What we can do to fix Brexit and the Irish Border crisis
23 May 2022
Peter Holmes is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Emeritus Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School
UK trade with Europe has significantly fallen off (see UKTPO BP 63 for an early assessment). UK GDP has fallen by 4%. If we cancel the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) – which is all the talk at the moment – the economic consequences of Brexit will get worse and let’s not even think about the political consequences. Is any of this fixable? Yes, if we look ahead to 2025 when the Brexit agreement with the EU—formally known as the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) —is up for its 5-yearly review. UK stakeholders, including political parties planning their manifestoes ahead of the next UK general election in 2024, should consider their Brexit positions now – but it’s not a case of leave or remain, rather a case of ‘tweak the Brexit agreement to something that better suits us’. […]
Cutting tariffs on food products: why bother?
6 May 2022
L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics at University of Sussex Business School and Founding Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO.
The concept is simple: cut tariffs levied on food imports so the products become cheaper in the UK, right? In this blog, we look at the trade data and discuss the reasons why changing tariffs would hardly affect prices.[1]
- Only a small proportion of imports pay tariffs.
In 2021, the UK imported £38.6 billion of food products[2] (equivalent to 7.6% of the UK’s total imports that year and about 46% of UK food consumption). Approximately 66% come from the EU and are already exempt from tariffs under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).[3] […]
What a digital divide and divergence of data governance in the Asia-Pacific mean for the UK
4 May 2022
Minako Morita-Jaeger is Policy Research Fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory and
Senior Research Fellow in International Trade in the Department of Economics, University of Sussex
The UK Government is aiming to secure the UK’s status as “a global hub” of digital trade, using Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as well as digital economy agreements. Driven by the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt strategy, the UK has been signing FTAs that include specific chapters/agreements on digital trade (such as with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan) and a digital economy agreement with Singapore. […]
Briefing Paper 67 – SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE: THE DANGERS OF ‘PICK N MIX’
Despite the positive narrative around the growth in global supply chains, we currently see considerable discussion and growing concern over the issue of ‘supply chain resilience’. This Briefing Paper analyses the rationale behind greater supply chain resilience and sustainability and the policies being used to address vulnerability in certain supply chains. The author finds that policy responses do not always concern supply chain resilience and in many cases they may have been designed more to protect domestic producers. To negate the risk that supply chain resilience is used as a get-out clause for a wide range of industrial policy interventions. This Briefing Paper suggests a taxonomy for understanding different possible legitimate reasons for being concerned about supply chains and provides ten ways more international coordination could be achieved.
Read Briefing Paper 67: Supply Chain Resilience: The dangers of ‘pick n mix’
Russian MFN suspension: Implications for UK trade
11 March 2022
Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School
President Biden announced today that the US, the EU, and the G7 countries (which includes the UK) will be suspending Russia’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status at the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this blog we look at what this actually means for the UK and what the potential trade implications are for the UK. […]
Finding the benefits of Brexit: food law and the UK’s emerging regulatory identity
10 March 2022 
Emily Lydgate is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and Chloe Anthony is a Doctoral Researcher and Tutor at the University of Sussex Law School
From chlorinated chicken to sausage wars, food law has been highly contested in defining the UK’s post-Brexit direction. Not only is it seen as vulnerable to deregulation through trade agreements, the UK has faced new trade barriers with the EU and between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. These have concerned regulatory issues and have had an enormous impact on food trade. While much attention has rightly focused on Northern Ireland, departure from the EU’s regulatory union has provided a steep challenge in the rest of Great Britain, too. Food law is a devolved matter and Scotland has passed legislation setting out its intent to continue aligning with EU law, including for food law. […]
The UK-Australia FTA – Can we call it a good deal?
4 March 2022
Minako Morita-Jaeger is Policy Research Fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory
Senior Research Fellow in International Trade in the Department of Economics, University of Sussex
The UK signed a bilateral FTA with Australia on 17th December 2021. The Agreement is currently under UK parliamentary scrutiny for a three-month period until the middle of March. This is the first FTA the UK has negotiated with a trade partner ‘from scratch’. The Agreement is potentially an important benchmark for future trade negotiations, notably the ongoing application by the UK for accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). […]
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) one year on: trade in goods
11 February 2022
Nicolo Tamberi is Research Officer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Fellow of UKTPO.
With trade data for the full year 2021 just released, we update our earlier estimates of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement’s impact on bilateral trade between the UK and the EU for the first year of the agreement. […]
Briefing Paper 66 – LINKS BETWEEN SERVICES AND MANUFACTURING TRADE IN THE UK: MODE 5 AND BEYOND
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
The Ukraine-Russia crisis and possible trade sanctions
27 January 2022
Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex and Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO.
The crisis between Ukraine and Russia is deeply concerning – for the people of Ukraine, but also in terms of broader ramifications for world order and stability. NATO’s strategy to avoid direct military action against Russia points at diplomacy and economic sanctions. It is therefore useful to consider the possible role of these in the realm of international trade.
As we show below, Russian trade is highly dependent on the EU and NATO member states. Hence, the scope for the use of such policy is there. This is not an argument, however, for so doing – as that involves complex political trade-offs (which are beyond the scope of this blog). The importance of Russia as a supplier in particular sectors, notably energy, and hence the dependence of the EU and NATO member states on Russia is also a factor in those trade-offs.
