London, 6 December 2021: In light of several top UK Cabinet and Minister visits to the US this week, including by the UK Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Minister of State for Trade Policy Penny Mordaunt, BritishAmerican Business (BAB) published its latest white paper calling for a new structure for US-UK trade cooperation. Building on the priorities set out in BAB’s 2021-2022 Policy Agenda and on input from the transatlantic business community, the paper proposes both governments work to establish a US-UK Trade & Economic Council as a new formalised mechanism for trade and investment cooperation.
The paper recommends that six issue-specific workstreams are established under the umbrella of a US-UK Trade & Economic Council. These include technology and digital trade, business mobility, climate and sustainability, Small and Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs), financial services, and multilateral cooperation. Each workstream has been identified as an area where US-UK cooperation is currently underway or as an area of key interest to the transatlantic business community.
Establishing a formal structure for cooperation is a way to increase the tangible outcomes for both governments and businesses, build on the momentum in ongoing US-UK economic discussions, and lay the foundation for a future US-UK free trade agreement.
