The UK’s accession negotiation to the Asia-Pacific Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade deal was formally launched in June.  This Briefing Paper aims to examine the implications that joining the CPTPP would have for the UK’s regulatory strategy and what kind of impact it could have for future trade negotiations. To examine these issues, we look at the digital trade provisions in recent trade agreements between the UK and the EU, Japan and Australia. Read Briefing Paper 61: ACCESSING CPTPP WITHOUT A NATIONAL DIGITAL REGULATORY STRATEGY? HARD POLICY CHALLENGES FOR THE UK

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the UK and the EU came into force on the 1st January 2021. This Briefing Paper looks at the main changes to trading services. The authors find that provisions in the TCA are a major setback for services sectors (compared to the conditions for trading services within the Single Market or during the transition period), particularly for financial and transportation services. As a service-driven economy, this is a weak deal for the UK. A general ramification is that services trade with the EU may have to rely increasingly on commercial presence rather than cross-border supply. This shift, though by no means costless, will be relatively easier for large businesses that may already have affiliate enterprises within the EU-27. Furthermore, the TCA is an incomplete agreement in the sense that the precise conditions under which services can be traded with the EU still need to be worked out in a number of areas, including financial services, cross-border data flows, and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. Read Briefing Paper 53: TAKING STOCK OF THE UK-EU TRADE AND COOPERATION AGREEMENT: TRADE IN SERVICES AND DIGITAL TRADE

The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement has been presented by the UK Government as the first Free Trade Agreement (FTA) for the UK as an independent trading nation. This Briefing Paper provides an analysis of this new agreement in relation to the Japan-EU EPA and draws two major lessons for the UK’s future free trade agreements.  First, the authors find that it mostly replicates the Japan-EU EPA, with the UK failing to break new ground after independence from the EU trade regime. Second, they argue that substantive and inclusive policy discussions with a range of stakeholders need to take place to enable public scrutiny and discussion of the implications of policy positions, before negotiating with trade partners. Read Briefing Paper 50: The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement: Lessons for the UK’s future trade agreements

This Briefing Paper examines the underlying issues related to the Japan-UK Free Trade Agreement negotiation. The author argues that there are two significant challenges underlying the Japan-UK FTA negotiation: the EU-UK FTA and the timeframe. The paper then discusses what should be prioritised to make the Japan-UK FTA ambitious, taking into account the unprecedented short negotiating timeframe, and proposes a possible mechanism to cope with unfinished business in order to make the agreement truly valuable in the long-term. Read Briefing Paper 46: THE JAPAN-UK FREE TRADE AGREEMENT – CONTINUITY OR NO CONTINUITY? HOW CAN IT STILL BE AMBITIOUS?

In the case that the UK manages an orderly Brexit and has a transition period until the end of 2020, rather than just rolling over the existing agreements, what would be the possible options for future Free Trade Agreements? In the case of a future UK-Korea deal, the UK could potentially negotiate a new FTA built on the Korea-EU FTA (KorEU) or negotiate a completely new FTA modelled on the Korea-US FTA (KORUS). Our comparative analysis of KorEU and KORUS in services reveals that the two agreements took very different approaches for services trade liberalisation. Both achieved “GATS-plus” liberalisation commitments from Korea. KORUS seems to have achieved slightly more than KorEU. However, KORUS is more complicated and less transparent than KorEU. It also contains more WTO-inconsistent features. The KORUS option would enable the UK to better pursue its own specific needs since it would not be directly bound by KorEU. On the other hand, the WTO-inconsistent aspects of KORUS would need to be avoided, based on a clear vision of UK’s contribution towards the future multilateral trading system. Either way, the UK would face two stumbling blocks: the UK’s lack of negotiating power and the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clauses [...]