Carryfast:
Maybe it would help if I clarified that my idea of a ‘free trade’ agreement has always contained the built in safeguard of a clause which actually allows protectionist measures to ensure trade balance and which limits under cutting and dumping on all sides.Or for that matter importing cheap African food while Africans starve.In which case as it stands ironically it’s the US which has the most grounds to issue protectionist measures against the EU not vice versa.While even more ironically we need the same safeguard regarding our trading relationship with the EU let alone China.It seems strange in that case why you seem to think that the EU is justified in imposing tarrifs on US imports in the interests of ‘trade balance figures’ when it’s the US which has a massive trade deficit with the EU.Or for that matter why you seem to be applying double standards both in regard to Chinese imports to the EU.Let alone our laughable trading relationship with Germany while obviously defending the EU’s stupid anti US trade policy on so called ‘balance of payments’ grounds when you know that ‘balance’ is already way in the EU’s favour.
So you aren`t talking of free trade, but a tailor made, bespoke agreement? After all, no agreement with a simple “safeguard/protectionist clause” would be signed by anyone with sense. Only take a few years for an army of civil servants to hammer out a deal then.
CF: “ironically it’s the US which has the most grounds to issue protectionist measures against the EU not vice versa.”
I strongly disagree. The US allows their farmers to use growth hormones that are banned in the EU. Apart from health issues this cuts the cost of meat production in the US.
The US Gov subsidises it`s farmers with tens of billions of dollars annually. (Given the US rhetoric, THAT is irony!)
Our farming industry does need protection.
CF: “Or for that matter importing cheap African food while Africans starve.”
Agree. A real problem.
Mr ReesMogg, among others, has spoken of the advantages to us of cheaper food imports when we leave the EU. First hearing seems good?
He isnt so vocal on what will happen to our domestic farming businesses when cheaper imports undercut them. He doesnt speak of those jobs, including some transport work, that still remain in agriculture. It isnt rich land owners wholl feel the pinch, is it? Theyll still receive subsidies to "manage the countryside". (A cynic may relate this to land owning Tory voters?). Its those actually doing something sensible with land, such as growing food! who will suffer the most, it seems to me.