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U.K. government is interested in joining NAFTA, or whatever it becomes, Brexit leader says

The U.K. could join NAFTA or form a trilateral agreement with Canada and the U.S., British Conservative Daniel Hannan said. ‘We’d be bringing something new to the table’

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BRUSSELS — A British politician who pushed for Brexit says he believes the U.K. government is interested in joining NAFTA, or whatever becomes of it.

Daniel Hannan spoke to the Post in Brussels about the prospect of a cross-Atlantic free trade zone even as a fourth round of North American Free Trade Agreement talks ramps up in the United States.

The member of European Parliament and British Conservative said he senses openness to trade deals from both the American and Canadian administrations. Despite growing protectionism south of the border, which Hannah says “needs to be rebutted,” President Donald Trump seems keenly interested in working with Britain.

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“(The administration is) hesitant on trade but weirdly enthusiastic about trade with the U.K. It’s the one positive in this administration,” he said. “Donald Trump misses no opportunity to say, you know, he puts it always in his language, ‘it’s going to be a great, beautiful, fantastic, amazing trade deal with the U.K.'”

Meanwhile, Canada seems positive towards a free trade deal with Britain. Following a recent meeting between Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and Theresa May in Ottawa, the leaders shared optimism the Canada-EU free trade deal, CETA, could morph into a bilateral agreement post-Brexit.

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But Hannan, who sat on the Vote Leave campaign committee and appointed its chief executive — “so, in that sense, I started it” — has more in mind.

He and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson launched two weeks ago an Institute for Free Trade. The pro-Brexit think-tank tries to make an “ethical” case for free trade, saying free trade zones do much to alleviate poverty and further social justice.

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The U.K. could join NAFTA or form a trilateral agreement with Canada and the U.S., Hannan said. His preference is to join NAFTA and combine this with EFTA — the European Free Trade Association made up of non-EU European states Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Ultimately the deal could bring in the EU, as Hannan sees it.

“We’d be bringing something new to the table,” he said, noting a Canada-U.K.-Australia-New Zealand deal such as that advocated by former Conservative leadership contestant and current foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole has now “in an astonishingly short time” gone from being a new idea to being “quite a mainstream idea.”

Hannan is a longtime Tory with deep ties to Canada’s Conservative party. At the beginning of September, he spoke at the party’s caucus retreat in Winnipeg.

Hannan remains “cheerful” about Brexit, with a formal withdrawal scheduled for the end of March 2019. He said he expects a CETA-style trade deal with the EU should talks falter before the sever.

Any decisions on a U.K. attempt to join NAFTA will inevitably have to wait until the result of trilateral negotiations between Canada, U.S. and Mexico.

• Email: mdsmith@postmedia.com | Twitter:

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