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The UK joined the Asia Pacific Trade.

Apta
 The UK today unveiled an agree­ment to join an 11-mem­ber Asia-Pacific trade bloc, with Prime Min­is­ter Rishi Sunak claim­ing it proved his gov­ern­ment was seiz­ing "post-Brexit freedoms".

Talks on Bri­tain becom­ing a mem­ber of the Com­pre­hens­ive and Pro­gress­ive Agree­ment for Trans-Pacific Part­ner­ship were finally wrapped up after two years of hag­gling over quotas and tar­iffs.
The UK will be the first coun­try to join the CPTPP since the group was estab­lished in 2018. Sunak said the trade deal would bring eco­nomic bene­fits and boost his "Asia-Pacific" tilt to for­eign policy.
Sunak said: "We are at our heart an open and free-trad­ing nation, and this deal demon­strates the real eco­nomic bene­fits of our post-Brexit freedoms.
Down­ing Street said more than 99 per cent of UK goods exports to CPTPP coun­tries would be eli­gible for zero tar­iffs, includ­ing products such as cheese, cars, chocol­ate, machinery, gin and whisky.
But the eco­nomic gains are min­imal, accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment’s own pro­jec­tions, and will do little to off­set the EU trade losses incurred as a res­ult of Brexit.
The gov­ern­ment estim­ates the CPTPP deal will increase gross domestic product in the long term by just 0.08 per cent, although it said that could rise if Thai­l­and and South Korea join the group.
The decision to join the CPTPP offers a strengthened eco­nomic pres­ence in a region that is pre­oc­cu­pied with how to respond to the rise of China, which itself has applied to join the trade bloc.
But the CPTPP deal is con­ten­tious, with spe­cial cri­ti­cism lev­elled at the decision to cut tar­iffs on imports of Malay­sian palm oil, the pro­duc­tion of which has been linked to the destruc­tion of rain­forest.
Daniela Mont­alto, head of forests at Green­peace UK, described the deal as "out­rageous", adding that cut­ting palm oil tar­iffs would only encour­age fur­ther destruc­tion.
Another con­ten­tious issue raised by the deal was access for beef from Canada. The coun­try’s beef is not on sale in the UK because its cattle are treated with hor­mones that are banned in Bri­tain.
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  1. Riana V.31 March 2023 at 10:01

    I agree that cutting palm oil tariffs will surely encourage further destruction. This is very clear and the UK shouldn't accept this. They should be and do better than this. I understand that there are benefits to joining this trade bloc but a country like the UK should demand some changes to bad practices.

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