Tuesday, October 28, 2025
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The issue of the United States – United Kingdom trade deal

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he has negotiated an “excellent” pact with the European Union, but opposition MPs say it’s worse than his predecessor Theresa May’s deal. Britain’s manufacturers have responded to the Prime Minister Jonson’s Brexit deal with deep misgivings. According to media reports, the lobby group for the engineering and manufacturing industries, “Make UK”, said though it was relieved at the possibility of leaving the European Union with a deal, the new agreement failed in several important ways to overcome the concerns of its members, not least the transition deal, which stretches to just 14 months, and the lack of commitments to maintaining the closest possible trading relationship with the European Union.
The Guardian reported that warning follows a letter last week from industry chiefs to the Brexit Secretary, Stephen Barclay, warning him the deal posed a “serious risk to manufacturing competitiveness”. Clearly distressed by the government’s push for a harder Brexit than was agreed by Theresa May, chief executives from the aerospace, automotive, food and drink, chemicals, and pharmaceutical sectors, said their main concern was being excluded from European Union regulatory institutions which is a move that would diminish their influence and increase their costs.
In any case, the 31st of October, the last day of Britain in the European Union looms large. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s career may be ‘dead in a ditch’ or maybe the ‘do-or-die’ strategy produces a deal or possibly something else. One thing is for sure, Britain does not need a specific trade deal with America, other than the one it already has. The proof of that statement comes from a largely unreported but an extensive 2018 cross-Whitehall study of the costs and benefits of Brexit. It estimated, in its own words – “that a United States free trade agreement would increase United Kingdom GDP by only 0.2 per cent after 15 years“, a tiny fraction of the expected loss of trade from the European Union and additional costs of Brexit during that time.
The warnings given to government about Brexit have come thick and fast, especially in the last 12 months where time has allowed more in-depth analysis of the likely effects of Brexit – deal or no-deal. These warnings have come from the most respected organisations and institutions in Britain such as the Confederation of British Industry, Department for International Trade, Bank of England, The Office for Budget responsibility, and Centre of Economic Performance. Then there have been industry sectors such as financial services, motor, agricultural and even the United Kingdom Warehousing Association that have issued warnings of the scale of problems that various forms of Brexit brings.
Last week, another warning was also issued. This time according to a leaked government document written by civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Financial Times has published an article that highlights this warning where Ministers have been bluntly told that the United Kingdom’s efforts to strike a United States trade deal after Brexit could “severely limit” Britain’s ability to negotiate an equivalent agreement with the European Union.
The document written by civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggests the United States is likely to press the United Kingdom to relax measures to protect humans, animals and plants from disease, pests and contaminants ahead of finalising a trade deal. President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing for access to the British market for United States chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef, which both fall short of the European Union’s so-called sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS).
Richard Cook, a retired federal government analyst argued that the United Kingdom is expected to come under pressure from the United States to allow more imports by American agri-foods companies by relaxing rules governing animal welfare and pesticide residue levels, among other things. The leaked document, which was prepared for United Kingdom’s Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers last month, outlines the potential consequences of the United Kingdom acceding to President Trump’s demands for a less stringent approach to sanitary and phytosanitary standards standards as Britain seeks free-trade agreements with countries across the world.
The document further stated that “Any significant movement could have implications for our other free-trade agreements or export arrangements, which are based on existing standards. In particular, agreeing to the United States asks could severely limit our ability to negotiate an agreement with the European Union.  European Union concerns about the risk of non-compliant goods entering its territory would, for instance, be heightened if the United Kingdom acceded to United States demands on chlorine-washed chicken.”
The Defra document also acknowledges that relaxing sanitary and phytosanitary standards standards in the United Kingdom in order to get a United States trade deal could damage public health. “Weakening our sanitary and phytosanitary standards regime to accommodate one trade partner could irreparably damage our ability to maintain United Kingdom animal, plant and public health, and reduce trust in our exports,” it says. In certain circumstances it could even lead to the European Union imposing a hard border on the island of Ireland to protect the bloc’s single market, adds the paper. The leaked document also suggests that the Department for International Trade will press Defra to accede to the President Trump administration’s demands.
European Union has a more conservative approach to environmental and food policy than the United States, including on sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Liz Truss, United Kingdom’s Trade Secretary, said that while she was “proud” of Britain’s high environmental standards she wanted to take “a much more free-market approach”. In the meantime, the United States is pressing the European Union even harder for it to reduce its standards by ramping up the beginnings of its trade war – a trade war that the European Union could do without as its economy is stalling, especially with the threat of Brexit and a global economic slow-down becoming more certain. And like Britain’s warning, the European Union has its own report published in late August which cautioned of the serious risks of a trade agreement for public health, consumer rights and the environment by doing a deal with the United States.
In “Trading Away Protection” lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory laid out the attempts of United States negotiators to launch a renewed attack on European Union precautionary measures for the safety of chemicals, food and GMOs, while also explaining that European Union negotiators are pushing for United States acceptance of European Union product approval rules, so-called conformity assessment, which has proved highly flawed in sensitive areas such as medical devices.
The trouble is – it looks like the European Union will buckle first under the pressure of fighting on multiple economic fronts. The result is that the spectre of an emerging Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) style deal has just raised its ugly head once again. These meetings are being held in secret given that public reaction to the last Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal caused waves of protest across the 28 nation trading bloc and America before it was dropped two years ago. Corporate Europe Observatory trade researcher Kenneth Haar said “The worst thing that could happen would be both sides getting their way. European Union safety standards for chemicals, GMOs, pesticides, and foods would take a massive hit and the United States would see some of its product approval systems undermined by a more lax European approach.
Kenneth Haar further noted that the result could be consumers in the European Union being forced to eat non-labelled gene-manipulated foods that have been treated with toxic pesticides, while patients in the United States could wind up with unsafe implants. This must not be allowed to happen. It is provoking to see European Union negotiators once again keeping their moves in the dark. There is even less transparency around the current negotiations than there was around Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. While the European Commission is consulting in-depth with European corporations, the public is not kept informed in any meaningful way.

Strategic Planning 3

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If you made an effort to try and answer some of the questions of last week in relation to the context and resources of your business, you will have a basic idea about what your most important activities are, who your main clients are and what your image is. You will also have a better idea about how your business is organised and what competencies are missing. You are on the way finding out where you are now. Later in your strategic planning you will define where you want to be and how you will get there. You may have found out that apart from attending to your core business activity, you found yourself engaged in quite a few side activities. Managing these side activities in fact demand a lot of time, energy and resources from yourself and your workers. As a result, there is less time for the main business than necessary. There is a lack of focus in your business. The image your business has built up as a result of this is not so encouraging. What others say is that you are into all sorts of things. They wonder if you know what you are doing. You also found out that your workers don’t really know what is expected from them. You never made job descriptions and expected results are not defined. They work hard, but not necessarily towards the same goals. You also don’t really know what the financial situation of your business is. The accountant maintains the financial records alright but is not able to summarise the information for you to have a good insight and make decisions accordingly. The business is not organised in an efficient and effective way, while some essential skills are missing.
Next, we will look into a number of questions that will help you get more information and insight into your customers and the competition.
C. The business and its customers:
What is the size of your share of the market in your business sector? Define the size of your market share in terms of numbers of customers or financial value.
Can you divide the market into distinct market segments? For example, can you divide customers easily into groups like age, background, geographic location, gender? If so, list them.
What factors influence demand in each of the market segments?
Are there any cycle patterns in the workload for the business for example seasons, fashion, trends?
Over the past year, which new clients did you get, and which clients did you loose? Find out how new customers come to know your business and why customers leave. You will need a record of who your clients are.
How do you market your products and services? How does this work? What else could be done?
What developments are expected in the market over the next few years? What are the future trends and how will this affect your business? What new services might be needed?
D. The business and the competition:
Who are the main competitors for each of the market segments you identified above?
What are your impressions of the competitors’ image, size, range, distribution, strengths, and weaknesses?
Who are the most successful competitors and why are they successful?
Are there likely more competitors to enter the market? Who are they?
Why do clients come to you instead of the competition? Consider your image, price, service, marketing, location. Ask your clients.
Why is the business successful? What is the competitive advantage?
What would be possible threats for future success?
It is important that you don’t try to find the answers to these strategic questions all by yourself. Choose some of your key workers and encourage them to come up with there own answers and discuss responses together. This will deepen and enrich your insights and enhance the teamwork in your business as well. Don’t try to pull the cart all by yourself. Remember that Together Everyone Achieves More. You will also need to get information from your customers. A customers’ record, indicating their names, address, telephone, email and some space for their remarks will be very helpful. A small questionnaire inquiring about what it is they are looking for, what their opinion of the business is, how they see the quality of services, price and location will help you get insight in your competitive advantage or disadvantage.
I encourage you to continue getting the information you require to know where your business stands, in order to be able to plan for the future. Next, we will look into the business products, its stakeholders and the workers.

ton.haverkort@gmail.com

Mahder Admasu

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Name: Mahder Admasu

Education: MBA in project manangemet

Company name: Mahder Food Processing

Title: Owner

Founded in: 2012

What it does: Food processing

HQ: CMC near Ministry of Mines

Number of employees: 18

Startup Capital: 3,500 birr

Current capital: 2.5 million birr

Reasons for starting the business: To fill the gap

Biggest perk of ownership: Being a model to others

Biggest strength: Consistency and hard work

Biggest challenging: Customers awareness

Plan: To be competitive in the international market

First career: None

Most interested in meeting: Eleni G/Medhin

Most admired person: My mother

Stress reducer: Reading books

Favorite past-time: Writing ideas to grow my business

Favorite book: Poor dad rich dad

Favorite destination: Bahir Dar

Favorite automobile: Range Rover

Tsehay retains Delhi tittle, record

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Ethiopia’s Tsehay Gemechu retained her Airtel Delhi Half Marathon title in 1:06:00 on Sunday taking 50 seconds off the course record she had set 12 months ago at the IAAF Gold Label road race.
Tshay’s compatriot Andamlak Belihu also retained his title, clocking a PB of 59:10 to finish within four seconds of the course record.
The women’s race came down to a thrilling head-to-head duel over the final five kilometers between the 21-year-old defending champion and her compatriot Yalemzerf Yehualaw.
Coming into the final kilometer, Yalemzerf– who won the African Games half marathon title in August – edged in front and briefly looked like she was going to cause an upset. But with the finish line approaching, Gemechu dug deep and managed to claw her way past her rival to notch up a personal best while becoming just the second woman to retain a title in Delhi.
Yalemzerf, even younger than the winner having turned 20 in August, took more than three minutes off her previous best for the distance when finishing just one second behind Tsehay in 1:06:01.
Zeineba Yimer, who started to lose contact with the leading pair just before 15km, held on to make it an Ethiopian 1-2-3 when she crossed the line in third place in 1:06:57, the same position as she had finished in 2018. Kenya’s 2017 world cross-country champion Irene Cheptai had a solid half marathon debut to finish fourth in 1:07:39.