World Trade Organisation

Let’s face it most people hadn’t heard of WTO before the referendum , now Brexiteers seem to be thinking it is the holy grail of Brexit. No country in the whole world trades exclusively under WTO - there is a reason for this. What was that about sovereignty and striking our own deals etc? WTO is an organisation we have to pay money to and adhere to its rules - remind you of anything?

A thread from twitter here on No Deal and WTO

(It's been 'unrolled' and is very easy to read)

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1020658628431368193.html

Thank you for the links. If only May had the courage to say enough and cancel the whole thing. What a mess.

crystaltips
Wrong. One country trades under WTO alone: Mauritania.

{sad] - wish I didn't know about it. It gets worse and worse.

How low do the brexiters want us to sink?

Fennel
This is from the financial Times.
Roberto Azevedo,Secretary General of the WTO has stated that Brexit will not cause uk trade disruption. He said he would personally work intensely to ensure that the transition is fast and smooth. Trade will not stop it will continue"
By Jan 2017 the uk WTO Brexit policy was in an advanced form.

So you see, the WTO plan isn't something that we've just stumbled upon in the past 2 weeks. It's all in place.
Please read up on stuff and not just rely on GN.

Mauritania is a slave based economy apparently. Is this something we aspire to?

If WTO was so great why do countries seek to make bilateral trade agreements or to form trading blocs?

With regard to the UK, WTO doesn't cover services, which are some 80% of our exports...

petra it was on LBC. James O'Brien.
I admit I know next to nothing about the WTO, hardly knew it existed.
There are so many versions of the different aspects on the various media, don't know who to believe. J.O'B is biased, so is the Financial Times.

I thought that the WTO was a fairly well-known organisation.
As far as I was aware, the EU belongs to the WTO as a bloc but each country in the EU belongs on an individual basis as well.

Membership
Members and observers
The WTO has over 160 members representing 98 per cent of world trade. Over 20 countries are seeking to join the WTO.
Accessions
To join the WTO, a government has to bring its economic and trade policies in line with WTO rules and negotiate its terms of entry with the WTO membership.

Services trade
Ranging from architecture to voice-mail telecommunications and to space transport, services are the largest and most dynamic component of both developed and developing country economies. Important in their own right, they also serve as crucial inputs into the production of most goods. Their inclusion in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations led to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Since January 2000, they have become the subject of multilateral trade negotiations.

www.wto.org/index.htm

It is based in Geneva.

I do not understand the negative remarks about the WTO.

The WTO has 164 members. The EU is the only organisation to be a member of the WTO. All EU member states are also individual members but they always vote as the EU bloc.

Let’s face it most people hadn’t heard of WTO before the referendum
Really? I can't believe that! They must have been walking around with their heads in the sand then.

Well a lot of people didn't know what the EU was ( "What is the EU" was the most googled question after the referendum).
A friend of mine asked her son's GF, aged mid twenties, what do you think of the EU referendum?, answer : Whats the EU?

Yes, I did see some young mums being interviewed on the tv at the time of the referendum and their responses were much the same suzied - 'What referendum, what's the EU, no idea who the PM was' etc
Presumably they were amongst those younger people who didn't vote.

I believe that it is whether " frictionless border trade" can be maintained following Brexit that will be key to Britains future prosperity. It was only last week that the leading suppliers and distribution companies were requested by the government to map their supply chains with special reference being made to "just in time" delivery services". The results of that mapping will demonstrate the level of Britains resilience to disruption on various scales should frictionless border trade cease following Brexit.

For the UK's suppliers and Hauliers the foregoing mapping is a huge task to undertake and first results may not be available for two to three months at least. However, with between 44-60% of Britains trade currently being with the EU, I feel that little or no delay to heavy vehicles progressing through all European ports is essential to the future of the UK's prosperity.

However, until the data from the above mapping operation is available, all debate i feel on how Britain may fare in various Brexit scenarios is somewhat guesswork whether that be in regard to WTO rules or any other agreement.

fennel
Something to think on.
As trade stands now (with the eu) under WTO rules British companies would pay £5.2 billion per year in tariffs.
The eu ( under WTO rules) would pay £12.9 billion per year in tariffs.
Over £3 billion ( of the eu bill) will be paid by Germany because of their huge car imports into the uk.
From the Guardian.

As someone who pays a lot of attention to the government's statements, I have come to the obvious conclusion that many of the brexit mantras and slogans are mutually exclusive.

The "frictionless border" between NI and the ROI is totally and irreconcilably opposed to the key brexit slogan of "taking back control of our borders".

If there is to be no hard border on the island of Ireland, both goods and people can come and go as they please.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see a hard border undoing the good of the Good Friday agreement and all that has flowed from it, but I never fell for the clever slogan "take back control"

We can have a frictionless border (and the easiest way to maintain that is to remain in the EU) or we can "take back control" of our borders but we can't do both at once. It is a clear choice.

Brexiters like to take about how easily we could trade under WTO terms. Not so, as we can now see-

"UK signals failure of bid for quick Brexit transition at WTO"

uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-wto/uk-signals-failure-of-bid-for-quick-brexit-transition-at-wto-idUKKCN1MZ28D?fbclid=IwAR2QODpw2xHL3K8tunbT90QKZXTrS4ae5WE0z4JuJxL0zaq63509GU87xEw