Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Tag: trade
UK-Canada Trade Barriers to Increase Amid Failure to Reach Deal
(Bloomberg) — Provisions allowing the UK to sell products containing European Union parts to Canada tariff-free will expire on Monday, after the two countries failed to reach an agreement on extensions.
Most Read from Bloomberg
While UK government officials are trying to play down the impact on British industry, especially car-makers, one critic is calling it “embarrassing” for the country’s post-Brexit trade policy that it was unable to reach a deal even with a close ally.
Forming closer trade ties with countries outside the EU was touted by Brexiteers, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as a key benefit of leaving the bloc. But so far the UK has only signed new bilateral free-trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, and those deals have been criticized by MPs and farmers alike.
The failure to secure an extension on so-called rules of origin provisions with Canada, even after last-ditch talks between UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and her Canadian counterpart Mary Ng on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization conference in Abu Dhabi at the end of February, underlines just how difficult it will be for the UK to boost its tariff-free trade with non-EU markets.
It may also be a sign of deepening rifts in the ruling Conservative Party, which is lagging the opposition Labour in polls ahead of a general election expected later this year as discord against Sunak grows.
While the EU is still the UK’s largest trading partner, and Labour has vowed to deepen that relationship in an effort to boost the economy if it wins a general election, negotiators are finding out first-hand that the UK’s closeness to the EU may alienate it from other trading partners.
“We may have allies, but we all have interests as well,” said David Henig, a director at the European Centre for International Political Economy. He added that there was “a lot of naivety” in government trade circles at the time of Brexit, and that it was “embarrassing” that the UK had not been able to reach a new trade deal with Canada.
The lapse of the rules of origin provisions on Monday comes after negotiations on a wider improved FTA between the UK and Canada were “paused” by Badenoch earlier this year. At a time of infighting in the Conservative Party, the trade secretary is seen to be a potential successor to Sunak. While she has sought to distance herself from the plotting against the prime minister, Badenoch has raised eyebrows with a spate of social media interventions perceived by some to be undermining him.
A person close to Badenoch said having an independent trade strategy outside of the EU meant being prepared to play hardball, and that the trade secretary was willing to put her foot down. This position is likely to go down well with the right of the Conservative Party, many of whom voted for Brexit in order to increase UK sovereignty and who would be reluctant to relinquish control through trade deals.
Several people with knowledge of the matter said in the run-up to the pause in negotiations, UK officials were becoming increasingly reticent to address the broader deal as they were focused on getting an extension to the rules of origin, which were a hangover from the UK’s membership of the EU.
But two people close to Canada’s negotiating team said the UK was offering nothing in return. Canada wanted a firm deadline on the rules of origin in order to incentivize the UK to prioritize the broader trade deal. The two countries have a strong relationship, but that doesn’t mean Canada can give things away for free, said one Canadian official who asked not to be named as the discussions are private.
Rules of origin measures affect several industries, but in the context of UK-Canada trade they are particularly vital for the UK’s car manufacturing sector. Canada was the eighth largest export market for auto firms last year, with exports totalling almost £700 million ($883 million).
Exporters that would previously have been able to trade tariff-free under rules-of-origin provisions will now be slapped with a 6.1% levy, or around £3,000 per vehicle, according to the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
“The potential tariff liabilities will be significant,” SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said in a recent letter to Parliament’s Business and Trade Select Committee.
The breakdown in negotiations was mostly due to Canada’s insistence on the UK loosening its food safety regulations, according to several people familiar with the matter.
Canada’s agriculture and food processing market is geared toward exporting to the US, where practices such as chemical carcass-washing and hormone-injected beef and pork are commonplace. In the EU, and the UK by virtue of its former membership of the bloc, such practices are banned.
Canada had been hoping that the UK’s need to extend the rules of origin provisions would lead to some flexibility on carcass-washing, if not growth-treated beef and pork. But according to people with knowledge of the UK position, this was a red line the government was not willing to cross.
“Canada’s decision not to roll over these rules of origin will increase the cost of trade and hurt businesses on both sides of the Atlantic,” the Department for Business and Trade said. “The UK government remains ready to work with Canada to find a solution that works for both countries, but we won’t accept rowing back on the current terms.”
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
France’s Macron calls for new, ‘more responsible’ Mercosur trade deal
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday emphatically rejected the planned free trade agreement between the European Union and the South American economic alliance Mercosur in its current form during a visit to Brazil.
“As it stands, it is a very bad agreement. This agreement was negotiated 20 years ago. This is not what we want,” Macron said, speaking in São Paulo.
“Let’s negotiate a new, more responsible agreement that is oriented towards our goals and reality and that takes development, the climate and biodiversity into account,” Macron added.
The French leader is one of the harshest critics of the agreement in the EU.
At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) summit in December, Macron criticized the fact that European farmers and companies would have to adhere to strict requirements to reduce carbon emissions, while products from South America that are not produced according to the same rules would enter the EU tariff-free.
“I can’t ask our farmers, our industrialists in France but also everywhere in Europe to make efforts to apply new rules to decarbonize … and then say all of a sudden, ‘I’m removing all the tariffs to allow products to enter which do not apply these rules,'” Macron said in a speech at COP28 in Dubai.
France’s stance is at odds with the German government’s. During a meeting in Berlin in December, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva both pushed for a swift conclusion to negotiations on the agreement.
The deal between the EU and the Mercosur alliance – with its member states Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – would create one of the world’s largest free trade zones with more than 700 million inhabitants. Its main aim is to reduce customs duties and thus boost trade.
The EU has been in talks with Mercosur about the deal for 23 years. An agreement in principle reached in 2019 has not been implemented due to ongoing concerns, including rainforest protection.
Israel and Hezbollah trade strikes over Lebanon border
Hezbollah has fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel, killing one person, in response to deadly Israeli strikes on a Lebanese village.
Lebanese sources said seven people were killed in the Israeli attack overnight on Habbariyeh, making it one of the deadliest in recent violence.
Israel said militants were killed, including one involved in attacks on Israel.
The Lebanese group targeted said those killed were “rescuers”.
The strikes come as Israel and Hezbollah trade almost daily strikes across the border, which began with the start of the Israel-Gaza war following the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Muslim militant group with close ties to Iran and an ally of Hamas.
Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona and a military base there on Wednesday morning.
Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said a factory worker was pulled from wreckage after one of the strikes hit an industrial park triggering a fire.
He had severe wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, it added.
Hezbollah said the rocket attacks were “in response to the massacre in Habbariyeh”.
Lebanese officials said the strikes on the village had hit an emergency and relief centre for Jamaa Islamiya, a Sunni Muslim group with links to Hamas.
The Lebanese Ambulance Association, quoted by the Associated Press, called the strike a “flagrant violation of humanitarian work”.
The Israel Defense Forces described the target as a “military compound”.
They said: “A significant terrorist operative belonging to the Jamaa Islamiya organisation who advanced attacks against Israeli territory was eliminated along with additional terrorists who were with him.”
According to UN figures from before the latest attacks, 316 people have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict began, at least 54 of them civilians.
Up to 20 have lost their lives on the Israeli side, around half of them civilians.
Putin woos African leaders at a summit in Russia with promises of expanding trade and other ties
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin courted leaders from Africa at a summit on Friday, hailing the continent’s growing role in global affairs and offering to expand political and business ties.
Addressing the Russia-Africa summit for a second day, Putin said Moscow would closely analyze a peace proposal for Ukraine that African leaders have sought to pursue.
“This is an acute issue, and we aren’t evading its consideration,” the Russian leader said, emphasizing that his government was treating the African initiative with respect and “looking at it attentively.”
He encouraged the African leaders to talk to Ukraine, which has refused to engage in talks until Russian troops pull back. “I believe it’s necessary to also talk to the other side, although we are grateful to our African friends for their attention to the issue,” Putin said at the St. Petersburg summit.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said African leaders were looking forward to engaging further with Putin later Friday on their peace proposal.
“It is our hope that constructive engagement and negotiation can bring about an end to the ongoing conflict,” Ramaphosa, who leads sub-Saharan Africa’s most developed country, said, adding in South Africa, “our own history has taught us that this is indeed possible.”
Without specifically mentioning the fighting in Ukraine, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni denounced those who foment ideologically-driven military conflicts as “time and opportunity wasters,” adding that “human history will move on, whether they like it or not.”
“The only justified wars are the just wars, like the anti-colonial wars,” Museveni said. “Wars of hegemony will fail and waste time and opportunity. Dialogue is the correct way.”
In his speech, Putin reaffirmed his pledge that Russia will maintain steady supplies of grain and other agricultural products to the continent after its withdrawal from a deal allowing grain shipments from Ukraine. Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative has fueled concerns of a global food crisis.
“Russia will always be a responsible international supplier of agricultural products and will continue to support the countries and region in need by offering free grain and other supplies,” the Russian leader said.
He declared at the summit’s opening Thursday that Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Central African Republic each will receive 25,000 to 50,000 tons of Russian grain in the next three to four months.
In comparison, the U.N. World Food Program shipped 725,000 tons of grain to several countries, including Somalia, under the Black Sea deal.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres responded to Putin’s pledge of no-cost grain shipments by noting that such donations of grain can’t compensate for the impact of Moscow cutting off grain exports from Ukraine, which along with Russia is a top supplier to the world market.
Guterres said the U.N. was in contact with Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and other countries to try to reestablish the year-old agreement, under which Ukraine exported more than 32 million tons of grain. The resumption of shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports allowed global food prices to drop significantly from the levels they reached after Putin sent troops into the neighboring country.
The deal brokered a year ago by the U.N. and Turkey reopened Ukrainian Black Sea ports blocked by fighting and provided assurances that ships entering them wouldn’t be attacked. Russia declined to renew the agreement last week, complaining that its own exports were being held up.
Putin used the summit to repeat his accusations against the West of obstructing the export of Russian grain and fertilizers, including proposed no-cost supplies of fertilizers to Africa.
The Russia-Africa summit marks a renewed Kremlin effort to bolster ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people that is increasingly assertive on the global stage. Africa’s 54 nations make up the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and have been more divided than any other region on General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Only 17 heads of state were at the summit, compared to 43 at the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019, a sharp drop in attendance that the Kremlin has attributed to what it described as “outrageous” Western pressure to discourage African countries from showing up.
Putin hailed Africa’s role in the emerging “multipolar world order,” noting that “the era of hegemony of one or several countries is receding into the past, albeit not without resistance on the part of those who got used to their own uniqueness and monopoly in global affairs.”
“Russia and Africa are united by an innate desire to defend true sovereignty and the right to their own distinctive path of development in the political, economic, social, cultural and other spheres,” he said.
He said Russia plans to expand trade and economic ties with Africa and continue efforts to relieve their debt burden by writing off another $90 million of their debts.
Putin noted that Moscow also stands ready to bolster defense ties with African countries by helping train their military and expanding supplies of military equipment, some of them on a no-cost basis.
___
This story corrects the amount that Ukraine exported under the Black Sea deal to 32 million tons.
___
Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Cara Anna in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.
China defends trade with Russia after the US says equipment used in Ukraine might have been exported
BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government defended its dealings with Russia as “normal economic and trade cooperation” Friday after a United States intelligence report said Beijing possibly provided equipment used in Ukraine that might have military applications.
The Biden administration has warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government of unspecified consequences if it supports the Kremlin’s war effort. The latest report cited Russian customs data that showed Chinese state-owned military contractors supplied navigation equipment, fighter jet parts, drones and other goods, but didn’t say whether that might trigger U.S. retaliation.
“China has been carrying out normal economic and trade cooperation with countries around the world, including Russia,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She said Chinese-Russian cooperation “neither targets a third party nor is it subject to interference and coercion by a third party.”
Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared before the February 2022 invasion that their governments had a “no-limits” friendship. Beijing says it is neutral in the war, but it has blocked efforts to censure Moscow in the United Nations and has repeated Russian justifications for the attack.
China is an “increasingly important buttress” for Russia, “probably supplying Moscow with key technology and dual-use equipment used in Ukraine,” said the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, referring to equipment that can have both civilian and military applications.
China has stepped up purchases of Russian oil and gas, which helps Putin’s government offset lost sales after the United States, Europe and Japan cut off most purchases of Russian energy. Beijing can do that without triggering Western sanctions on its own companies, but Washington and its allies are frustrated that it undercuts economic pressure on Moscow.
China rejects Western trade and financial sanctions on Russia because they weren’t authorized by the U.N. Security Council, where Beijing and Moscow have veto power. However, China has appeared to avoid directly defying those sanctions.
“We have also consistently opposed unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law and have not been authorized by the Security Council,” said Mao.
GOP presidential candidates trade barbs on Iowa campaign trail
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.