Trading with Trump: what we can expect from a US-UK trade deal
Type: Campaign briefings
Date: 20 April 2017
Campaigns: Trade
A free trade deal between the US and the UK is likely to include all the elements that made the earlier trade negotiations between the EU and the US on TTIP so controversial, but in a more extreme form – TTIP on steroids:
- ‘Corporate courts’ that allow foreign corporations to sue governments outside of the national legal system to challenge things like environmental protection or public health policy.
- Locking in privatisation of public services, including of the NHS.
- Undermining our climate commitments.
The Trump administration’s ‘America first’ economic nationalism is leading the most powerful country in the world to tear up international rules around trade for its own self-interest and threaten trade wars.
Not only does the US hold all the cards, the current Trump administration is taking an aggressive approach to trade. The UK will be walking into a negotiating room that is on a war footing, with a weak hand.
Brexit has revealed a huge democratic deficit in trade policy in the UK – deals are already being made behind closed doors and even our MPs are excluded. If trade is to work for people and not solely for big business, we have to ensure that the way deals are struck is open, honest and democratic.
Download the full briefing (PDF, 8 pages) >>
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Photo: Gage Skidmore