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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/05/the-guardian-view-on-wto-rules-not-a-brexit-safety-net
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| The Guardian view on WTO rules: not a Brexit safety net | The Guardian view on WTO rules: not a Brexit safety net |
| (6 days later) | |
| When ministers point to a silver lining, check for clouds. So it is with recent boasts of a deal between the UK and Brussels on the division of shared quotas that, under World Trade Organisation auspices, manage food imports from non-EU countries. It is an unglamorous aspect of Brexit, but an instructive one. | When ministers point to a silver lining, check for clouds. So it is with recent boasts of a deal between the UK and Brussels on the division of shared quotas that, under World Trade Organisation auspices, manage food imports from non-EU countries. It is an unglamorous aspect of Brexit, but an instructive one. |
| To summarise crudely, the deal presumes that the current EU quota is unchanged and sets a method for calculating Britain’s detached portion. This sounds fair to both sides, but not, it transpires, to the US and six other countries. They argue that Brexit removes the UK from current arrangements and so also changes the EU’s entitlements. They want more access to European markets and sense a stitch-up to keep them out. | To summarise crudely, the deal presumes that the current EU quota is unchanged and sets a method for calculating Britain’s detached portion. This sounds fair to both sides, but not, it transpires, to the US and six other countries. They argue that Brexit removes the UK from current arrangements and so also changes the EU’s entitlements. They want more access to European markets and sense a stitch-up to keep them out. |
| This dispute, still in its infancy, is revealing on many levels. First, it shows the labyrinthine nature of trade talks, rebutting hard-Brexiter claims that deals can be whipped up in a trice. These things take years. Second, it shows that the UK has enjoyed amplified clout as an EU member. Other countries see Brexit as an opportunity to reopen settled matters because they know they can drive a harder bargain. In this case, that means greater market access to a country that will have less leverage to demand reciprocal access for its exports. There are free-trade fundamentalists who are relaxed about that, urging abandonment of all barriers as a signal of Britain’s global outlook. But unilateral trade disarmament is not government policy and rightly so, given potentially ruinous consequences for farmers and manufacturers. Third, this row proves that the UK cannot expect favours from Donald Trump (no further proof was needed after Washington imposed a 219% tariff hitting aircraft parts manufactured in Belfast by Bombardier. Theresa May had personally lobbied the US president in a failed effort to avert that blow.) | This dispute, still in its infancy, is revealing on many levels. First, it shows the labyrinthine nature of trade talks, rebutting hard-Brexiter claims that deals can be whipped up in a trice. These things take years. Second, it shows that the UK has enjoyed amplified clout as an EU member. Other countries see Brexit as an opportunity to reopen settled matters because they know they can drive a harder bargain. In this case, that means greater market access to a country that will have less leverage to demand reciprocal access for its exports. There are free-trade fundamentalists who are relaxed about that, urging abandonment of all barriers as a signal of Britain’s global outlook. But unilateral trade disarmament is not government policy and rightly so, given potentially ruinous consequences for farmers and manufacturers. Third, this row proves that the UK cannot expect favours from Donald Trump (no further proof was needed after Washington imposed a 219% tariff hitting aircraft parts manufactured in Belfast by Bombardier. Theresa May had personally lobbied the US president in a failed effort to avert that blow.) |
| Above all, the episode exposes the vacuity of arguments that “WTO rules” are some kind of safety net for the UK in the absence of a Brexit deal. The WTO system is not a level field. Any negotiation within it is a ruthless game of power. Britain is a smaller, weaker player alone than it is as part of Team EU. Brexit, in trade talks as in many other areas, turns out to have a price tag denominated in the most cherished commodity of the leave campaign – control. | Above all, the episode exposes the vacuity of arguments that “WTO rules” are some kind of safety net for the UK in the absence of a Brexit deal. The WTO system is not a level field. Any negotiation within it is a ruthless game of power. Britain is a smaller, weaker player alone than it is as part of Team EU. Brexit, in trade talks as in many other areas, turns out to have a price tag denominated in the most cherished commodity of the leave campaign – control. |
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