is it just me or is this article completely devoid of information? I just woke up and all but it feels like I just read the same paragraph or two repeatedly reworded
Import/Export stopped overnight for many companies, goods started being stopped at the border and slapped with very high tariff.
Long story short, if you buy a cheap thing from amazon Germany/France, it might very well come to your door with an additional £30 in VAT and handling fees. Hence many companies stopped shipping overnight.
The problem is the worst for supermarket and perishable, see many news about cargos stuck at the border and expiring. The UK relies very heavily on imported food. It's really scary if we can't import food anymore and grocers are going bankrupt with cargo rotting at the borders.
No, you won't have to pay anything with Amazon. I ordered something from Germany last week, no extra fees.
No, there are no tariffs. There are VAT charges and potentially fees, although in almost all cases this is unlikely, that isn't the same thing as a tariff.
No, import/export has not stopped overnight. What has happened is that demand for certain products went through the roof this year, this has created massive issues in shipping with lots of containers ending up nowhere near where they are needed. The same issues are occurring, although to a lesser extent, in the EU. Freight costs into the Felixstowe are up 5x though, this will correct as time goes on but it will be a while (this issue is global but is particularly severe in the UK because our consumer economy is relatively large).
No, there is no issue with food supply. Frantic articles in tabloids about the food supply are constant, they were printed when people bought newspapers, they used to happen every few years when truckers striked, these stories sell but that is their only purpose. Where I am, food supply has improved significantly since earlier this year, that is going to be the case for most of the UK...with one exception, NI. They are still in the EU trading area but do most of their trade with the UK, they were sold down the river by everyone (there were some people who pointed out this was going to happen, that advice wasn't regarded).
Saying the UK relies heavily on imported food is...reductive. The UK relies heavily on imported food and also produces a lot of food for export. That is why some EU markets have shortages in certain products. The what and where is more important. The UK imports food from outside the EU, generally many countries imported food from outside FTA areas (and the UK and the EU are in an FTA). This is not something to panic about.
And generally, these rules applied to many countries outside the EU without FTAs. They are not prohibitive, they are not the end of trade. This is how most trade is done globally.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-p...
There is a fresh food issue in the UK, salads and tomatoes especially. Maybe you don't eat salads so you did not notice until its tomatoes that are hard to find on the shelf.
My cousins that are exporting some medium-quality wine (10 to 25€/bottle) to the UK seems to be fine, there will be a price hike that can cut some of their british customers but the chineese market seems to open up for them so they won't rely on UK export anymore.
It is unfortunate because the trade situation is actually pretty interesting but no-one is really covering it (they are just doing lots of articles about fish...a turnaround from a few months ago when they were appalled that fish was so important).