UK would be so much better off without EU tariffs of 20%

[lljkk]

On food, clothing & footwear, says the co-chairman of Leave means Leave (Radio 5 live tonight, 6:20pm). By going to WTO rules on 1 April 2019 (John Longworth continued). He said 20% off b/c no external tariffs that EU imposes on food, clothing, footwear.

So, maybe the Leavers can explain to me ... Won't that make British-grown food suddenly 20% more expensive than imports? How exactly will a flood of cheap imported food help British farmers stay financially viable?

(I presume there is too little British manufactured clothing & footwear to worry about their impacts, at least.)

I would like to understand "WTO rules" much better, too. I got impression from MN that there is no such thing as "WTO rules". "WTO rules" for each member state have to be negotiated painfully and it can take decades , and can only be agreed with consent of all other WTO members (is that because negotiating with EU27 is sissy work, so instead Leavers want to try to charm 100+ world countries at once?).

Also, once we are in WTO, UK must agree to WTO arbitration. Why was European court of justice too remote a court that didn't decide enough in UK favour but WTO arbitration is acceptable and will make fairer decisions... can someone explain?

lljk I had this argument with corcory months (years? ) ago. I linked to the African Union report on Agricultural strategy for the UN. It highlighted that as you suggest African countries are focusing on the growing market amongst the expanding middle classes in Asia for meat and other agricultural properties, and as you highlight Chinese investment in making sure their increasingly appetites are met. The need to move away from the crops that were established in colonial times to meet the needs of the colonisers to crops that are more profitable in modern markets and the preference for EU investment over Chinese to maintain greater diversity in markets and therefore greater independence, to avoid finding themselves de facto colonies again. The wish for a closer relationship with the EU rather than the UK becomes apparent when you remember the cold shoulder given to Boris by African leaders on his Empire 2 tour. The reality is that if we want agricultural produce from Africa we will have to compete for it and we are definitely are not the preferred customer given our colonial legacy there.......

However if your worldview is anglocentric none of those facts dent the illusions of British entitlement I suppose. It says everything that the narrative has not moved on in the intervening months.....

Sorry a few stupid autocorrects there as I am on my phone and about to get off a train but you get the gist......

I guess the reason the UK imports coffee from Germany is this perceived EU benevolence then ron and not the protectionist tariff regime which prevents producer countries from participating in high value end of the food chain rather than just raw materials export?

This is a good explainer on the EU's relationship with African agriculture.

www.tuaeu.co.uk/how-the-eu-starves-africa/

(from memory there is a recent change to sugar(?))

This is the CBI on cocoa trade stats.

www.cbi.eu/sites/default/files/market_information/researches/trade-statistics-europe-cocoa-2016.pdf

David Davis used to work for Tate and Lyle so doubtless understands all this a lot better than us.

I would hope that producers would go and invest in the latest farming techniques in these countries

I have a friend who spent 12 years growing up in Kenya (his DF was in the RAF, and got sent there with some jets in the 70s). I was lucky enough to visit a few times in the 90s.

With the best will in the world, Africa really doesn't have the resources in terms of education and application that would be needed to get farming to 1950s standards, let along 21st century.

(We'll put to one side the ongoing opposition the US has shown since 1945 to anything that remotely looks like uniting Africa. They like their diamonds cheap).

But, it seems to be a Brexiteer given that there are magic wands for everything.

How about - the EU free trade deal with the West African states is one of the reasons I wanted us to leave the EU.
Maybe I'm being too idealistic to suggest that we should have nothing to do with an organisation that deliberately dumps cheap food putting locals out of business. Maybe I am too idealistic suggesting we in the UK should be investing in these countries to improve production there not doing as we are party to doing now.
I don't know enough about West African economy so have no idea how much of their trade is done with East Asia. I would have thought they would be more reliant on countries bordering the Atlantic.

It's good to be idealistic Corcory, but I think that many in the UK emphatically do not share your ideals. We do invest in overseas aid, but many would like to see us cut back there.

David Davis used to work for Tate and Lyle so doubtless understands all this a lot better than us.

David Davis wants to see the removal of the tariff on imported sugar cane, rather than support British farmers growing sugar beet. Perhaps Chris Grayling needs to have a word with him about how the UK needs to be growing more of its own food?

www.fwi.co.uk/news/tories-conference-in-foreign-sugar-gaffe.htm

But I'm not talking about overseas aid. Peregrina. I am talking about private businesses investing.

Random - Our farmers are given huge subsidies to grow sugar beet which means it's loads cheaper than cane. Maybe DD knows how the EU subsidies have affected the cane industry.

After all it's not as if we couldn't grow something else.

corcory I thought one of the Brexit ideals of “taking back control” was to support our domestic businesses rather than rely on imports?

Sugar beet is also grown as a rotational crop (with wheat, barley, oilseed rape, peas, potatoes etc) so it may be hard to just grow other crops in its stead.

There are no specific subsidies for growing sugar beet in the UK, payments fall under the Single Farm Payment scheme, and there is / was (it is being abolished this month) a quota system together with minimum beet prices.

John Redwood just on radio. Post-Brexit, I'll be able to buy mango for 13% cheaper. Woohoo (wave a weeny Union Jack about). That'll really make up for the City losing passporting.

You see I think the sugar trade exemplifies all that is bad about the EU, it's punitive tariffs to sugar cane growing nations and it's subsidies for it's farmers who grow beet.
Europeans colonized much of the West Indies and other Caribbean areas. To meet our insatiable demand for sugar we planted sugar cane fields and captured African slaves to work in them.

Now the EU charges these same countries punitive import tariffs on their cane sugar and subsidises the growing of sugar beet in the EU.
We don't have to grow sugar beet. we could easily grow another rotation crop and one that it a lot easier to grow. One that dose not fail so often. But no. The farmers have to buy the seed from only one source and can only sell to British sugar so I'm sure they would rather grow something else.

On a personal note I would rather they didn't process sugar beet in many a place I used to live. The stench is horrid for months!

But really the whole thing just makes me so cross that we can be part of this.

Once we are out of the EU we don't have to impose the EU's tariffs and we don't have to grow beet. Sugar might even be cheaper. I'm sure there are loads of other things we currently import that we could add to the rotation instead!

Corcory African countries don't want to be reliant on products like sugar, coffee, cocoa (which alone is 70% of exports) for their agricultural exports. They are commodities which are subject to the huge fluctuations in global markets. With the colonial legacy of economies too heavily focused on the commodities needed by western markets these fluctuations have proven disasterous, especially since in the absence of other staples in the economy they have been heavily taxed to fund state expenditure, making them less competitive compared with other global producers. They aim to diversify their agricultural sectors to produce products for the emerging markets where they can add value by processing and meeting more rigorous standards of quality and safety. Frustrated not just by negotiations with the EU but also the WTO (which of course we will have to abide by) many countries have turned to bilateral deals with countries that are already large investors particularly in the mining and natural resource sectors, China chief amongst them. China's presence in Africa is now greater than any off the colonial powers, to secure its supplies of natural resources it is already deeply involved in infrastructure development across the continent. It is also sensitive to the possible (in some case already materialising) friction in Relations by African nations that do not want one set of colonisers to be replaced by another so providing investment and a market for these higher value agricultural products which at the same time satisfies the needs of its growing middle class is an attractive proposition for them.

So yes the new Silk Road that China is currently investing 900billion in includes substantial investment in a Maritime route with ports and other infrastructure all the way up the East African coast which will facilitate this future relationship

This is the constant weakness in Brexit thinking, it consistently fails to understand that the global economy is dynamic and evolving with many more players. We cannot rely on David Davis understanding the past markets of Tate and Lyle (mainly gained on a bar stool from what I gather)

www.un.org/en/africa/osaa/pdf/pubs/2013africanagricultures.pdf

www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/china-new-silk-road-explainer/

Ron - I wasn't suggesting that African countries should supply us with commodities. I would hope that they can add added value to their products and gain the profit from that part of the production cycle.

As for sugar. We can get sugar from where ever we like as long as we are not putting punitive tariffs on it like the EU.

I am not expecting to rekindle old relationships but to forge more that are beneficial to both countries. I'm well aware that world trade is constantly evolving but I would like us to get into the thick of it. We were dynamic trader before, maybe we can again.

Corcory As members of the EU we are in the thick of it, with influence and skilled negotiators. All the major players from Asia and Africa have made it clear, especially China, that they would rather deal with a U.K. that is part of the EU, and will put their trade relations with the EU ahead of those with the UK. Even Trump is becoming ambivalent, the only support for Brexit now comes from Russia (who by the way are signalling a China pivot themselves). That is the way global trade works, through geographical trade blocs and spheres of influence. As far as China is concerned Brexit has weakened an economic and political sphere of influence that stood as a balance to the other economic and political powers, the U.K. on its own is just a weak vulnerable state they will exploit.

We were a dynamic trader before When? That wasn't with the benefit of the barrel of a gun?

We were talking at work yesterday about the awful conditions of cane sugar plantations.

If you’re an African sugar cane plantation owner, who holds a contract with the uk.....are you going to risk that by treating the workers badly? We would only accept sugar from high welfare plantations. If you take away the profit in mistreating workers, it will stop.

Ron, What influence did we have when Cameron tried to negotiate with the EU?
What influence did we have when the EU decided to put punitive tariffs on sugar cane?
The EU is completely intransigent in it's views as can be seen in it's current stance with the 'negotiations' we are going through at the moment.
Countries like China are not going to suddenly stop trading with us we are one of their largest customers.
3 generations of my family spent nearly 60 years in the far east during the late 19th and early 20th century. The local community were only too pleased to trade with them. They didn't use guns to do it.

I would hope that they can add added value to their products and gain the profit from that part of the production cycle.

Is that little old ladies weaving the local grasses into necklaces for tourists, or massive factories churning out "stuff" ? If the former then either those necklaces will have to sell for a lot, or if the latter ... well. Who will design, build and above all run these factories ?

And here's what that would mean for one of the last natural landscapes on the planet:

goodfullness.com/27-powerful-images-prove-world-danger/

We would only accept sugar from high welfare plantations. If you take away the profit in mistreating workers, it will stop.

Ha, is about all which can be said to that.

If you take away the profit in mistreating workers, it will stop.

No, you just don't have any work for the workers anymore.

It's really wonderful that so many people are keen to improve the lot of mankind. It's equally amazing how many miss the point.

Yes, ‘ha’ indeed . Let’s just leave them to their supposed inability to function (according to lurking).

Corcory The UK is not one of China’s biggest markets. It accounts for 2.7% of their exports with EU countries accounting for quite a bit more, especially Germany and Holland which is precisely why the EU is a more important market for them www.worldstopexports.com/chinas-top-import-partners/ However I know that they regard a weaker UK as an opportunity to trade more at terms favourable to them but it is not a priority and intraregional trade ie with their geographical neighbours is far more important to them as it is the fastest growing, note the position of Vietnam in the table, and other regional neighbours in the table.

As to having three generations of family in Asia, so does my family but do you seriously think they would have been there if Jardine has not pursuaded the UK parliament to send those gunboats to China to secure Hong Kong and the treaty ports, and the Dutch and Portuguese had not taken the straits settlements and Macau followed by the British asserting their power there, the French doing the same in Indochina..... China in the eighteenth century was the greatest trading nation on earth with far greater levels of mercantile activity than Europe, it was rendered weak as much by complacent government and a crisis in silver supply as much as by the guns but its growth since the 1970s reflects a mercantile and entrepreneurial culture that runs much deeper culturally than the sort of imperialist entitlement that you manifest. I suggest you read some actual history instead of wallowing in imperial nostalgia.

Lurking - so you are suggesting that no other country should improve it's lot because we need them to stay the way they are from an environmental perspective!
Or that they are going to be making grass skirts or have stinking polluting factories!! Ha Ha Ha - you are funny.
The west should be able to help developing countries, create renewable energy, environmentally friendly work places and decent work conditions.