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I’ve been learning a little about cumulation in the past wee while. A thread.
The EU has trade deals (FTAs) with countries. (Usually called ‘Third’ countries in this context).
These trade deals have rules. So, for example, South Korea recognises something as originating in the EU if it has a certain % EU content.
See here for info on ‘rules of origin’ which define how South Korea / EU determine where something originates from. 
Now if, as the Trade Dept has suggested, Third countries agree to allow UK to trade under same rules as now, at least for an interim period.
Then that’s obviously a good thing for exporters. You could just replace all references to EU with UK and copy trade deal.
But what happens about the rules of origin issue? Widgets exported from UK might have 60% EU content, but NOT 60% UK content.
So Liam Fox needs to convince all these third countries to accept EU content in widgets as UK content.
...In order for our companies to continue to export under the same conditions as they do right now.
Because of the incredibly integrated supply chains between UK and EU for so many industries, this could actually be a pretty big problem.
And that’s before we even get into the issues around Ireland / NI and cross border movements of goods there.
