BABC
The British American Business Council is committed to promoting transatlantic trade and investment between the US and the UK
Contact: Lauren Hunt T: 0845 603 6650
BABC Patrons
Brexit and prospects for a US trade deal
Jeffries Briginshaw, CEO of British American Business, says that increased trade between the UK and the US could help offset any loss of business caused by Brexit. However, he warns that any new US trade deal won’t fill the Brexit gap overnight.
Many British based businesses post referendum have been seeking to navigate the uncertainties of Brexit, with access to talent, market access and customs arrangements all big unknowns to factor into short to medium term thinking. With the EU the major aggregate
market for British goods and services, managing future uncertainties and potential dislocations is clearly taking up a lot of oxygen. But one of the often talked of opportunity areas for mitigating potential loss of business in Europe is the US. This all makes sense – the US is
the largest consumer market in the world and the largest economy and – so the story goes - if you make it there you get rich and retire early. And the US is already the UK’s largest single export market at about 20 per cent of total UK exports with around 250 billion dollars’ worth of two way trade every year. If we move that ‘dial’ up, it’s pretty macro in terms of potential. It’s worth noting by the way that
the US-UK economic relationship has become important to both economies even though we trade on a WTO basis, without either a US-UK or a US-EU trade deal as the platform. So it’s not far-fetched to see the
US-UK economy is a source of strength, stability and opportunity and as a part of the solution whatever the problem. And the strength of existing numbers show that you don’t necessarily need a bilateral trade deal to grow it more, although it can no doubt help down the line. So what can we do now? In my view, focus on grinding out
export growth through trade and investment promotion in the short to medium term is likely to be more important than overly ambitious or
unrealistic expectations on fast trade deals. Outbound to the US that means doubling down on existing activities in US marketplaces, looking for new customers, investors and markets, based on the existing footprint where businesses already have one. Currency moves over the last
year have certainly added another layer of attractiveness to the existing proposition, irrespective of product or service level innovation. For potential new US market
bound business it’s about a very focused run through the standard export preparedness checklist with a disciplined and realistic survey of the specific US trading environment based on thorough market research and detailed investigation of the employment, tax, and cultural characteristics. On the trade deal side, BABC members are supportive of further, deeper integration of the economies of the US and the UK, including using a new trade and investment agreement to create new opportunities in post Brexit scenarios. As we learn more about exactly
what post Brexit Britain will look like in trading terms – eg what customs arrangements will underpin goods flow for example, or what will be the nuts, bolts and game plan to deliver future industrial policy these can be plotted into sectoral asks. But that’s a way off. Some of the
barriers that typically currently put off mid-sized companies in terms of regulatory differences between the US and the UK we might expect to see reduced, especially if there is focus on a small business friendly approach to what matters in negotiations. But that’s down the line, and so
let’s not lose sight of the potential for genuine deliverables outside the
October 2017 CHAMBERLINK 27
narrow context of trade talks before we get into the negotiating room, around day-to-day customs or regulatory cooperation and other areas of economic cooperation. Tell me (
jbriginshaw@babinc.org)
if you have an US-UK issue that you think needs to be fixed, and maybe something can be done. The current political
encouragement at high level for a deal in both countries is of course
most welcome although my expectation is that any actual trade and investment agreement will take a number of years to conclude. This creates an immediate opportunity for Government to take the time to engage with business communities and broad groupings of stakeholders across our countries seeking to capture the imagination in new ways that can strengthen support for an eventual agreement.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
