SIR - Alan Chapman (T&A letters, February 6) seems to think the UK is hampered (hamstrung he says) in its effort to trade with countries outside the EU.
This is of course nonsense as even as I write, 60 per cent of our exports are to the rest of the world. He also seems to think that there are another six billion or more people out there just waiting to buy our goods and services.
Does he not realise that other major global competitors like China, Japan, the USA and South Korea are already trading with them, so the scope for significant expansion of our presence in Theresa May’s global market are, to say the least, somewhat limited?
As a lefty but not very elite liberal, I also hope Trump’s America First policy stops our government from blundering into a one- sided free trade deal with the USA. In exchange for a small increase in access to their markets,we would be expected to open our supermarkets to chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-fattened pork and beef, genetically modified cereals, and all grown on farmland treated with herbicides and pesticides which the EU currently bans as potentially carcinogenic.
Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley
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