Should we really sell chocolate to Mexico?

BBC News reported Britain’s imminent accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership behind two stories about racism in cricket, giving no suggestion that it might represent a major economic breakthrough. Rather the opposite, with emphasis
on the cautious official prediction that CPTPP membership will add just 0.08 per cent to UK GDP over the next 15 years.

But as a former Asia-Pacific wanderer myself, I’m almost as excited as Lord Frost about the prospect of tariff-free trade with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. This canny grouping of 500 million consumers should offer huge opportunities for UK businesses – and no one seems to question its future growth path from 15 towards 20 per cent of global GDP, with half a dozen other industrious nations, including Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea, keen to join.

Meanwhile that other bloc of 500 million citizens with whom we used to be closely associated, the European Union, stands at a similar GDP level but is predicted to slip steadily backwards under the weight of bureaucracy, sloth and welfare bills.