How does increasing trade barriers reduce food prices?

Come to that, how does increasing exports reduce food prices?

A landmark deal clinched between the UK and EU to remove checks on food exports will add £9bn to the UK economy and lower food prices, No 10 has said, as the last-minute agreement was secured early on Monday morning.

If we export more of our lovely British grown food and produce how does that make lovely British grown food and produce cheaper in Britain? Well, perhaps that’s just The Guardian getting the economics garbled - has been known to happen occasionally after all.

But there’s also this:

Fruit and vegetables imported from outside the European Union are set to become more expensive under Sir Keir Starmer’s “reset” deal.

Avocados, pineapples, mangoes and oranges are among the products industry figures are warning will become more expensive after the Prime Minister bound Britain to the EU’s rules on food and drink. Even more common items such as tomatoes, many of which are sourced from Morocco, could also rise in price.

Checks on imports into the EU are currently stricter than in the UK. Under the agreement signed on Monday, the Prime Minister has committed Britain to a “dynamic alignment ... with all the relevant European Union rules” on food and drink checks. It means more red tape at the border, which is likely to push up prices.

So imports from outside the EU will become more expensive, imports from within the EU perhaps cheaper. Which is a proof of something we’ve been chuntering on about for a long time now. EU membership does not mean free trade. It just means being inside the EU’s tariff barriers to free trade. So, yes, we gain free trade within the EU at the cost of less free trade - both less trade and the trade being less free - with the non-EU world. We tend to think that the cost here is higher than the benefit - free trade is good, free trade with 7.5 billion strikes us as better than free trade with 500 million.

Which brings us to something we really do insist upon. The benefit of trade is in what we get to consume, those imports. As we can see obeying the rules of one club seem to mean increasing those costs on imports from non-members of that club. Which leads to the obvious conclusion that to really benefit from trade we should not be part of anyone’s club. Just declare unilateral free trade and be done with it. Which leads to our model trade treaty.

That’s simple enough for even politicians to understand, isn’t it?

Well, sadly, obviously not as that’s not what the politicians do but hope springs eternal etc.