Thread by @Jim_Cornelius

Dear @SkyNewsTom. Yet again we see a Brexiter politician making false statements unchallenged by programme hosts. This time with @PeterBoneUK your programme here, where he says we can lower tariffs on goods from developing countries.

We do this already.

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For starters:

This is the UN"s list of Least Developed Countries from UNCTAD (United Nations Trade and Development).

unctad.org/en/Pages/ALDC/…

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Here is a map showing those same countries in blue. Botswana, in green, used to be on the list,

All of these countries automatically qualify for the EU's Everything But Arms programme (EBA) under which all of their exports enter the EU completely tariff-free and quota-free.

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EBA is part of the EU's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) scheme. Various developed nations have their own version of GSP.

And here, from UNCTAD, is a document which describes each of those GSP programmes and the beneficiary countries.

unctad.org/en/Publication… …

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The European Union's GSP, which includes EBA (also known as GSP Annex IV) has been in operation since 1971 and is the most generous.

The text here is from a report from the Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Bangladesh.

un.org/en/development…

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In addition to EBA and GSP many countries in the ACP Group have Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU meaning zero tariffs on their exports to the EU.

The ACP group was established in 1975 at the Lomé Convention and meet regularly with the EU.

acp.int/content/commun…
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And furthermore, a number of other countries in the developing world have bilateral free trade agreements with the EU or are in the process of negotiating such trade deals.

At the moment the EU has FTAs with 69 countries that are currently in force.

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A list of countries that benefit from zeroed and lowered tariffs via current EU arrangements can be found on this UK Government website.

There are a lot of them. About 180. Many in the developing world.

gov.uk/government/pub… …

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Because of the reduced and zeroed tariffs through these arrangements, it is simply not true for Peter Bone to claim that the poor are going to benefit from reducing tariffs in developing countries.

Please don't let them get away with making false statements like this.

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