On 26 June 2025, the UK Department for Business and Trade published a new UK trade strategy, which seeks to boost economic growth through trade while also responding to a changing geopolitical landscape and rising protectionism.  

The environment plays a key role in the strategy, with the government aiming to promote environmental objectives in trade deals and international trading frameworks. The government has also committed to reviewing their approach to guaranteeing responsible business conduct in UK businesses’ international supply chains, and to double the period that parliament is given to scrutinise new free trade agreements. While environmental organisations have welcomed the inclusion of environmental aims in the strategy, there are concerns that it lacks clarity in how these environmental ambitions will be enforced. The strategy arguably maintains the status quo and falls short in truly creating a more consultative approach to trade policy, with Parliament still lacking a confirmatory vote on new trade agreements. Additionally, there is no mention of how to tackle deforestation in the strategy and WWF have urged the government to go further and introduce minimum production standards for food imports in UK law.

In addition, the strategy emphasises the importance of international trade in supporting the UK’s ambition to be a ‘Clean Energy Superpower’, as per the recently published UK Industrial Strategy. It highlights how exporting goods and services linked to clean energy and net zero can provide significant financial benefits to the UK and aims for UK Export Finance to provide £10bn in clean growth finance between now and 2029. Furthermore, it also announces the launch of a new supply chain centre, which will aim to secure supplies of materials important for UK security and will work with international partners to address supply chain challenges. This focus on de-risking supply chains is supported by business organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry and shares similarities with the ambitions of the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, despite legislative divergence between the UK and EU in this area.  

The strategy recognises the need to address regulatory barriers caused by Brexit, building on the progress made at the May 2025 UK-EU reset summit which included commitments to work towards linkage of ETS systems and a Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement. It states that a regular two-way dialogue on evolving EU legislation will be established between the Department of Business and Trade and UK businesses. The strategy also includes a section on product standards which promotes the use of ‘international standards’, although there is no specific mention of EU product standards such as the Ecodesign Regulation.  

The strategy includes a statement that the government will be consulting with businesses on whether the UK should join the Regional Convention on Pan-Euro-Mediterranean preferential rules of origin (PEM). Rejoining PEM is supported by the British Chambers of Commerce who have, alongside others, argued that it has the potential to significantly reduce trade frictions for many UK businesses. However, the European Commission has made it clear this week that it would not currently support the UK rejoining PEM,  as it believes this would lead to an increase in ‘the risk of products unfairly qualifying for low-tariff access to the bloc’. EU support in rejoining PEM is crucial as the terms of the UK-EU post-Brexit trade deal would need to be rewritten. 

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