Brexit Trade Deal Reached Between Britain and the E.U.

LONDON — Britain and the European Union struck a hard-fought trade agreement on Thursday, settling a bitter divorce that stretched over more than four years and setting the terms for a post-Brexit future as close neighbors living apart.

The deal, which must be ratified by the British and European Parliaments, came together in Brussels after 11 months of grinding negotiations, culminating in a last-minute haggle over fishing rights that stretched into Christmas Eve, just a week before a year-end deadline.

Despite running to thousands of pages, the agreement leaves critical parts of the relationship to be worked out later. And it will not prevent some disruption to trade across the English Channel, since British exports will still be subjected to some border checks, adding costs for companies and causing potential delays at ports.

But it is nonetheless a landmark in the long-running Brexit drama — the bookend to Britain’s departure from the European Union in January and a blueprint for how the two sides will coexist after severing deep ties built over a 47-year relationship. A failure to come to terms could have left Britain and the European Union in a bitter standoff, poisoning relations for years to come.

“It was a long and winding road, but we have got a good deal to show for it,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. “This moment marks the end of a long voyage.”

If approved, the agreement would take effect on Jan. 1, four and a half years after a narrow majority of Britons voted to leave the European Union, plunging their country into rancorous debate and political divisions over how to do it.

For Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who won a landslide election victory in 2019 vowing to “get Brexit done,” the deal allows him to fulfill that promise. But to get there, Mr. Johnson had to make significant concessions, especially on rules that cover state aid to businesses and rights to fish in British waters.

Until the end of this year, Britain had agreed to continue abiding by most of the rules and regulations of the European Union while negotiators hashed out new arrangements to govern a vast cross-Channel trade free of tariffs and quotas.

In June, Mr. Johnson spurned a chance to extend the transition period for a year and warned that Britain was ready to walk away without an agreement if Brussels did not give it sufficient latitude to develop its economy free from the influence of European rule making. As late as this week, he insisted that Britain would “prosper mightily” with a no-deal exit.

That assertion got an early test just before the Christmas holiday when the outbreak of a rapidly spreading variant of the coronavirus in Britain prompted France to halt freight shipments for two days. That caused an epic backup of trucks close to the ports of Dover in England and Calais in France, stoking fears of food shortages and empty shelves in British supermarkets.

From the start, Mr. Johnson framed the negotiations as an opportunity to assert Britain’s sovereignty in a post-Brexit world. Inevitably, though, given the European Union’s much greater size and economic muscle, its negotiators were able to insist that Britain stay aligned with the bloc in some critical respects.

Ms. Von der Leyen said the agreement would guarantee fair competition and respect for the European Union’s rules and standards. “No deal in the world can change reality and gravity in today’s world,” she said. “We are one of the giants.”

London will subscribe to “level playing field” principles, which are intended to prevent British companies from gaining an unfair advantage over their European competitors through state aid or by enjoying less strict environmental or labor laws.

Despite the vast interests at play, and recent weeks of brinkmanship, the trade talks unfolded for the most part with less drama or visibility than the political debate that preceded them. That was partly deliberate. Mr. Johnson’s government wanted to push Brexit off the front pages so it could highlight its agenda of developing Britain’s industrial north.

But external events also altered the negotiating dynamic.

The coronavirus pandemic ravaged Europe, preoccupying leaders and pushing Brexit off their radar screens until very late in the year. It also added to the pressure to conclude a deal, since neither side wanted to inflict more damage on their economies after the dislocation caused by months of lockdowns.

In the United States, the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr. over President Trump in last month’s election changed the calculation for Mr. Johnson. Mr. Trump, an enthusiastic proponent of Brexit, had promised that the United States would negotiate a lucrative trade deal with Britain after it left the European embrace.

Mr. Biden, however, has said that he views Brexit as a mistake and has ruled out negotiating new trade agreements with any country until, he says,…