Readers will recall my comments during the summer about some of the problems with the procurement provisions of the bilateral FTAs the UK has been negotiating. I would be interested to know from anyone whether any of those provisions have had real practical effect. Recent comments by at least one former minister, George Eustice, has suggested that other parts of the agreements may have represented a bad deal for the UK, so perhaps the trade off came somewhere else?
The new Secretary of State for International Trade , Kemi Badenoch, has told the House of Commons trade committee yesterday that her department will be shifting away from FTAs towards practical trade facilitation measures. One topic which she will soon have to focus on is the suite of procurement related measures which will place considerable burdens on some UK entities seeking to bid for public contracts in the EU. I will come back to this.
Despite this shift, the strategy of concluding non-binding trade MoUs with US states continues. As previously noted, the first was with Indiana and North Carolina followed. Apparently a third will soon be signed, with an as yet unnamed state. Any guesses which one?