not strike an agreement with America for many years. The former international trade secretary suggested that talks were unlikely to even start in the medium term: 'There isn't currently any negotiation taking place with the US and I don't have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term.' The comments come ahead of her first proper meeting with Joe Biden since becoming Prime Minister. The former International Trade Secretary suggested that talks were unlikely to even start in the medium term Her comments have caused quite a stir back home.

The UK is about to publish a bill that will override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol. We are doing this unilaterally – the EU doesn't want us to do it, but we're going to do it anyway. Surely that means we’re about to breach international law? It's worth quickly going over why this is happening. The EU wanted to protect its common market, and no one wanted a border down the island of Ireland, so a trade border was placed in the Irish Sea. That has created trade friction between two constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Unionists are unhappy with that arrangement. And unhappy Unionists have led to the suspension of power-sharing at Stormont and therefore a problem for the Good Friday Agreement. So, the UK feels it has to act. But – ah!

For European Union enthusiasts, the ‘trade deal with America’ has joined ‘£350 million pledge on a bus’ as one of the great Brexit lies. A certain amount of gloating has therefore greeted the news that Joe Biden last night ‘downplayed’ the possibility of a US-U.K. Free Trade Agreement. It’s a ‘snub’, Brexiteer hopes are dashed, and so on. But did Biden actually ‘downplay’ anything? Not really, since nobody has been seriously playing up the possibility of late. Many journalists are today talking as if the Prime Minister had been hoping to announce with Biden the trade deal Donald Trump promised Britain in 2017. But Boris has been the one minimising the government’s hopes.

All eyes are on the flyover state of Ohio as the fight for the future of Trumpism unfolds. In January, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman announced he was bowing out of politics for good. His vacancy has set up a rare primary between two candidates offering two different versions of Donald Trump's amorphous ideology. One believes the former president's rhetoric should assimilate with bygone Tea Party-era politics and contemporary culture war talking points. The other is running on the populist rollercoaster that slung Trump into the White House. Rust Belt boy wonder Josh Mandel, who served in the statehouse and was state treasurer for almost a decade, touts a pro-Trump campaign 'to protect the Judeo-Christian bedrock of America.

Trade deals are in the air post-Brexit, but not everybody is happy. In a speech this week Frances O’Grady, the TUC General Secretary, accused the government of not taking international morality into proper account when closing such deals. She demanded the government take steps to suspend trade deals with a number of countries that, according to recent research by the TUC, had a murky record on labour standards and human rights. By failing to do this and continuing to deal with these regimes, she said, the UK would be turning its back on workers everywhere and in addition demonstrating that it could not be trusted to observe decent standards at home.

The basis of the UK’s first bespoke trade deal since leaving the EU was finalised with Australia over two dinners. One took place in the garden of the residence of the Australian High Commissioner to the UK, where guests were fed Australian lamb. The other in Downing Street where Welsh lamb was on the menu. They were menu choices that pointed both to what the deal would achieve – zero tariffs, including on agricultural goods – and the main point of contention in a negotiation that has spanned nearly a year since talks began last June. In that time, there has been a Cabinet row over protectionism on Australian meat imports and a diplomatic incident that nearly hampered the talks.

The UK government has agreed its first bespoke trade deal since leaving the EU. After Boris Johnson met with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday night, a deal has been agreed between the two sides. The deal on the table offers tariff free trade for all British goods, enhanced access for British tech companies and ought to make it easer for Britons under the age of 35 to travel and work in Australia. As for the Cabinet row over whether an influx of Australian meat could threaten the livelihoods of UK farmers, a 15-year cap on tariff-free imports has been agreed – though the specifics are yet to be published. The deal shows that free marketeers in government are still being heard So, what does this mean for the country?

Britain has already seen two ‘Brexit days’ — when it formally left the EU on 31 January 2020 and the end of the transition period 11 months later. But given that it has taken less than six months for the Northern Ireland protocol to unravel, it’s horribly clear that our future relationship with the EU is anything but settled. The transport of sausages and other chilled meats from Britain to Northern Irish supermarkets may seem a trivial matter. But the attempt by the EU to enforce a ban on this trade demonstrates what so many people found problematic about the idea of an internal UK border down the Irish Sea. And it is surely a harbinger of battles to come.