Britain will set out more details about its objectives for a free-trade deal with the EU next month after the country leaves the bloc on Friday, British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU Stephen Barclay said.
“We are going to publish our objectives for the negotiation ... in due course after the 31st,” he told BBC television’s Andrew Marr program on Sunday.
At stake are the terms of trade from next year, when an 11-month post-Brexit transition period is due to expire. Negotiations between London and Brussels are expected to start in March.
“The key issue is that we will have control of our rules, we will not be a rule taker, we will not diverge for the sake of diverging, we start from a position of alignment,” Barclay said. “But the key opportunity is that we will be able to set our standards, high standards, on worker’s rights, on the environment, on state aid as part of that trade policy.”
The European Commission, which negotiates on behalf of the 27 remaining EU members, will thrash out its objectives next month before putting them to EU governments on Feb. 25. Negotiations are expected to start after that.
Barclay reiterated the UK’s ambition to agree a “zero-tariff, zero-quota, broadly ambitious trade policy,” with the EU, while working to strike deals with other countries, including the US.
In the week that the UK ends its 45-year relationship with the EU, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to make a series of critical infrastructure decisions that could shape his premiership — and the country — for years to come.
The premier is poised to allow Huawei Technologies Co (華為) to take a role in developing 5G, despite calls from US President Donald Trump to ban the Chinese firm over concerns that it could make the network vulnerable to spying in the future. Huawei has always denied posing a security risk. An announcement could come as early as today.
One option Johnson is considering is imposing a market share cap on Huawei, in a bid to avoid over-reliance on the Chinese company, according to the Financial Times.
Barclay said he was confident the UK and US would get a post-Brexit trade deal done despite the tensions over Huawei.
“The key issue in terms of the US trade deal is the clear intent of the Trump administration to have a trade deal with the UK,” Barclay said. “They’ve been very clear in terms of how they prioritize that — that they want to have that deal. So yeah, there are issues in terms of 5G, but that is a UK decision.”
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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