Breakdown of US Canada Free Trade Negotiations provides opportunity to strengthen UK Canada economic relations
The breakdown of the US Canada Free Trade Negotiations provides an opportunity to strengthen UK Canada economic relations, say leading audit, tax and business advisory firm, Blick Rothenberg.
Robert Salter, a director at the firm, said: “Canada’s retaliatory tariffs of 15% to 50% on US goods comes into force today following the breakdown of Free Trade Negotiations between the two nations. However, this ongoing friction provides an excellent opportunity for the UK and Canada to further develop their already strong trading and cultural partnerships.”
He added: “The UK and Canada have long been close cultural and economic partners. They already benefit from a direct Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and both countries are members of the Multi-national Comprehensive & Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) arrangement, which reduces or eliminates tariffs on a number of goods traded between members.”
Robert said: “However, with both countries looking to widen their global trading patterns and in Canada’s case, a desire to reduce its dependency on the US market, political and business leaders in both countries should be considering how they can further develop and strengthen these existing agreements.”
He added: “While any trade agreement tends to be quite a slow, drawn-out process – and does involve some compromises from both parties, there are a number of areas where the existing agreements could be extended and improved. For example, the existing agreements maintain significant controls and tariffs on agricultural and food-related trade and don’t address some of the ‘people-related’ easements that one might see in some other modern trade agreements.”
Robert said: “Both governments should consider whether it would be appropriate to allow for the automatic mutual recognition of professional qualifications between the two countries and enabling workers in one jurisdiction to work in the other country on a visa-free basis, in the same manner that many EU-based employers are able to send European-based staff to the UK to provide contracts and services to UK based clients in a number of situations.”