Business body calls for closer UK-US trade ties
ONE OF Britain’s largest business groups will join growing calls for an ambitious trade deal between the US and the UK.
The British Chambers of Commerce chief Shevaun Haviland will say that trade is vital to the UK’s economic recovery after Covid-19 when she speaks at an event later today.
A cross-Atlantic trade deal has been considered one of the potential ‘prizes’ of Brexit, with the UK in theory able to move faster to secure a reduction in tariffs and regulatory barriers outside the bloc.
However, progress has been relatively slow, with the UK now looking to strike state-by-state deals in the US instead.
The UK will begin signing trade deals with individual US states from next month, with an agreement with Texas set to be inked by October.
Trade minister Penny Mordaunt said last week that the government was in discussions with 20 US states – including California and Utah – to sign the mini-trade deals.
Deals signed with individual states will not be able to lower tariffs on goods travelling in either direction, however it is understood they can open up opportunities around mutual recognition of qualifications and break down barriers to cross- border business.
“Trade is critical to our common economic recovery on both sides of the Atlantic – done right, it makes us more prosperous, more productive, raises investment and wage levels, and opens new horizons,” Haviland will say later at a trade conference in Aberdeen.
“But its opportunities have to be shared by everyone, across workforces and all the communities of the UK represented in the BCC and the US – from the industrial heart of Pennsylvania to the food manufacturers in the North East of Scotland.”