Stuart Harbinson

One of the stated aims of Brexit was to widen and customise the UK’s trading relationships with the world.  Several years down the line, the UK has made some limited progress towards this objective.  However the international trading environment has become less hospitable, while the UK is still coming to grips with the many challenges - both international and domestic - involved in running its own trade policy. This article takes a look at some of...

There is no doubt that the recent announcement by the U.S. Administration of tariff hikes on steel and aluminium, justified on national security grounds, presents the real threat of an extremely damaging tit-for-tat trade war. If the tariffs are challenged at the WTO, there is the unwelcome prospect of the WTO having to rule on whether the U.S.’s “essential security interests”, taken in time of an “emergency in international relations”, constitute a...

In two weeks’ time trade ministers will gather in Buenos Aires for the WTO’s 11th Ministerial Conference. What is in prospect, and does it matter? Suggestions for ministerial attention have not been in short supply – agricultural subsidies and public stockholding, pesticide residues, fisheries subsidies, e-commerce, trade in services regulations, investment facilitation, micro/small enterprises, export restrictions, and ideas for enhancing transparency and...

American comedian Groucho Marx was no watcher of trade policy. Although dating from the 1930s, a modern-day trade policy cynic or realist (depending on one’s point of view) might think the Marx quote in the title is an apt comment on the Doha Round of trade negotiations. This Round was supposed to be a sprint. The original timeframe, set out in November 2001, was three years – very short by the standards of multilateral trade negotiations. It has turned into a...