Thread by @DmitryOpines

We're all debating pork pies and cabotage right now because, as trade experts have said consistently, getting huge wins in FTAs is really hard.

If you don't put in a huge amount of analysis work at home, you're liable to swing and miss.

To open a new market, rather than just securing some improvement at the margins, an FTA concession has to address a policy satisfying this formula:

[Policy that's a primary impediment to trade in something]
+ [Policy they're willing to remove]
+ [Price you're willing to pay]

It seems like there are indeed some SPS barriers to pork pie trade, but it's not at all clear they're the primary factor preventing export.

For example, the pies don't have much of a shelf-life, making trans-Atlantic trade in them expensive (air freight only).

Perhaps the US could be convinced to look into how its SPS regime currently hits post BSE-UK meat products... but is entering into negotiations on SPS with the US something the UK is keen on?

The US probably have one or two requests of their own...

On cabotage (the right to move goods from one US destination to another), there is absolutely a policy barrier. The Jones Act makes it illegal (for foreign providers)

However, as @snlester, @scottlincicome and @CatoTrade will tell you, the Jones Act is no easy prey.

Instinctively, even two economies as liberalized as the UK and US should find some meaningful things to offer one another in an FTA.

However, finding them is a difficult and technical exercise in forensic business analysis. The UK will need to think harder than pies and ships.