Off to a Bumpy Start: UK Trade Negotiations With the EU and US

In the last week of February 2020 – amid some chest-beating ferocity on both sides – the EU and UK published their respective negotiating mandates for the negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the EU, which duly started at the beginning of March.¹ On the day those talks started, the UK published its negotiating mandate for UK-US free trade talks (the US mandate has been available for over a year). And, just to round the day off, US Trade Representative made a speech to the Oxford Union. So where does this flurry of activity leave us?