Just before the Brexit deal officially takes effect, the UK secures its 62nd agreement by signing a continuity and free trade agreement that will strengthen its ties with Turkey, yet another European outlier.
Turkey’s deal had become the fifth-biggest free trade agreement the UK had negotiated before the Brexit transition ended. It marked the 62nd agreement that Britain signed as it leaves the European Union (EU) bloc’s single market on December 31st.
The signatories, Turkish trade minister Ruhsar Pekcan and the UK’s ambassador to Turkey, Dominick Chilcott, settled the agreement terms and signed them during a ceremony in Ankara while having a video conference call with UK’s international trade secretary Liz Truss. The agreement—a guarantee that the current flow of goods won’t be affected when Brexit goes official at the end of the year—is all set to take effect in January 2021.
Perks of the UK-Turkey Trade Deal
Truss said that the deal is “ambitious” and aims to help the British keep offering jobs in the manufacturing, automotive, and steel industries.
“It paves the way for a new, more ambitious deal with Turkey soon and is part of our plan to put the UK at the center of a network of modern agreements with dynamic economies,” says Truss.
For Turkey, Pekcan said that they consider this deal a landmark in UK-Turkish relations. Not only did it remove the Turkish risk of losing about $2.4bn in export tariffs, but it also helped the struggling Turkish lira and provided bespoke “upgrades” to the otherwise infamous Turkish president.
Consequently, the existing preferential tariffs enjoyed by 7,600 UK businesses exporting to Turkey remained, protecting the automotive and manufacturing supply chains.
The agreement also entailed potential scope expansion to include both countries’ services and agriculture within the next two years.
The agreement and all the benefits will remain valid as long as the exporters can prove their UK or Turkish origins.
The Scruple-free “Global Britain”
Despite the numerous “benefits” to the 62nd deal closed by the UK, some can’t help but express dismay towards the UK leaders’ “scruple-free” decision to sign an agreement with Turkey.
Labor shadow trade secretary Emily Thornberry criticized the UK government, tagging the signing of the UK-Turkey trade deal due to “sheer bumbling incompetence,” owing to the half-baked parliamentary scrutiny of many of the post-Brexit trade deals.
In his article published in The Guardian, Simon Tisdall noted the disdain from the EU member states when Turkey tried to open membership talks in 2005. He said that the UK-Turkish deal proves that the “global Britain” is “willing to trade away everything, including scruples,” now that they are “taking back control” of Britain’s destiny.
He said the deal did nothing more than convert Truss into becoming Turkish “strongman” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s new favorite person. The shabby work that thrust Truss’s career ignored the Turkish government’s continuing human rights abuses. Instead, the deal upgraded the dangerous Turkish president, tipping the playing field against British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s promise to remain “the best friend and ally” to the EU bloc.