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Summary
- The outgoing US administration is negotiating with Britain to seal a mini deal
- A full deal is also on the cards by April next year
- The two nations have signed a customs assistance agreement on Wednesday
Robert Lighthizer, US trade representative said that the UK and the US are in talks to lower tariffs and work out a mini-trade deal. The deal is likely to see Britain lower tariffs over subsidy for aerospace businesses. America also wants it to reduce tariffs on Scottish whisky, according to media reports. Further, there are chances of striking a ‘full’ deal in the near future, said Lighthizer.
The two world biggies have also agreed upon a customs assistance agreement, allowing the relevant authorities to share data for tackling customs fraud.
Much progress has already been made between the two sides, under the Trump regime, in areas like digital services, small and medium businesses, and investment.
However, significant differences still remain, which needs to be resolved to arrive at a full deal. Some of these are intellectual property, textiles, and pharma regulations.
The full deal document has to be prepared and put before the US Congress by April next year. At the same time, the next four weeks are crucial to the deal as the UK leaves the EU on December 31 and Biden gets sworn in as the next US President on January 20. Both these changes are expected to bring clarity and speed-up the trade talks.
(Image source: ©Kalkine Group 2020)
Biden’s focus
The incoming President has cautioned that any mutual deal would not be worked out in case the Good Friday agreement is not taken into consideration by the UK government during the Brexit negotiations.
The arrangement talks about the protection of peace in the Northern Ireland region following a period of violence in the nineties.
Well, there are other areas of discord as well. For instance, the US wants additional access to Britain’s farm market. On the other hand, UK wants America to adopt its food standards for chicken and beef. These and many such technical issues would be worked out in the final negotiation stages, according to sources.
Customs assistance agreement
The agreement was signed yesterday in London between Jesse Norman, Financial Secretary to UK Treasury and Robert Wood Johnson, US Ambassador. The agreement would be ensuring continuity after Brexit and will showcase strength of the UK-US customs relations, said Norman.
The accord would allow both the nations to continue to cooperate in battling with the custom frauds through sharing good practices and information. It will also give legal support to schemes for easing the trade flows for exporters as well as importers.
It needs to be noted that currently, both the countries tirelessly try to stop criminals from trafficking illegal products such as drugs, guns, medicine, and wildlife goods. With the deal in place, the investigators would be sharing information to stop criminal activities and keep the citizens safe.
