Brexit: UK firms face £80bn trade hit due to government failure to roll over EU deals

Press quote (The Independent)
Sam Lowe
10 November 2020

“It now seems likely that the UK will manage to roll over the majority of the EU’s trade agreements by the end of the year. Of those outstanding, Canada, Singapore and Vietnam will probably be done in the coming weeks, but Mexico will be a struggle,” said Sam Lowe, senior fellow at the Centre of European Reform.

“Perhaps the most important one of those left to do is also among the trickiest: Turkey. Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, which means that it can only strike a trade deal with the UK if the EU also does so. Assuming the EU and UK do reach agreement, this still doesn’t leave a lot of time to get everything sorted with Turkey.”