Yesterday the UK government announced that both it and the US had started negotiating a US-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Robert Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative and Liz Truss, the UK’s International Trade Secretary launched the negotiations via video conference to ensure that talks can progress during the COVID-19 pandemic. The talks will cover a broad spectrum from services and goods trade, to supporting and investing in small to mid-size enterprises (SME) to digital trade. Both negotiating teams have been laying the groundwork for an FTA for the last few months so the official talks can hit the ground running. There will be some 100 negotiators on each side taking part. According to the UK, a comprehensive FTA will benefit all regions of the UK, with the North East, Midlands and Scotland being the main beneficiaries.
In 2018 US/UK trade in goods and services was estimated to be worth nearly USD262bn. The UK was America’s 7th largest goods trading partner, the US having a goods and services trade surplus with the United Kingdom of nearly USD19bn. The US is the UK’s largest trading partner after the European Union.
Unsurprisingly, Liz Truss was bullish in her views as to the outcome of the talks. She stated, ‘As we sit down at the negotiating table today be assured that we will drive a hard bargain to secure a deal that benefits individuals and businesses in every region and nation of the UK. We want to strike an ambitious deal that opens up new opportunities for our businesses, brings in more investment and creates better jobs for people across the whole of the country’. Robert Lighthizer was also confident that an extension of the UK-US Special Relationship could lead to an ‘historic agreement’. Lighthizer stated ‘Under the leadership of President Trump, the United States will negotiate an ambitious and high-standard trade agreement with the UK that will strengthen our economies, support good-paying jobs and substantially improve opportunities for trade and investment between our two countries’.