Anand Menon examines the difficult choices facing the UK government and the relationships with US and Europe 

To govern, it is said, is to choose. Yet successful governments are often those that manage to sidestep difficult choices. Successive British administrations have done just that when it comes to our key international relationships: with Europe and the United States. The well-worn ‘bridge’ metaphor was intended precisely to convey this squaring of a potentially problematic circle. And Keir Starmer, yesterday at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, made the point more forcefully still: ‘The idea that we must choose between our allies. That somehow we’re with either America or Europe is plain wrong. I reject it utterly’.

And you can’t blame him. Choices, after all, can be difficult. That being said, the outcome of the US election means that panel choices may well await us.

Both relationships are crucial. The security relationship with the US is uniquely close. Meanwhile, the EU is the UK’s largest trading partner. Both Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey recently called for stronger ties with the EU as a way of minimizing the economic impact of Brexit.

Brexit has already undermined the UK’s ability to play its traditional ‘bridging’ function’. London has had to look on as Washington deals directly with member states in its attempts to shape what the EU does.

And then there is Donald Trump. Noone knows for sure how he will behave once in office. However, his team’s impatience with what they regard as European free riding – whether on defence spending or support for Ukraine – is well known. On trade, Trump has threatened to impose a blanket 10-20% tariff on all imports, while his administration will doubtless also have something to say on the subject of European dovishness when it comes to China.

Now the UK could try and do a deal with an incoming President. Increased defence spending, particularly spending on American weaponry (ideally kit we’d have bought anyway) might help eke concessions out of the White House. So too could an agreement on trade. At a minimum one that gained the UK exemptions from the mooted tariffs. More ambitiously, the kind of Free Trade agreement of which Brexiters have long dreamt.

Enter the tradeoffs. The Government remains coy as to when – and indeed how– it plans to achieve defence spending of 2.5% of GDP. The Chancellor in her budget speech announced only that ‘we will set a path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence at a future fiscal event’. Whatever route that path takes, it will necessitate some difficult fiscal choices.

Meanwhile, although buying American military hardware might mollify President Trump, it might also impede efforts to foster greater European self-reliance. Europeans will increasingly be called upon to do more for their own security as the US focusses on other priorities. And this will involve the development of European capabilities rather than continued reliance on the US.

In the economic realm, US tariffs would clearly have an impact on UK growth prospects, albeit that the majority of the UK’s trade with the US is in services and would hence be unaffected. However, tariffs would disproportionately affect high productivity manufacturing in sectors such as automobiles, aerospace and pharmaceuticals – precisely those sectors that the Resolution Foundation argues are most impacted by Brexit.

Yet currying favour to avoid tariffs also carries risks. For one thing, Washington might demand movement on regulatory standards as the price for special treatment. Stephen Moore, a Trump economic adviser, has said Britain should align itself with the US rather than the ‘more socialist’ Europeans, and that this would increase the willingness of the administration to do a free trade agreement with the UK.

Yet agreeing to relax restrictions on, say, the import of cheap American food would be unpopular at home. It would also scupper any chances of the veterinary deal with the EU that forms part of Starmer’s much-vaunted ‘reset’.

Even a deal short of watering down regulatory standards will affect attitudes over the Channel. The EU, still the UK’s largest trading partner, is already planning retaliatory action in the event that the US imposes tariffs. A UK exemption is hardly likely to inspire feelings of solidarity on their part. One danger is that member states, seeking greater economic security in the face of the Trump challenge, double down on a restrictive definition of ‘strategic autonomy’, making access more difficult for countries outside the single market and hampering Keir Starmer’s much vaunted ‘reset’.

And so difficult choices await. Between security and economics. Between security now and in the future. Between the United States and Europe. The Prime Minister, understandably, wants to try to avoid them. This, however, may be easier said than done.

By Professor Anand Menon, Director, UK in a Changing Europe.