Having promised to rush through a post-Brexit trade deal, Japan and Britain made significant progress only to discover that the fate of Stilton has driven a wedge between them.
During recent talks in London, British Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss and Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi reached a “substantial” preliminary agreement on trade, promising to conclude a preliminary deal by the end of this month.
However, after reaching a broad consensus over auto tariffs and going “significantly” further than expected in sectors such as financial services, they reportedly reached a stalemate over Stilton after Truss insisted on making it part of the negotiations.
Photo: Reuters
Truss is known for defending the UK’s cheesemakers, famously condemning Britain’s huge appetite for foreign cheese as a “disgrace “ during the 2014 Conservative Party conference.
Britain is seeking more preferential terms for its blue cheeses amid pressure on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from domestic farmers concerned about the imminent loss of EU subsidies, the Nikkei Asian Review business newspaper said.
Japan is prepared to phase out tariffs on hard cheeses such as cheddar by 2033, but is refusing to go soft on fresh and blue-veined varieties, which would have duty-free access on an agreed quota by the same date, the Financial Times reported.
Photo: Reuters
Japan is reportedly reluctant to offer Britain better terms than it gave the EU, which has a combined population nearly seven times the size of Britain’s, in a free-trade deal that went into effect early last year.
However, there is speculation that Tokyo could consider lowering the barriers to blue-veined cheeses given the relatively small costs involved.
Britain exported ￡18 million (US$23.6 million) of blue cheese globally last year, the Financial Times said, citing data from the British Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, but just ￡102,000 of that went to Japan.
Truss is also reportedly hoping to point to Japanese concessions over Stilton as proof that Britain has improved on the EU’s trade deal with Japan.
While officials in Tokyo have not denied the Nikkei report, Motegi, making the first overseas trip by a Japanese minister since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said he was confident that the two sides would clinch a preliminary deal by the end of this month, just four months before Britain is due to leave the EU.
Meanwhile, Truss said that the most recent round of negotiations, which began in June, had been “positive and productive.”
“We have reached consensus on the major elements of a deal, including ambitious provisions in areas like digital, data and financial services that go significantly beyond the EU-Japan deal,” she said in a statement.
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