LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th March, 2020) The United Kingdom's efforts to negotiate a free trade deal with the United States, touted as a harbinger of the post-Brexit world order, may be geared more toward serving the interests of big business and will scant result in any substantial economic benefit, experts and activists told Sputnik.
The figures put out last week by UK's Department for International Trade (DIT) estimate that a fresh free trade deal may result in a 3.4 billion Pounds ($4.4 billion) boost to the UK economy and increase transatlantic trade by $19 billion.
Such a best case scenario amounts to a mere 0.16 percent of the UK's overall economy, a modest result at best, but even such a forecast may be overly optimistic, David Hearne, a researcher at the Centre for Brexit Studies at Birmingham City University, told Sputnik.
"The �3.4 billion figure comes from the government's, specifically the Department for International Trade, own analysis. It assumes full bilateral tariff liberalization and a 50 percent reduction in non-tariff barriers - a hugely ambitious outcome," Hearne said.
He went on to explain that such a relationship may be rather one-sided because of the US' federal-states level nuances.
"It is difficult to envisage a situation in which the US substantially liberalizes its market in services, particularly since many of the barriers here are set at the state level. Domestic lobby groups jealously guard their privileges and it's unlikely that the UK will manage to substantially change that situation," Hearne explained.
The figures in DIT's "Negotiation Objectives" report come nowhere near enough to make up for the economic shrinkage which the UK is projected to suffer from Brexit, and one social justice activist believes this reality will leave the Kingdom susceptible to big business manipulation over the concerns of ordinary citizens.
"The government's own figures say we're looking at five to eight percent loss in terms of our own GDP [as a result of Brexit], so a really serious impact on the economy. What is [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson's game plan? I don't know, but I'm seriously concerned on their desire to deregulate and slash standards and make the British economy work much better for big business and not ordinary people," Nick Drearden, director of advocacy group Global Justice Now, told Sputnik.
UK media has extensively covered public worry that a free trade deal with the US would necessitate the UK to accept unfair terms, including opening up its already vulnerable National Health Service (NHS) to US-style deregulation and accepting US-produced food stuffs which do not meet UK's standards, such as chlorinated chicken and especially fatty foods.
DIT Chief Liz Truss went on a media blitz the morning the report was published and assured citizens that the UK is determined to drive a hard bargain and is ready to leave the table if the US crossed "red lines" such as the NHS.
Drearden believes that if history is any indication, London will have to put up a fight to protect the government-funded and highly popular NHS from the US insurance industry and speculative drug pricing.
"We have absolutely no details whatever on what the British proposals are to protect the NHS. We know from recent negotiations the US has made with Canada and Mexico over re-negotiation with NAFTA that they very heavily pushed for health services and drug pricing to be included. Canada fought back but it's certainly something the US wanted," Drearden said, speaking to Sputnik in London.
Drearden fears that the government's charm offensive to sell the deal to the UK public may be on account of some politicians' partiality to economic deregulation and for their own political ends.
In the end, Drearden believes the deal, even in its best case scenario, will be a bad trade-off for the UK.
The year 2020 is set to be crucial in UK's transition from the Eurozone to a singularly independent nation as dictated by the 2016 Brexit referendum. London will have to simultaneously negotiate a trade deal with the European Union, other nations with which it traded under the auspices of Brussels, as well as the US.
At a UK-Africa Investment Summit in January, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ambitiously stated that UK's goal is to set up free trade agreements with 80 percent of countries and entities it trades with.
Since Brexit, the UK's economy dropped fifth largest to sixth largest, overtaken by former colony India.
