An important first step in the UK becoming an independent nation is the settling of our tariff schedules and trade quotas at the WTO. We are already members of the WTO in our own right but our import quotas are EU totals at present and they will need to be split between the UK and the EU. This is proving to be a serious difficulty. I posted an item about this a year ago (HERE) and linked to an item on the Politico website which said:
"In a fast-developing second trade spat, Washington has teamed up with Brazil, Argentina, Canada, New Zealand, Uruguay and Thailand to reject Britain’s proposed import arrangements for crucial agricultural goods such as meat, sugar and grains after Brexit".
We wanted to simply split the existing quota - say 70% to the EU and 30% to the UK for example depending on which product was involved and our consumption relative to the EU's. But the exporting countries are having none of it. They say they would lose flexibility if our consumption of a particular product went down they would be unable to divert the excess to other markets in the EU and would thus lose out. They want to negotiate a total which will be more than 100%. Note the countries include what we would think of as "friendly" but it hasn't stopped them objecting.
Well, now the six countries from last year has increased to 20 according to Peter Ungphakorn, a well known trade expert in a tweet this week:
20 countries raised concerns on the record for the 1st time about the UK-EU draft post-Brexit WTO commitments in a meeting today, more or less confirming the UK will have to negotiate tariff quotas, with time running out (paywalled)https://t.co/yijS1qyNGU via @Agra_Europe— Peter Ungphakorn (@CoppetainPU) October 9, 2018
It has taken a year and far from making progress we seem to have gone backwards. We will not be able to divide 100% of the quotas as we had assumed, but will have to start negotiating new quotas with these 20 countries. A process which I assume will take some time.
Don't forget this is just one of hundreds of policy areas and treaty commitments that the government is having to deal with simultaneously but only in planning and wholly theoretical ways. Very soon these issues, from being dots on the far horizon as they are, will appear larger and larger with real world impacts, until we're completely overwhelmed.
Perhaps Liam Fox at the Trade Department will be able to count on the help of Peter Lilley. He said a trade deal with the EU should take no more than ten minutes so negotiating quotas with 20 countries shouldn't take long at all.
