‘Only fools would rule UK out of TPP’
beijing — The UK will explore all options for future trade deals around the world after Brexit including a tie-up with countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said.
The minister confirmed that the UK will look at joining a sweeping 12-nation pact better known as the TPP that stalled after President Donald Trump pulled out the US last year.
“We will want to explore all the opportunities,” Fox said in an interview with Bloomberg Television during a trip to Beijing on Wednesday. “I would say that we would be foolish not to look at all the potential.”
Fox explained that the TPP agreement would need to be finalised first, adding that the issue isn’t the UK’s top priority as it seeks to negotiate its withdrawal from the European Union. Even so, he said “it would be quite wrong” to rule out the opportunities there.
Fox’s comments come as Prime Minister Theresa May seeks to accelerate progress of the Brexit negotiations. After reaching an agreement on the divorce terms in December, both sides are poised to discuss a two-year transition to help businesses adapt to Brexit — with the UK seeking to finalise an ambitious trade deal with the bloc by October.
As Britain’s leading trade envoy, Fox is responsible for designing the map of commercial links the country will seek to open once it leaves the EU and is free to strike its own deals around the world in 2019 — when the UK is formally out of the bloc.
In the interview, Fox said he wanted to boost the trade and investment
The biggest risk with Brexit are those people who are self-defeating pessimists talking down Britain’s opportunities Liam Fox, British International Trade Secretary
relationship with China, with a focus on services and technology. He cautioned that a fullyfledged free-trade agreement seemed unlikely in the short-term.
“I think in terms of a classical FTA with China, that would still be somewhere down the road for us, but of course we want to improve our trading position with China as much as we can,” Fox said. Beyond securing an open trade deal with the EU, the UK’s priority will be negotiating the extension of the EU’s 40 agreements with other countries, such as Canada, South Korea and Switzerland in time for Brexit, Fox said. “We need to do a lot of groundwork.” An early backer of Brexit and active Leave campaigner in the 2016 referendum, Fox said warnings of economic disaster for the UK from Brexit had been wrong.
“The biggest risk with Brexit are those people who are self-defeating pessimists talking down Britain’s opportunities,” he pointed out. — Bloomberg