Dennis, Jean-Claude Juncker doesn't handle trade negotiations for the EU. This is done by a sizeable team of specialists who are used to handling the highly complex issues involved in trade treaties. Since our own entry into the EU the UK's expertise in trade negotiations has disappeared as all such negotiations have been handled by the EU on our behalf. There will be some British members of the EU trade department but, even if they could be persuaded to come and work for the UK, they would be a tiny fraction of the number of people we actually need. It is almost certain we will have to recruit non-UK nationals currently working for the EU to help with negotiations.Remember this is not simply a matter of negotiating with the larger economies outside the EU. We will have to do deals with all 27 EU members and the key thing you need to understand is that they all have a veto on the terms of our exit from the EU. Economic powerhouse we may be but we have put ourselves in a situation in which Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania have a gun to our head. It is certain that to persuade all 27 countries not to use their veto will have to make a series of concessions to the particular interest of each one.The EU is currently the largest economic market in the world so it goes without saying that collectively it has strong bargaining power in trade negotiations. The countries you mention wouldn't really be material in any talks - they collectively have a GDP of less than Belgium.I'm not saying that the UK (or what is left of it by the time these negotiations conclude) does not have some interesting things to offer countries outside the single market. Currently we operate under the protection of the EU which generally imposes a tariff or around 4% on imports from other countries. Large manufacturing countries like China, South Korea and India will be very keen to talk to us about reduced tariffs for their goods. I posted earlier about the likely impact on the steel industry in this country but the same goes for a large section of domestic manufacturing. The trade deals will focus on areas of relative competitive advantage which means we will aim for more access for our financial services industries in return for opening up for manufactured goods.If you think that a 4% tariff isn't significant you would be totally wrong. Given tight profit margins particularly for manufactured goods it will be decisive. Take a manufacturer like the Korean company Samsung - if they can get tariff free access to the UK their manufacturing here will be scaled down. We would be compensated for that by more jobs in the City.Unfortunately given the ridiculously short time-scale for these negotiations, their fiendish complexity and our lack of the necessary expertise, serious mistakes are likely to be made. Typically trade negotiations can take up a decade to complete because the details are critically important.One hypothetical example would be to assume that we gave tariff free access to Korean car manufacturers to the UK market in return for British stockbrokers being allowed to be members of the Korean stock exchange. Now let's say Kia Motors has a large manufacturing plant in Indonesia and ships these cars through Korea to the UK. Is this allowable? if not how much of the production of the car needs to be done in Korea? what standards of manufacturing need to be adhered to? what road safety features need to be incorporated? These are not insuperable problems but will require a lot of time and effort to resolve and this is for just one product in one country. You have to multiply this by hundreds of times to get some idea of the scale of the work that will be required.So can we get good deals outside the EU? There will undoubtedly be some big winners particularly in services industries but given that there will be some huge losers some by design and some because of the hurried nature of the negotiations. Whether any deals will be of a net benefit to the economy is hard to say at this stage.One thing that our weak negotiating position and lack of negotiators makes inevitable is that we will need to request the EU that we remain in the single market (including accepting freedom of movement). We simply don't have the capacity to handle detailed negotiation and it is the majority view of the new cabinet (privately at least) that we must stay in the Single Market with freedom of movement. Unfortunately that probably also means that the EU would need to rubber stamp any trade deal that make outside the single market to stop us being used as a conduit for tariff avoidance.
Andy Jones ● 3709d