In the context of UK-EU talks the UK-US trade deal document published today is distinctly odd. An economic case where none is published for the EU, objectives similar to those for the EU described as "ambitious" which gov has banned to describe the EU deal assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
Pretty much a tariff only deal envisaged with a self proclaimed "tariff guy" President given the US turned down most other asks the UK have when asked by the EU, and that we appear to offer nothing to the US except our own tariff reduction. Like tariffs are everything...
Annotated first page of UK negotiating objectives. There's no way the US are binding anything on the way their regulatory agencies function in a UK trade deal and it is hypocritical to ask when we're saying regulatory independence... 
Next page. This is all pretty modest stuff with limited potential gains.
Haven't reached this section yet, but UK will have to accept enforceable labour and environment chapters in a US trade deal, which we've said we won't in an EU deal. Now recall negotiating with the US was supposed to provide us with leverage...
The page of UK-US negotiating objectives that the EU will particularly enjoy reading and using against the UK, where we ask for level playing field conditions which are enforceable...
Back to the US mandate, and the final annotated page of our asks. The one in which the Northern Ireland protocol is (rightly) mentioned. Because exports from NI to US could be an issue.
On to the modelling, and some bad news here. I think the headline number is exaggerated. I can see no way the US and UK mandates put together lead to any meaningful non tariff barrier reduction. On this basis the increase in GDP will be less than 0.1%
Initial verdict on the UK-US mandate - this is a proposal for a very modest trade deal mostly focused on tariff reduction which still may not be achievable if we won't give the US what they want on food or technical standards. And it is bizarrely unjoined up with our EU talks...
There's much more detail I'll work through over time (good work there from DIT - this is exactly what should be produced). But still the ever-present big question - what is our trade policy for? Is reduction of tariffs the entire ambition? /end
Other threads - setting up a twitter loop by cross-referencing @JamesCrisp6 who cross-references me...
@JamesCrisp6 and @faisalislam is sweating the economic detail of a UK-US deal...
@JamesCrisp6 @faisalislam from a US trade policy guru...
@JamesCrisp6 @faisalislam @alanbeattie a view that UK-US forecasts are actually on the low side. On investment there is though a contrary view that this will be hit by increased UK-EU barriers. Either way there's little suggestion a think UK-US deal leads to any significant economic gains
