Thread by @CoppetainPU

Right, here's @tradegovuk on the UK-Australia trade deal.

Why “historic”?

Pre-Brexit, UK had deals—via the EU.

This is the *first* post-Brexit UK-only deal to be negotiated from scratch, not a roll-over.

Brexit was 15 mths ago. Not a long history.

1/8 gov.uk/government/new…

What does it contain?

1. It’s an “agreement in principle”, so not the final agreement

2. No text available yet

3. No date is given for when any of this will start to apply

2/n gov.uk/government/new…

A bit more detail. Looks like the 15-year protection for farmers = a gradual expansion of existing tariff quotas (limited quantities allowed in duty-free, expanding to unlimited over 15 yrs)

What are the UK’s existing tariff quotas for Australia? …

3/n gov.uk/government/new…

Under its WTO commitments, the UK has Australia-only tariff quotas for beef, sheep/goat meat, some cheeses, rice, raw cane sugar

Australia can also use other quotas open to all countries. We need to see the text to know if any of these get Australia-only quotas in the deal

4/n

More details of subjects covered are in earlier UK reports, eg: gov.uk/government/new…

Includes services, intellectual property, investment and more. Few details

Some will watch “legal and institutional provisions” to see if investor-state dispute settlement is included

5/n

Jun 7 the UK govt also listed these benefits⬇️

“Iconic goods”—key phrase.

Australians on here may have a view of the impact of removing a 5% tariff on biscuits.

Selling UK railway equipment looks good. But China, E-Asia also have duty-free deals

6/n gov.uk/government/new…

The UK has published a negotiating strategy in its talks with Australia, including broad objectives in a number of areas. The pdf version is 183 pages. Enjoy:

7/n gov.uk/government/pub…

Here are Australia’s negotiating objectives. Not quite so long. The pdf version is 2 pages.

Australia doesn’t yet seem to have published anything official about the latest agreement

8/8 dfat.gov.au/trade/agreemen…

PS. I love this bit of trade illiteracy from @tradegovuk:

“Red tape and bureaucracy will be torn down”

Where to start? Proof of origin?

gov.uk/government/new…

@tradegovuk PPS (1/n): Ah, Sam's got the info on the Australian government website

The tariff quotas seem considerably larger than the present ones. For example I think the present quota for Australian sheep/goat meat is 15,000 tonnes, so rises to 25,000.

https://twitter.com/SamuelMarcLowe/status/1404779933742866433?s=20

@tradegovuk PPS (2/2): The tariff quota for sugar rises immediately from about 5,000 tonnes (not duty-free) to 80,000 tonnes, I think

Cheese, beef also seem to have a considerably larger immediate quota sizes.