Distrust in US-UK trade deal under threat after UK axes negotiations | Trade policy

The US was supposed to be Britain’s route to the sunny Brexit highlands, but after hopes for a free trade deal faded, successive Conservative governments toned down their targets by seeking closer ties with individual US states.

Now civil servants responsible for state-level transactions have been laid off. One outraged British businessman described it as an act of arson.

More than a sixth of trade positions at British consulates in the US have been made redundant, with 24 out of 150 positions losing their jobs and other vacancies remaining unfilled. The decision was made just two weeks before Rishi Sunak called a general election.

A number of trade teams based in nine consulates across the U.S. have signed trade agreements with Secretary of Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch and memorandums of understanding with governors from states including Florida, Indiana and Oklahoma. I flew all over the United States for this.

But more importantly, according to British business leaders in the US, the local trade directors and staff have decades of experience and have built contacts in US businesses ranging from Google and Meta to Hollywood studio heads.

Jules Ehrhardt said that centuries of collective institutional knowledge had been lost. Photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images

Designer and investor Jules Erhardt said the decision had shown anger and distrust in the British business community.

They collectively bring centuries of relational and institutional knowledge to bear on the core of the UK-US trade relationship, he said. Ehrhardt moved to the US in 2012 to open the US arm of Ustwo, a digital design studio that created award-winning games like Monument Valley, and worked with Google, Nike and Twitter before founding venture capital firm FKTRY.

He said the consulate chiefs acted as a liaison between British and American business leaders, offering introductions, advice and lending expertise. “We were shot in the foot by undermining Britain’s gateway to European status for American companies after Brexit, and we were told to go west, and now we’ve chosen to have our own lobotomy,” Ehrhardt said.

this [is an] Arson in the final stages of this government. We claim it is a special relationship, but it does not include our people at its center.

Allan Rooney, founder of Rooney Law, which has helped more than 300 companies from the UK, Ireland and Australia enter the US market, said directors were vital in building a strong and mutually beneficial trading relationship between UK and US businesses.

The facilitation of strategic introductions provided by these directors is a huge advantage, he said. They connect companies to markets they otherwise would not know about. They become familiar with supporting and understanding the markets and the subtle differences between British and American business cultures through trade missions and other means. Removing that layer has implications for trade relations.

More than a million Britons are employed by US companies. No trade relationship will be more important post-Brexit. very important. And I think the removal of a very large part of intellectual capital and institutional knowledge is potentially worrying. This could put a strain on an already under-resourced trade team.

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Another British executive based in the US said there was little stability in the British consulate, as the staff were mostly Foreign Office employees who had been in the US for two or three years. It was a revolving door, the executive said. These were the people we depended on.

William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “If you want to grow your economy you need to expand trade. So it is concerning that there are cuts to teams supporting key export sectors in the US, our second largest trading partner.”

We need to scale, not scale back, support for companies looking to enter the United States or increase their market share. This is especially true as it hopes to reach a deal with the U.S. federal government over the next year or so on significant mineral and digital transactions.

Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and other Brexiteers had hoped a trade deal with the US would give Britain economic growth, but Johnson failed to convince either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. In June, Rishi Sunak signed the Atlantic Declaration with Biden, allowing British companies to access some US subsidies.

The state-level deal recognized some of the UK's professional qualifications and removed some regulatory barriers.

A UK government spokesperson said: The UK Trade and Investment in the US team is dedicated to advancing UK interests in the US, facilitating investment and strengthening trade relationships with our closest allies. We are constantly reviewing our structure to ensure we have maximum impact on the UK, ensure the highest quality service for businesses and provide the best value for money for taxpayers.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/29/disbelief-as-us-uk-trade-deals-under-threat-after-britain-axes-negotiators The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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