9 November 2016 L. Alan Winters, Professor of Economics and Director of UKTPO. Donald Trump viewed Brexit as a great victory. He also said that the UK would not be at the back of the line for trade deals – perhaps because there would be no line! But where does Trump’s victory leave the overall strategy of Brexit? It makes keeping good access to the EU market – some form of soft Brexit – even more important than it was previously. […]
7 November 2016 L. Alan Winters, Professor of Economics and Director of UKTPO. The ideal trading partner is rich, large, similar and next door. For the UK this means the EU, and for the UK government, this means trade negotiations with our European neighbours must take priority. In my recent article for the NIESR November Review, I explore the reasons why negotiating the UK’s future trade arrangements is a massive job. These are the main points I raise. […]
19 October 2016 L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Director of the UKTPO Rule 1 for negotiation: work out what you want and how much you can pay for it. Rule 2: try to understand where the other side is coming from and how they feel. The muted mood this week among trade specialists in Sweden, one of the UK’s closest allies in the EU, should serve as a reality check ahead of Brexit negotiations. If we want to make Brexit work, we need to take their views seriously. […]
14 October 2016 L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex, and director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Nick Jacob is an associate tutor and research student in economics – also at the University of Sussex. Few doubt that Brexit poses some immense challenges for the British economy. But for a government that professes to want an economy that ‘works for everyone’, there is possibly one encouraging factor: Brexit seems likely to help re-balance the economy. This note asks what Brexit implies for different parts of the UK and suggests two reasons why regions outside London and the South East could be less severely challenged. […]
29 July 2016 Professor L. Alan Winters, Professor Jim Rollo and Dr Peter Holmes are all members of UKTPO Liam Fox MP, the President of the Board of Trade, is reported as saying that the UK should leave the EU Customs Union so as to give it the freedom to negotiate Free Trade Areas (FTAs) with other countries. This would be an unexceptionable step after full Brexit but a provocative, and very probably costly, one before Brexit. […]
By electing to leave the European Union, the United Kingdom has chosen – among many other things – to leave the customs union (and the single market that includes all member states) and reassert its status as an individual member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In doing so, it will take sole responsibility for the control and governance of its external trade policy with all other WTO members (including the EU) within the framework of WTO rules. This paper explores the nature of those WTO commitments and how they might impact the UK from the date of its exit from the EU. Read Briefing Paper 1 – THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION: A SAFETY NET FOR A POST-BREXIT UK TRADE POLICY?
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