Local Support, International Reach
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) in June 2025 published a new Trade Strategy for the UK. The UK Trade Strategy aims to deliver a comprehensive structural reset in the UK’s approach to international commerce through a focus on securing economic growth, boosting services exports, and fortifying domestic economic security amid rising global protectionism.
The strategy intentionally links international trade directly to the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy to help drive investment across high-value sectors such as advanced manufacturing, life sciences, tech, and clean energy.
The strategy document is long but it is worth looking at the Executive Summary to get a sense of its scope and the links to other strategies.
• UK Export Finance (UKEF) Expansion: Financial capacity has been scaled up from £60 billion to £80 billion to provide robust financing for British businesses targeting overseas buyers, specifically optimizing resources for SMEs.
• The Ricardo Fund: A dedicated fund launched to support UK regulators in identifying and eliminating regulatory barriers that hinder British companies trying to trade abroad.
• Trade Defence Strengthening: Implementation of faster, tougher mechanisms within the Trade Remedies Authority to counteract unfair global trading practices, illegal state subsidies, and dumping.
The strategy reflects a shift away from slow, monolithic Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) toward faster, sector-specific and partial-scope arrangements. The approach concentrates on:
• The Services Economy: Securing Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications (MRPQ) and enhanced business mobility frameworks across Europe, the US, and Commonwealth markets.
• Digital Trade Corridors: Fully digitalising trade systems under the framework of the Electronic Trade Documents Act to cut border shipment times by up to 40%.
• Customs Infrastructure: Heavy deployment of the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS) and transition toward a Single Trade Window to drastically simplify border documentation
• United States: Advancing negotiations via the Economic Prosperity Deal (EPD) to remove or reduce aerospace and automotive tariffs, alongside building a joint technology partnership in AI and critical systems.
• European Union: Prioritising targeted, pragmatic resets with the EU to curb post-Brexit trade friction, notably finalising a Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement to ease border checks on agri-food exports.
• India and key growth hubs: Ratifying the UK-India FTA, which slashes Indian tariffs on 90% of trade lines, while closing out upgraded deals with South Korea and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
• The Africa Approach: Designing dedicated investment and critical mineral initiatives to build trade-led economic development frameworks across African markets ahead of the upcoming UK-Africa Investment Summit.
Please direct any comments or queries about the Industrial Strategy to our Head of Policy, Iain McNab.