Trade triangle: US, Britain, and European Union

Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, also argued British attempts to game the EU on standards won’t work. He pointed out that Britain has little to threaten the bloc with, having already accepted new barriers to trade with Brussels.

"This could have been much more of an issue if the UK was trying to get a much deeper relationship with the European Union than it currently has, in that there would be a much bigger discussion about trade-offs and avoiding costs," he explained. "But essentially the UK has decided to eat a huge amount of economic pain when it comes to its trading relationship with the European Union in order to have the freedom to do these deals." He added, “I'm unsure as to why negotiating with the U.S. puts any pressure on the EU in this instance.”