UK- EU

UK-EU trade and the TCA update: results up to April 2021

23 July 2021 Nicolo Tamberi is Research Officer in Economics at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UKTPO. We have updated our estimates of the effects of the introduction of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on UK-EU trade in 2021 through to April. The methodology used was described in the UKTPO briefing paper 57 (see the appendix for details). We find that over the period January-April 2021, the TCA reduced UK exports to the EU by 18.7% and imports from the EU by 25.8% compared to the scenario in which the UK did not leave the EU. […]

By Nicolò Tamberi|2025-07-18T09:59:29+01:0023 July 2021|UK- EU|2 Comments

Honesty is such a lonely word…

22 July 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) at the University of Sussex. L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTPO. The UK Government’s command paper on Northern Ireland published yesterday (21 July 2021) is significant in four regards. First, because it explicitly recognises – at length – that the Protocol is not working (at least not for the UK) and needs to be modified in form or in implementation. This is almost certainly correct. […]

By L. Alan Winters, Michael Gasiorek|2025-07-18T10:00:14+01:0022 July 2021|UK- EU|100 Comments

Safeguard tariff rate quotas on steel imports: The Computor says ‘no’, but the Government says ‘yes’

8 July 2021 L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. On 1st June 2021, as part of its post-Brexit trade architecture, the UK Government launched the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA). On 11th June the TRA recommended the extension of only some of the quotas and tariffs on steel imports that the UK had inherited from the EU. On 30th June, one day before these measures were due to expire, the Government rejected the TRA’s recommendation and extended the policies on several categories of steel for which the TRA had recommended the revocation. It also announced a review to check whether the TRA was ‘fit for purpose’. What was going on? And does it matter? […]

By L. Alan Winters|2025-07-18T10:00:50+01:008 July 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

‘Global Britain’ is a slogan: global Britain is a fact

5 May 2021. L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. The Government’s Integrated Review, Global Britain in a competitive age, published in March 2021, presents the Government’s vision for the UK in 2030 and outlines plans to achieve it. It emphasises the importance of Britain asserting its influence on the world stage by sustaining advancements in science and technology, shaping the rules-based international order, and strengthening security and defences at home and overseas. It has a section titled “Putting trade at the heart of Global Britain” and expresses support for the multilateral system, designing rules and ensuring trade is fair and efficient. The document says that it is a “guide for action”; it says lots of the right things, but on the ground the UK is going backwards. […]

By L. Alan Winters, Guillermo Larbalestier|2025-07-18T10:01:39+01:005 May 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

Two months in: the impact of Brexit on UK trade

20 April 2021. Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UKTPO. Yohannes Ayele is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. A decline in trade with the EU was expected following the coming into force of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the UK and the EU on the 1st of January. Nevertheless, when the UK January trade figures were released in early March, almost unanimously commentators were surprised by the extent of the decline. We now have the data for February and so in this blog we update the numbers and discuss their significance. […]

By Michael Gasiorek, Yohannes Ayele|2025-07-18T10:05:10+01:0020 April 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|17 Comments

The Craft of Trade Warfare

31 March 2021 Erika Szyszczak is Professor Emerita and a Fellow of the UKTPO. Trade has become a new tool of political and economic warfare. Recent years have seen a rise in threats and the disruptive use of use tariffs, export and import bans to further political aims by the two economic superpowers, the US and China. Other countries wishing to assert greater political influence, such as Russia or Turkey, have joined the fray. Although the disputes are characterized as being between States, the real impact of trade wars is felt by businesses, workers, consumers and ordinary citizens. The impact is felt in the COVID-19 pandemic, where critical supplies of medical products or Personal Protective Equipment are essential in a health emergency. […]

By Erika Szyszczak|2025-07-18T10:07:50+01:0031 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

A Fine Kettle of Fish

23 March 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. Suzannah Walmsley is Principal Consultant and Fisheries and Aquaculture Business Development Manager at ABPmer. Last week the UK’s trade data for January 2021 came out and the evidence was pretty striking. It showed a dramatic decline in UK exports and imports in January, and particularly so with the EU. Now some of this will have been driven by Covid-related lockdown restrictions, and some of the dramatic fall in trade with the EU itself may have been driven by firms’ stockpiling in November and December to protect themselves against the much-publicised potential border difficulties arising from the UK’s exit from the EU and the end of the transition period. In this blog we dig a bit deeper into those numbers and focus just on fisheries. […]

By Suzannah Walmsley, Michael Gasiorek|2025-07-18T10:09:17+01:0023 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

What can we learn from one month’s trade data: UK-EU trade in January 2021

13 March 2021 Yohannes Ayele is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit, Nicolo Tamberi is Research Officer in Economics, and Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex. All are Fellows of the UKTPO. On Friday 12 March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) released the UK’s trade in goods figures for January 2021, providing data for the first month following the end of the Brexit transition period. The ONS has provided their own interpretation of these data portraying a rather gloomy scene for UK trade. We have downloaded the raw data and here offer some initial thoughts on what we learn from the changes in trade flows in January 2021. […]

By Yohannes Ayele, Nicolò Tamberi, Guillermo Larbalestier|2025-07-18T10:10:43+01:0015 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

The UK must develop a cross-cutting strategy for trade and climate policy in order to become a world leader in both

3 March 2021 Dr Emily Lydgate is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex, and a Deputy Director of UKTPO. Chloe Anthony is a doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex. This blog was first published on LSE British Politics and Policy. Due to differences in underlying logic, there is much potential for trade and climate policy to conflict. Fundamentally, world trade rules and agreements aim to facilitate the free movement of goods and services, and restrict subsidies that distort trade. Climate policy, on the other hand, aims to support the low-carbon economy and restrict trade in high-carbon goods and services. The UK was the first country to put its climate target into law in 2008; it has met its first two interim targets for emissions reduction and is on course to meet the third in 2022. Yet analysis has shown that the first two emissions targets were met due to changes in accounting methods and the financial crisis, rather than due to effective policymaking. […]

By Emily Lydgate, Chloe Anthony|2025-07-18T10:11:23+01:003 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

Two key things to know about Freeports

25 February 2021 Peter Holmes is a Fellow of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex. The Government’s competition for proposals to create ten Freeports across the UK came to a close earlier this month with an announcement of the successful locations expected soon. Freeports are areas within a country that are outside its customs territory. Goods coming into the country via Freeports are exempt from paying tariffs until they enter the mainland or are shipped to another country. In the UK Freeports model[1] these areas may also be subject to special regulatory, tax, or subsidy rules. Such features may make the terms Enterprise Zone, Special Economic Zone or, the more general, Free Trade Zone more appropriate. The full details of all bids have not been published but summary reports indicate wide variety of business cases. […]

By Peter Holmes, Guillermo Larbalestier|2025-07-18T10:11:59+01:0025 February 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

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