Thread by @fascinatorfun

Brexit no-deal plan in disarray

“Dumping is when a product is sold more cheaply in another country than where it is made, in a bid to wipe out the competition and establish a monopoly.”

As for subsidies.. politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/07/…

2/.

“Subsidies are when the state funnels cash into an industry to allow it to outperform its competitors. They both highlight a risk of global free trade: sometimes other countries don't fight fair.”

3/.

“Reports emerging from the government's trade remedies body paint a depressingly familiar story: There isn't enough experience, they're badly out of their depth, and those who question policy are frozen out altogether. “

4/.

“The government's basic plan for trade remedies in the event of no-deal is pretty simple: copy them. Just take the EU's countervailing measures and adopt them wholesale. But they have a problem: you can't actually do it.”

(Or rather the result is undesirable)

5/
“The calculations about dumping and subsidies which the EU used were made for the EU. The UK needs them to be based on the UK.

So they're doing the only thing they possibly can:

6/

“keeping the tariffs where they are, then setting up assessments of dumping and subsidies after-the-fact, so that they can justify them in court. All fair enough. There really wasn't another course of action open to them.”

But other countries will be watching with cold eyes

8/
“There are lots of countries with a very large financial incentive to legally challenge British decisions in this area. They absolutely will take action, and they can do so at two levels: internationally at the WTO and domestically in the upper tax tribunal.”

The what?

9/

“Since the start of the year, the government has simply stopped putting legislation through the Commons, because it is petrified that MPs will use it as a vehicle to stop no-deal. Its entire legislative agenda has basically screeched to a halt”

10/. “One of the legal victims is the Trade Remedies Authority, which was supposed to be established in the trade bill. Not anymore. The trade bill is now on life support and the authority could never be established.”

11/. “Instead, they've come up with hastily-scrambled together back-up solution: a trade remedies 'directorate' inside the Department for International Trade.”

Oh dear. Then it has to be staffed. By experienced and competent staff. Recruitment and training takes time.

12/. But the work they're being asked to do cannot be resolved by faith. It is incredibly detailed and complicated.

You need to send off massive questionnaires to UK and target-country companies, on everything from rainbow trout, to ironing boards, to fertiliser.”

12/.

“You then need to work out the endless product subcategories and compile them for price assessment: Smoked trout, or freshwater, or frozen? Filleted or non-filleted? “

@Jim_Cornelius would be in his element!

12/ “Then you need to conduct verification checks at UK and target-country factories, calculate factory price-point, UK price-point and shipping costs. That proves dumping.

Next you have to prove injury. You need to show UK companies have been affected.”

Sorry. Numbering has gone belly up.

Call the last one 14/

15/ “And not just that, but specifically affected by the dumping of these specific products from this specific country. If you claim the dumping is from Turkey, but it transpires UK companies are losing out because of fish from Denmark, then you have a problem.

16/ “Get this wrong and we're in trouble. The domestic challenge will basically be a judicial review case. If things are done sloppily, they won't survive it. You need to show decisions were well taken, the law correctly understood, and sensible back-up measures initiated.”

17/. I stupidly omitted to say at the beginning that this is @IanDunt ‘s excellent work.

I just summarised it from his article for those in too much of a hurry to spend time on it now.

But it was so good, nearly all of it is included.