On Fri, 17 Jun 2016 18:36:09 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

It's also why we separate trade deals are utterly pointless while
we're in the EU - because if the UK applied zero duty to US goods in
a category, but Germany didn't, we could buy the same things through
Germany and not pay the duty.

I have read the above three times, and am still scratching my head.

Sorry. You're right. What I meant to say was that if the UK applied
duty,
but Germany didn't.

Why on earth would we?

Let's say that the UK wanted to put a 20% duty on steel imported from
China.

But Germany didn't. But we can import steel from Germany without any duty.

So... all that's happened is that the same steel has come to the UK, but
the UK hasn't received any of that duty on it. Because the buyer's bought
it from Germany.