The UK government has announced that it has signed a trade agreement with the European Union and will sign another agreement with Turkey, ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1, 2021.
According to the agreement reached between the UK and the EU last week, there will be no tariffs and quotas on all goods. This is the first time the EU has agreed a zero tariff zero quota deal with any other trading partner. The agreement means that the UK will fully recover its national independence. In parallel, the UK and the EU have agreed a separate Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and an agreement on Security Procedures for Exchanging and Protecting Classified Information. The UK’s participation in a number of EU programs such as Horizon Europe will continue until 2027.
The UK and Turkey will sign an agreement that includes the existing trading terms. “The deal we expect to sign this week locks in tariff-free trading arrangements and will help support our trading relationship, worth £18.6 billion last year. It will provide certainty for thousands of jobs across the UK in the manufacturing, automotive and steel industries,” Liz Truss, the UK trade minister, said.
The UK has signed trade agreements with 62 countries as it exits trade agreements with the EU.