If a good trade deal exists between two countries
(or trading blocs), it should be no surprise to anyone if producers in those countries
take advantage of that deal to sell their produce. Neither should it by any
surprise to anyone if the result of making it easier to trade with the partners
to that deal means that producers concentrate their sales in those places to which
it is easier to sell. That is, after all, the purpose of having a deal in the first
place. It does, though, seem to have come as a surprise to the International
Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, who las week expressed her concern that, by
trading so successfully with the EU, Welsh farmers had put all their eggs in
one basket.
It’s perverse, to say the least, to blame Welsh
agriculture for making the most of favourable terms of trade rather than
putting their time and effort into selling their produce on less favourable
terms elsewhere. The more logical conclusion to draw would be that the existing
trading relationship needs to be protected. Someone who can argue that “My
job as international trade secretary is to make sure there are plenty of other
markets for Welsh producers to sell into" rather than protect successful
existing markets might just possibly be in the wrong job. But just in case
there was any doubt about that, she went on to argue that amongst other
potential markets for Welsh lamb is New Zealand – a country which is not only
on the other side of the planet, it also has even more sheep per capita than
Wales and probably the highest number of sheep per capita in the world. Next on
the list will presumably be a deal to sell world-class British ice to Eskimos.
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3 comments:
Comment by my namesake in response to arecent Golwg item on this subject. - " Over - dependent, evidently Ms Truss has skipped her meds this morning. Utterly daft thing to say about marketing of meat or any other produce. Huge effort has gone into developing markets for high quality Welsh produce and this daft dullard has no clue how to arrest losses, only reciting the same old mantra about diversification. Well, you need capital to fund diversification especially when addressing new products for new export markets and the best way of doing so is on the basis of being stable and profitable in your existing markets. Ms Truss seems to be doing her best to wreck the present market relationship before any new replacement has been developed. Spooky lack of basic brain power, or is it deliberate so that other "interested parties" can get on with rewilding and other half baked ideas ?.
Here's an acid test. Can Truss or any of them get the USA to allow Welsh lamb in? This would be a big additional market for Welsh farmers, after all. Here are the reasons why not. It'll be hard for the UK to get any deal out of the US anyway, Trump or Biden. The US wants to protect "Rocky Mountain Lamb"- and why shouldn't they? (Using "fake" non-tariff barriers eg still blaming Chernobyl etc) And even if the UK gets some sort of deal, the UK would have to sacrifice something to get a gain for Welsh lamb. Why on earth would London pay a price to help Welsh lamb? Same issue, smaller scale, as repeatedly sacrificing UK Fishing to get a better deal in Europe for E.Anglian grain or the City of London.
Jonthan,
You almost make selling ice to eskimos look like a more rational strategy than that currently being pursued by HMG...
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