Trade Bites

Next week, Americans will go to the polls and a new President will be elected. This podcast looks at the trade policy proposal of one candidate, the Republican Donald Trump, to put flat-rate tariffs of up to 20% on all US imports and a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports. What would the impact be on US businesses and consumers? Which sectors are set to be most affected? What would such tariffs mean...

The Labour Party promised to re-set the relationship between the UK and the EU. Now that it’s been in government for a few months - what has changed? With the new government seeing opportunities in working more collaboratively with its EU partners – on defence and security, but also on the nuts and bolts of our trade relationship - there’s undoubtedly been a change of tone. Our panellists on this...

Trade professionals at the WTO Public Forum provide their thoughts on one of the big issues confronting trade policy – inclusiveness. How can we ensure that the benefits and economic gains of international trade are shared as widely and as fully as possible? Does the WTO function in a way that benefits developing countries as much as richer countries? Listen to contributions from a wide range of i...

‘En direct’ from the World Trade Organisation Public Forum 2024, this podcast focuses on the WTO’s decision-making process. Responsible consensus was a phrase first coined after the Ministerial Meeting in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, due to impasse on a number of issues. The organisations’ rules make it clear that nothing can be agreed unless there is consensus among all members. But what does it...

The WTO’s track record in updating the global trade rules that came into effect in the mid-1990s is not particularly impressive. How can the WTO be made to function better without losing its cherished status as a member-driven organization that works on the basis of consensus? The WTO’s General Council is currently grappling with the issue of how to reform the organization to make it easier to con...

Critical Raw Materials is the topic for this episode and looks at why they have become such an important part of our trade policy discussions. The conversation explores how to ensure that our trade policies enable a flow of these critical raw materials to the industries that need them; and whether we should be concerned that the increasingly fraught geopolitical situation might create serious prob...

In this episode, we look at trade ‘mini deals’. There is a plethora of international agreements out there that focus on a particular area of trade such as mutual recognition agreements. Should governments be doing more of these deals rather than the big comprehensive free trade agreements and what do they contribute to global trade? In discussion with Chris Horseman (Borderlex) are Lucian Cernat (...

Professor Alan Winters reflects on 50 years as a trade policy expert. Having retired at the end of May, Alan’s long and distinguished career in Economics includes Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP), Founding Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, stints at the World Bank and as a Chief Economist for a UK Government department, and of course, academia. A lot has happe...

In this episode, we discuss Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAM): a trade measure that puts a price on the carbon emitted during the production of carbon intensive goods that are entering a country or economic area to encourage cleaner industrial production in those countries and to match the charges domestic producers have to pay for their emissions. The EU already has a CBAM and now the UK...

The concept of ‘economic security’ is now a prominent feature in discussions about trade policy as recent geopolitical developments have indicated that we need to think carefully about our trade partners. In addition, net zero targets mean that we need to access the raw materials to make these products – a high proportion of which are located in non-allied countries. This podcast looks at whether...

Later in 2024, the UK will join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership bringing a whole new meaning to the expression ‘regional trade agreement’. The British government has made no secret of its enthusiasm for what it calls a ‘strategic pivot’ towards the Asia-Pacific region. But, does it make sense for the UK which has just withdrawn from one trade bloc right on...

For three years after Britain left the single market, the UK has effectively operated an 'open door' policy on imports from the EU. Five times the government announced the introduction of border controls on imports from the EU – and five times they were postponed for various operational and logistical reasons. But now it’s finally happening. So how will the new Border Target Operating Model, or BT...

The UK has a long history as an agricultural trading nation. For much of our existence, we’ve been a net importer of food, creating a free trade economics 'virtue' out of the necessity of needing to feed ourselves. But calibrating a well-balanced trade policy for agriculture and food is a notoriously difficult thing to do. When we were part of the EU, UK commentators often criticised Brussels for...

This episode of the Trade Bites podcast scrutinizes the topic of trade agreement scrutiny. In addition to the ratification of the UK's accession to the Asia Pacific Trade Block (CPTPP) earlier this month, there are at least seven new UK Free Trade Agreements currently under negotiation. How do we know that the trade policy decisions that the Government is taking on our behalf are the right ones? A...

The World Trade Organization's thirteenth ministerial conference (MC13) took place in the last week of February. Trade ministers from around the world met to take key decisions on the regulation of international trade. But they didn’t actually decide on very much. Is the WTO now in a state of crisis? What’s the point of an organisation that can’t seem to decide on anything much? What needs to chan...

Just over three years since we left the EU single market, what has been the trade impact of Brexit? British exporters and importers trading with the EU have faced a whole new regulatory environment. Has Brexit led to shifts in the UK’s trade patterns – a pivot towards other parts of the world? Or does the gravity model beloved of trade economists still hold true? Has the Trade and Cooperation Agre...

Over the past 40 years or so, exporters have got used to the idea that the whole world is their marketplace – a notion which has been encouraged through moves by governments around the world to reduce tariffs and other barriers to trade. But with global pandemics, trade wars, fuel crises and over the past few years – could it be that the process of globalisation might be moving into reverse? “Near...

In our latest podcast we look at how the United Kingdom is getting on with its most significant trade relationship, that with its biggest trading partner the European Union. Over 18 months since the UK finally left the EU’s Single Market and went ahead with the version of Brexit favoured by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his team, questions are being asked about Britain’s post-Brexit journey. Ec...

Global supply chains have barely left the headlines in recent years. It is a fact of modern life that many of the goods we consume have multiple components manufactured in different places at different times which somehow come together to create the finished article. Yet global supply chains have started to come under pressure from a series of shocks ranging from the geopolitical to the environmen...

It has been over a year since the UK signed its single most important post-Brexit trade instrument – the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU – establishing a framework for the UK relationship with the EU in a wide range of areas. In this episode, we consider the full year of data now available for EU-UK trade in goods in 2021 and assess the impact of the Agreement. Bearing in mind th...

The UK signed a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with Australia in December 2021. This is the first ‘new’ Free Trade Agreement (FTA) the UK has negotiated with a trade partner. This ‘world-class’ agreement marks a ‘landmark moment in the historic and vital relationship between our two Commonwealth nations’, according to the international trade secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan. It’s certainly an ambit...

This episode looks at the climate crisis, and specifically the trade policy response to the push towards net zero in Europe and around the world. A whole market infrastructure has been created in Europe and elsewhere with carbon emission allowances being bought and sold as a way of taxing high-emission producers and providing a financial incentive to encourage more climate-friendly production syst...

Who are the ultimate stakeholders in UK trade policy? And how much of a say do they actually have in the policies that ultimately govern us? Things have certainly moved on since the time, not that long ago, when European and American negotiators would disappear into a room to talk about a Transatlantic trade deal – and come out again giving virtually no information about what they’d been talking a...

Supply chain issues crashed onto the front pages in the UK this year when petrol stations started running out of fuel. But that was just one aspect of a wider problem. A surge in demand for consumer goods has led to soaring shipping costs, with ships queueing up to get into container ports, and mounting concerns as to whether even Santa will be able to get his presents to us in time for Christmas....

In this episode, we’re heading stateside as we take a closer look at the trade relationship between the UK and the United States. In one sense, it’s a relationship that only came into existence when Britain finally left the EU customs union at the end of last year. But that belies the fact that the United States is the UK’s biggest single trading partner, and London has duly inherited most of the...