Why would the US sign a free trade deal with the UK, when it wouldn't sign one with the much larger EU? I fully expect my government to insist on conditions favorable towards the much larger and much richer party in UK-US trade relations.
Because before the EU can sign off on a trade agreement, it needs to be unanimously accepted by every member state, which takes an absolute ton of time. The CETA deal with Canada was held up solely by a region of Belgium at one point.
It's a lot easier to get a trade deal with the UK, where you're only dealing with one government with a much more specific set of interests.
> Australia’s a perfect trading partner in a lot of ways but it’s just too far away in a world that cares about reducing carbon footprints.
On one hand, yeah. But on the other hand, an article floating around in the last few weeks pointed out that modern container shipping is really cost effective these days.
Apparently container ships have also been looking at modern/environment friendly approaches for a while now too (including big wind kites(?) I think). So, that's somewhat likely to further improve over time as well.