This Briefing Paper aims to further understanding of the importance of trade in services for the UK economy. In particular, to shed light on the relationship between services and manufacturing trade, including an increasingly significant form of services trade known as Mode 5. We explore input-output data, firm-level data and the links between services and manufacturing in the context of the UK’s independent trade policy. The authors provide evidence that shows that the nature of how these services interact with goods trade and the policy or market access barriers and their implications need to be understood in much greater detail for policy purposes. Read Briefing Paper 66: Links between services and manufacturing trade in the UK: Mode 5 and beyond

In this Briefing Paper, the authors review the importance of the UK-US trade relationship and identify clear interests for closer economic cooperation. They discuss the main challenges for trade discussions and suggest that bilateral cooperation – primarily in ad hoc regulatory areas – has potential, but there is a lack of interest on the US side. Finally, they look at broader economic issues and systematic policy issues, such as climate change, and multilateral economic relations where the UK hopes to cooperate with the US. Read Briefing Paper 65: DEEPENING AND MANAGING TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIPS

Since the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) came into force, firms trading with the EU have faced new costs as they learn to trade under new regulations and comply with customs formalities that were otherwise not present. In this Briefing Paper, we provide an analysis of UK monthly trade data to assess how UK goods trade has performed in the period January-July 2021. We also expand our analysis on preference utilization rates (PURs), which depict the extent to which UK exports to the EU have benefited from the tariff-free treatment agreed in the TCA as well as examining the impact of the TCA on trade in services in the first two quarters of 2021. Our analysis shows that the introduction of the TCA reduced trade between the UK and the EU, but this is not homogenous across sectors, although, whilst exports took a knock in January and have since recovered, the impact on imports has persisted. Furthermore, despite the zero-tariff, zero-quota trade agreement of the TCA, firms end up paying tariffs to avoid the bureaucratic costs of claiming zero tariff. The foregone duty saving amounts to £534.6 million. Read Briefing Paper 63: POST-BREXIT: TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES (II)

After decades of close economic integration, the UK’s relationship with the EU, its biggest and closest trading partner, is now governed by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). In this Briefing Paper we look at how UK merchandise trade has performed under the new regulations in the first quarter of 2021. We employ different methodologies to quantify a TCA-effect and find that trade with the EU was hit hard in January 2021 but may have rebounded in February and March 2021, with heterogenous effects across sectors. We also investigate the extent to which UK exports have benefited from tariff-free access in EU markets. Read Briefing Paper 57: POST-BREXIT: UK TRADE IN GOODS