It took quite a few months in to talks for EU-US trade negotiations (TTIP, for newcomers) to be described as troubled. I think we can already describe UK-US trade talks as troubled, and they haven't even formally started mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
It is important to recognise that TTIP was sunk in the court of public opinion through association with any potentially bad thing. And the same is happening with the UK-US trade deal. This story yesterday is about the trade bill but becomes about the US independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Meanwhile campaign groups who opposed TTIP are busy getting the band back together again to oppose the UK-US trade deal. This builds on the suspicions that many of the population already have.
The EU's main defence against criticisms of TTIP was that they had a long record of trade agreements without such bad things happening. They also embraced transparency. The first isn't open to the UK, the second seems unlikely.
The potential factual problems of a UK-US trade deal (US farmers must get something, NHS, few UK asks are realistically going to happen) are important, but probably less so than the sentiment of suspicion.
And all of this is frankly why so many who went through TTIP, on both UK and US sides, are highly doubtful of the wisdom of a UK-US trade deal. It just doesn't seem sensible to focus on what divides us in trade terms, for marginal economic gain. /end
