Lost in Brexit: The Complexities of Negotiating a New Trade Deal Between Korea and the United Kingdom

Bilateral relations between the United Kingdom (UK) and Korea are driven by trade, the importance of which means a post-Brexit bilateral trade agreement is likely to be a priority for both sides. The European Union (EU) and Korea have already signed a comprehensive and groundbreaking agreement, so a new ‘cut and paste’ agreement between the UK and Korea might be considered a straightforward matter. But the UK’s departure from the EU will expose several complexities in the latter’s relationship with Korea, meaning in turn that developing a new UK-Korea bilateral relationship is likely to be complex and any new trade agreement between the two is unlikely to be as beneficial to UK interests as the current arrangements.