Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeristor | Hacker News Reader

So does Britain get enjoy this for the two months before Brexicution?

yes

Come March 31st the UK has no trade deals with any country. Even the WTO schedules are up for argument in the unelected WTO court.

The WTO court which is very nearly defunct thanks to Trump. Ooh, this'll be fun.

That's not strictly true, I know a few countries have agreed to roll over the deals the have with the EU over to the UK, not all have been signed and (not a great comfort) the only ones I know of that have (so far) are Isreal and (I think?) Australia

Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU, they've said that the UK leaving will not change their desire for one

Israel you're right -- they agreed it last week.

Not strictly true again, it's not a FTA but there exists a trade deal in some form and the UK just signed with Australia - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-co...

That's not really a trade deal (well it's not listed on the page with the free trade agreements the UK has [0], nor on the list of preferential trade deals the UK has [1])

While the spin is "we're doing business", all this does is

"continue to benefit from existing arrangements for mutual recognition"

Given that those benefits are so insignificant they don't appear as free trade agreements says it all really. It's to do with certification (not tarrifs) in a few areas (Automotive Products, Pressure Equipment, Medical Devices etc)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agre...

[1] https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com