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Britain has paused its trade negotiations with Canada over disagreements over beef, cars and cheese.
London CNN –
Britain is discovering how difficult it can be to negotiate free trade deals, even with close allies and friends.
Almost eight years after Brexiteers persuaded a slim majority to vote to leave the European Union on a platform that included promises of a better future as a global trading nation, the British government has resumed talks on the Canada abandoned its old EU trade deal with the country over disputes over beef, cars and cheese.
Talks between the UK and Canada – which share a head of state (King Charles) and are both members of NATO and the Group of Seven Forum of Leading Industrialized Countries – began in March 2022, two years after Britain's official withdrawal from the EU. As part of the EU-Canada free trade agreement, goods and services continue to flow between the two countries.
But Britain had been trying to negotiate a new trade deal with Canada that would improve the terms of the existing agreement. Parts of the current agreement are also expiring or have already expired, with no new rules to replace them.
British car manufacturers that currently pay low or no import taxes when exporting to Canada could face significantly higher taxes from April.
Meanwhile, regulations on exporting British cheese to Canada expired in December. Now British producers selling to Canada face tariffs of up to 245% of the value of their cheese.
A key sticking point in the negotiations was Britain's refusal to ease its ban on hormone-treated beef, which currently effectively bans Canadian farmers from selling to British consumers.
“Trade negotiations are complex, but sometimes it is right to pause when progress is not being made. “We remain open to resuming discussions with Canada in the future,” a British government spokesman said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said Friday: “I am confident we can negotiate an agreement that is a win-win for Canada and the United Kingdom.”
“But let me be clear: We will not negotiate a deal that is not good for Canadians and not good for our Canadian businesses, farmers and workers,” the spokesman said in a statement.
According to the British government, total trade in goods and services with Canada was nearly 26 billion pounds ($33 billion) in the year to the end of June, and Canada is the United Kingdom's 13th largest export market.
According to David Henig, a director of UK trade policy at the European Center for International Political Economy in Brussels, the stalled talks represent a “blow” to the UK's ambitions to strike better trade deals now that it is outside the EU .
“We won't get a better deal, we will actually have worse trading conditions than we had as EU members,” he told CNN.
An unnamed Canadian government official told Portal that the United Kingdom had only itself to blame for the first failed attempt to replace EU trade agreements with a third country after Brexit.
“The UK has not acted as quickly as it should have in the negotiations and is expecting Canada to just give in on these things,” the official told Portal.
But Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers' Union, which represents farmers in England and Wales, took a different view. “The Prime Minister put in writing last year that he will not import hormone-treated beef or chlorine-washed chicken,” she told the BBC on Friday.
“Canada has been playing hardball for a long time. It always came to a critical point as to who would capitulate.”