Trade officials from the United Kingdom have been meeting with their US and Australian counterparts over the past fortnight to continue setting the stage for deeper economic ties and possible trade agreements in the post-Brexit era. The meetings come after the EU and UK clinched a “ transition deal ” through 31 December 2020 that would allow London to enter formal negotiations for new foreign trade agreements upon leaving the European Union next year. (See Bridges Weekly, 22 March 2018 ) SMEs, tariffs on US-UK working group agenda US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer met with his UK counterpart, Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox, on 14 March for continued bilateral talks on crafting a deeper US-UK trading relationship, which was followed by working group meetings on 21-22 March. Among the key announcements from last week’s discussions was a new forum dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the launch of a special SME dialogue and several related publications. For example, on 14 March, British and American officials released a toolkit for SMEs focusing on protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs). Both toolkits include information on patents, copyrights, and trademarks along with other key IP topics to support...