The pandemic does not discourage negotiators. While at the end of April, the European Union (EU) announced the conclusion of a free trade treaty with Mercosur, a week earlier it had resumed discussions on the future post-Brexit relationship with the United Kingdom . Talks that did not lead to any agreement.
And London has just confirmed that it is not giving up hope of reaching a trade agreement " as soon as possible " with Washington. Negotiations officially start Tuesday, May 5, during a first round of talks which should last "About two weeks", a Downing Street spokesperson confirmed on Monday May 4.
The ambition may seem baroque in the midst of the coronavirus crisis on both sides of the Atlantic – a sketch of the deconfinement should not be made public until Sunday, May 10 in the United Kingdom -, not counting the presidential election in November in the United States. United. However, the government of Boris Johnson seems perfectly serious: it is Oliver Griffiths, a senior official in the Ministry of Commerce, who will chair the discussions on the British side, and a hundred experts are expected to assist him in discussions which will take place in line.
The deal is expected to focus on lowering tariffs on goods – the British hope in particular for easier access to Scotch whiskey, but they also plan to sell more digital services. The United States should insist on easing British rules for the importation of agri-food products (to better dispose of its chlorine chickens). They also have views on the pharmaceutical market, currently regulated by the NHS, the British hospital system. Boris Johnson’s government has so far promised that he would not give in.
A marginal impact
The benefits of such an agreement, if concluded, would remain extremely modest. In March, the British Department of Commerce recognized that a treaty with Washington would only represent a 0.07% to 0.16% increase in the national gross domestic product (GDP) in the long term. A marginal impact, therefore, far from offsetting the economic crisis to come linked to the pandemic, or the 2% to 8% drop in GDP that the exit from the European internal market could represent, in the event of a hard Brexit.
"These negotiations have no interest in the United Kingdom, its economy and that of the United States are already very open. An agreement could even turn out to be negative: there are still American companies which are established in the country to gain better access to the European market and which could choose to return to the United States within the framework of a transatlantic trade agreement., says David Henig, director of the European Center for International Political Economy, and a former trade expert with the British government. It's all about politics, government wants to be able to say (only after Brexit) he turns to the United States. "
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