THE UK Government has agreed to continue trading with Canada on the same terms as the EU until at least 2021, when a "new, bespoke" trade deal will be negotiated.
The news has been touted as a success by the Conservatives, although others have said using a "copy and paste" version of the EU deal was "the easy bit".
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said the deal means “certainty for businesses and industry, a foundation for a new, advanced trade deal, and brings us one step closer to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership”.
She added: "Today's agreement underpins £20 billion worth of trade and locks in certainty for thousands of jobs.
"We look forward to striking a new more ambitious deal next year with the aim of creating more opportunities for businesses and improving the lives of people across the country."
The Canadian Government has said that, in 2019, two-way merchandise trade with the UK reached $29.04bn CAD, equivalent to around £17bn.
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This makes the UK Canada’s “most important commercial partner in Europe” and fifth largest globally.
On a four-way video call between the two prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Justin Trudeau, and the two trade secretaries, Truss and her Canadian counterpart Mary Ng, Johnson said: “This is a fantastic agreement for Britain which secures transatlantic trade with one of our closest allies.
“British businesses export everything from electric cars to sparkling wine to Canada, and today’s deal will ensure that trade goes from strength to strength.
“Our negotiators have been working flat out to secure trade deals for the UK, and from as early next year we have agreed to start work on a new, bespoke trade deal with Canada that will go even further in meeting the needs of our economy.”
Many UK and Scottish Tory parliamentarians have praised the deal, but independent voices are less enthusiastic.
David Henig, the director of the European Centre for International Political Economy think-tank, said the agreement was “not ideal, but better than not having it”.
William Wright, the founder of the New Financial think-tank, said: “The UK is nearly back to where it started in terms of rest of world trade agreements, just in time to walk away from the best trade deal it ever had and ever will have.”
Jeremy Warner, the Telegraph’s associate editor, said: “The copy and paste FTAs [Free Trade Agreements] the EU already has are the easy bit.
"The big test comes in signing deals that don't screw us with the US, China and India. There are good reasons why the EU has found them so problematic. Good luck.”
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The continuity agreement with Canada comes after Trudeau said that the two countries were struggling to come to an agreement as “the UK hasn’t had to negotiate trade deals in the past few decades, so there is an issue of not really having the bandwidth within government to move forward on this”.
Truss denied the prime minister’s claims.
A source from the Department for International Trade (DIT) told the Telegraph: "[Truss] is quietly and effectively getting on with the job.
“She’s done a great deal with Japan, got this vital continuity deal with Canada, and has other deals in the pipeline with countries that share our core values and beliefs."
The DIT previously claimed: “Government analysis shows that a deal with Japan will deliver a £1.5 billion boost to the UK economy.”
However, this was compared to a No-Deal scenario with the Asian nation.
In comparison, the DIT estimated the 2019 EU-Japan trade deal would add somewhere between £2.1 billion and £3.0 billion to annual GDP of the UK.
The DIT also said this Canadian deal avoids £42m of tariffs exporting businesses in the UK would have faced in a No-Deal scenario.
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