Fears grow that South Korea may demand concessions from Britain to replicate EU trade agreements

In a worst-case scenario where the EU deal was not rolled over for the UK during the transition period, South Korea will retain access to UK markets on favourable terms via the EU deal while the UK loses reciprocal access to South Korea, warned Sam Lowe, trade policy expert at the Centre for European Reform. “If Korea does put its foot down and does not grant the same preferences to UK exporters immediately, you could see their incentive for doing so. If they are looking to address their current account deficit, this is an easy way of doing so,” he said.