Issue of the week: Dr Fox and his chickens
The International Trade Secretary’s attempt to further a UK-US trade deal has been hampered by a row over poultry
“Chlorinated chicken is hardly the most appetising sounding of dishes,” said The Independent, “but it is now firmly on the political menu.” When Trade Secretary Liam Fox travelled to the US this week, to sow the seeds of a future post-brexit trade deal, his agenda was hijacked by questions about cheap US poultry imports. Americans don’t seem to mind eating chicken that has been chlorine washed to kill bacteria, but the practice is currently banned under EU rules. Cue an outcry. “Is this what Brexit means? Is this what Liam Fox is going to bring us back for supper?”
When challenged by the pro-eu pressure group Open Europe to eat chlorinated chicken on live TV, Fox accused the British media of obsessing over a detail, said Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph. But tiny though the trade of chicken is, in the context of access to America’s £2trn economy, the row “goes to the heart” of the post-brexit free trade debate. If reaching a trade agreement with the US necessitates “opening up our markets to chlorinated chicken and otherwise lowering our agricultural standards”, it creates a big problem when it comes to trading with the EU, “which will want to ensure that no non-compliant foodstuffs get into its food chain”. The fuss rams home the point that Britain “can have a free trade agreement on its own terms with either the US or the EU, but not both”. On the face of it, it doesn’t “make a lot of sense” to abandon “one well-established trading relationship” to sign up with a country whose president promises to put “America first”. “The dangers of Britain being rolled over in its desperation to secure post-brexit deals with the US and beyond are obvious.”
A “rushed deal” with the US, however politically attractive, “risks handing American firms the upper hand”, said Michael Savage in The Observer. As Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, points out, we’re up against some of “the world’s toughest trade negotiators”, and there’s a danger that British companies will “continue to face higher upfront costs and regulatory requirements”, while opening themselves up to the risk of predatory takeovers by “bigger, cash-rich US competitors”. Clearly, any agreement with the US, our single biggest trading partner, “will impact on some trading sectors”, said The Daily Telegraph. But that’s no reason for defeatism. On the contrary, America’s clear “enthusiasm” for a free trade deal should be cheered. It is encouraging that Dr Fox has been “able to provide an optimistic counterweight to those who see nothing but gloom ahead”. Trade deals can take years to negotiate, “but the direction of travel is what matters”.