Trade or Business? Cameron in China

When Cameron talks of trade, he means business, as the terms of trade in a broader sense are out of his hands.

He is over in China, stuck on the horns of a conundrum. He wants to help British business in their dealings with the Chinese, but is powerless to do so. This is for the simple reason that Britain no longer has the ability to make trade deals. 

Those rights, that power lies exclusively with those friendly chaps in Brussels. 

So when he talks of

David Cameron today declared his ambition to double bilateral trade between the UK and China to 100 billion US dollars a year by 2015, as he arrived at the head of Britain's largest ever Government and business delegation to the Far Eastern country.

Mr Cameron said he expected deals worth billions of pounds to the UK economy to be sealed during his two-day visit, which will feature intensive trade talks.

While he accepted that the balance of trade will remain firmly in China's favour in the coming years, he set a target of achieving 30 billion dollars' worth of UK exports within the next five years - up from around 7 billion now

He is talking business deals not trade on a broader scale. As with China today so with India before. Each time what is sold publicly as a diplomatic trip. Our PM off to meet the political leaders of big and powerful foreign nations to negotiate deals and to sort out trading relationships is no longer the case.

What this is and the India trip was, are a trade fair and business trip as such I wish it well.