Cheese proves to be biggest stumbling block in UK-Japan trade negotiations

For Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, the anticlimax was merely part of the “theatre” of negotiations. “From a UK perspective, there’s a need to be seen to be putting up a good fight – to be getting something the EU didn’t to show the UK can do trade agreements by itself,” he says.

[...]

Stilton also fits into a broader tussle at the heart of the UK-Japan trade talks: between cars and cheese – automobiles and agriculture. Lowe says: “Ultimately the compromise is Japan doesn’t get all it wants on car tariff reductions and the UK doesn’t get everything it wants on agriculture.”

[...]

Another prize would be a chapter on digital services, which would involve commitments not to make a company’s market access dependent on them handing over their source code and not to force companies to host data locally, as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) allows, although Lowe notes rather than unlocking new trade, this would merely provide certainty for firms that the current digital market will exist in future.