Exeter, which sends 70 per cent of its exports to EU markets ©Smalljim

This week a government delegation will head to Washington to begin “informal talks” aimed at securing a UK-US trade deal—to come into play once Brexit negotiations with our erstwhile European Union partners have been concluded.

These talks follow the trade negotiation pact agreed by Theresa May with Donald Trump on her recent visit to the United States—a development almost entirely (and somewhat understandably) overlooked in the subsequent uproar around Trump’s travel ban on nationals from majority-Muslim countries, and yet one that represented a modest triumph for the prime minister.

Indeed, this apparent confirmation that the UK would be at the “front of the queue” for a deal with the US was the prize May had hoped for most as she set out across the Atlantic. Had Trump’s travel ban (and the prime minister’s apparent slowness to condemn it) not dominated coverage of the trip, May could have instead presented it as a step towards realising her vision of re-establishing Britain as a “great, global trading nation,” as outlined in her recent Brexit speech.

This rhetoric has also been echoed in the optimistic pronouncements of Cabinet colleagues such as Boris Johnson and Liam Fox, who have talked up Britain’s prospects of securing deals with countries across the world—while the government’s recent Industrial Strategy green paper featured a list of countries identified as keen to strike trade agreements with the UK as quickly as possible.

Undoubtedly, we will hear more about the government’s vision of a “Global Britain” as trade talks begin this week. However, as a new report by the think tank Centre for Cities shows, the government faces a huge challenge in turning this rhetoric about global trade into a reality. It also shows that trade deals with the US and other countries are less important to boosting economic growth around the UK than securing the best possible trade agreement with the EU.

The report, Cities Outlook, shows that UK cities are critically dependent on EU markets for exports, with 61 out of Britain’s 62 largest cities selling more goods and services to the EU than anywhere else across the globe. Exeter is the most dependent place on the EU, sending 70 per cent of its exports to European markets, while at the other end of the scale even Derby—the city least reliant on…

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