How to do a trade deal
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the first time in decades the UK will now negotiate its own trade deals. David Aaronovitch explores our options and likely outcomes.
Free trade deals can take years and require hundreds of highly skilled staff in what are described as the biggest games of poker you can play.
Former US trade negotiators reveal a world of bluffs, plays and tapped phone calls.
How should the UK should play its hand with the US, EU and rest of the world as we exit the European Union?
There are losers in every trade deal, how prepared is the UK to cope with that?
Contributors:
Soumaya Keynes, trade and globalisation editor, The Economist
Charles Grant, Centre for European Reform
Ron Sorini, Sorini, Samet and Associates
Wendy Cutler, Asia Society Policy Institute
Roderick Abbot, former senior trade official with the European Commission and trade negotiator
Produced by Rosamund Jones, Kirsteen Knight and Jordan Dunbar Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:08.2 | The briefing room is the mind chamber where in 28 minutes you and I get to understand a big issue |
| 0:14.2 | with the help of the top experts on the subject. |
| 0:17.7 | This week, Britain leaves the EU to take back control, not least, over its own trade deals. |
| 0:25.0 | Should we be elated or scared? |
| 0:35.5 | I'm told that somewhere deep inside Washington, D.C DC's capital building, there's a special trade deal room. |
| 0:43.3 | It's designed to keep our eavesdroppers. Mobile phones are banned. Security is tight. Inside, in conditions of secrecy, they devised the negotiating strategy for American trade |
| 0:56.3 | deals. |
| 0:57.7 | And there's another one of these rooms in Brussels, where Europe's planning takes place. |
| 1:02.9 | This is the high-stakes world of free trade deals, a world that as we leave the EU, the |
| 1:09.0 | UK is about to enter. |
| 1:11.3 | So what do we need to know? |
| 1:13.6 | How do you do a free trade deal? |
| 1:16.3 | And how is the UK likely to fare? |
| 1:19.2 | Step inside my somewhat less secure briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:27.3 | Let's start with the basics. What is a free trade deal actually? What does it cover? How long |
| 1:33.5 | did they take to negotiate and couldn't we do without them? With me to answer these questions, |
| 1:38.7 | a Charles Grant from the Centre for European Reform, and joining us from Washington is |
| 1:43.1 | Sumaya Keynes, the economist's Trade and |
| 1:45.8 | Globalisation Editor. Summaa, what are the benefits of a free trade agreement? Well, simply put, |
| 1:52.2 | it just means that your exporters get access to another bigger market. That means more |
| 1:57.8 | opportunities for them to sell stuff. That is valuable for them. |
... |
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