Liam Fox is crusading on behalf of African coffee producers who the victims of EU/German protectionism
telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/…
telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/…
Dr Fox's prognosis has a rather fundamental flaw. Almost all coffee in Africa (at least 92%) is produced by countries that have tariff-free trade with EU on roast coffee.
So if African economies aren't benefiting from the processing of coffee, perhaps it has more to do with distance from European markets and infrastructure?
This isn't a one-off error. It's part of a systemic attempt to paint the EU as a protectionist bloc. See this article written by Dept for International Trade's head of communications before his appointment: telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/…
That article contains the coffee mistake (citing the same Harvard study) and blithely ignores the fact that Rwanda, under the Everything But Arms scheme, has had tariff-free access to the EU for years.
So we can conclude that Dr Fox is disingenuous, badly briefed or not on top of the detail on this topic.
