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Originally Posted by ianch99
One example is if a US trade mandates changes in food standards e.g. hormone-treated beef, etc. then these could compromise our food exports to the EU.
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No - your assumptions are based on a mindset that’s still within the EU, and we are not. When we were in, then we were obliged to harmonise regulations such that they affected every business whether it was an exporter or not. But we are not in the EU any more. When you sign a trade deal with another country or bloc external to your own, you do so either on the basis of mutual recognition of standards, or else you accept that goods exported to that bloc must meet their standards. You do not, however, have to align your non-exported goods and services with that bloc. So it is entirely possible to sign trade deals in parallel with both the USA and the EU, even for exactly the same goods and services. It is then up to exporters to decide who to sell to.
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To my mind if you seek to harmonise regulatory alignment with the EU to reduce the ongoing costs of Brexit then you would find it very difficult to make changes due to US trade demands and still square the circle.
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And this is why your assumptions are faulty - you’re not thinking in terms of trade deals, you’re thinking in terms of realignment in such a way as to make the UK a semi-detached member of the single market, along some variation of thr EEA model perhaps.