LONDON, Nov 11 — Canada should be able to strike an “easy” trade agreement with Britain by the end of the year unless London’s workload prevents it, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today.
“I think we’re ready to have it done before January 1. One of the challenges is bandwidth,” he told an online conference hosted by the Financial Times.
“The UK hasn’t had to negotiate trade deals in the past few decades so there is an issue of not really having the bandwidth within government to move forward on this.”
Trudeau was apparently referring to a limited capacity to negotiate trade deals with several major partners at the same time.
“Canada is a really easy one — we’re there for it, we’d like to do it, so I’m very hopeful that it’s going to get done, but that is really up to the UK government,” he said.
Britain is currently locked in fraught talks with the European Union to set the terms of their future trading relationship for when the post-Brexit transition period ends on December 31.
EU negotiators are in London this week to try to salvage a deal, which is stuck over key areas such as fishing rights in British waters, competition rules and governance.
Britain left the EU in January after nearly 50 years of integration with its closest neighbours, but remains bound by the bloc’s rules during the trade negotiations.
Following its referendum vote in 2016 to leave the EU, Britain can now strike trade deals of its own.
London is in a rush to secure as many as possible to mitigate any economic hit caused by more restrictive economic relations with the European bloc, which is by far its biggest market.
It has already announced an agreement with Japan, but a future deal is now less certain with the United States with the imminent arrival of Joe Biden as president.
Biden has warned Britain that any moves it makes that threatens the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland will effectively end its hopes of getting a deal.
Johnson spoke to Trudeau earlier this week.
“The leaders agreed to continue strengthening the bilateral relationship between the UK and Canada in areas such as trade and security,” Downing Street said in a statement on Monday. — AFP
