With the withdrawal from the European Union, Britain promised to be able to conclude its own trade agreements. However, the government has now broken off negotiations with Canada over a trade agreement. Criticism comes from the opposition.
The reason for the failure of the negotiations lies in disagreements over the import and export of beef and cheese. Canadian negotiators were increasingly under pressure from the domestic beef industry and cheese factories.
While the beef industry demanded access for its hormone-treated beef, cheese manufacturers warned about the economic impact of duty-free cheese from the UK, especially Cheddar.
The duty-free cheese exports from Britain will be discontinued at the end of 2023 after a temporary side agreement expires, causing British producers to face high tariffs of 245 percent.
The British government emphasizes that it is open to the resumption of talks, but so far no progress has been made.
Canadian Minister of Trade Mary Ng expressed on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, stating that her government "will never agree to a deal that is not good for our workers, farmers, and businesses."
The President of the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales, Minette Batters, praised the British government for its stance and emphasized the importance of trade in agricultural products.
The possibility to negotiate its own trade agreements was promoted as an advantage during the 2016 British referendum on EU membership. However, since Brexit, only a few new trade agreements have been negotiated and the benefits are often seen as modest compared to the trade barriers that have emerged between Great Britain and the EU.
The Conservative British Government attempted to downplay the failure of the talks and emphasized the advantage of an independent trading status for Great Britain, which allows it to insist on the details of any agreement.
The opposition Labour Party sees the failure of negotiations as another "significant failure" of the government to uphold its promises for the post-Brexit period.
With the end of the talks, concerns are also growing that British cars could be subject to higher export tariffs from April if another temporary agreement on tariff exemption, similar to the one for cheese, expires.
The British Chamber of Commerce referred to the failure of the talks as "unwelcome news" and urged the government to help the affected sectors.
The annual trade volume between the two countries amounts to around 26 billion pounds (33 billion dollars). It remains to be seen if and when negotiations between Britain and Canada will be resumed and if a mutually beneficial trade agreement can be reached.
