The US is \u201cworking very hard\u201d with the UK on negotiating a \u201cgreat\u201d trade deal, vice president JD Vance has said.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports to the United States several weeks ago, rocking the world economy, sending stock prices tumbling and sparking fears of a global recession.<\/p>\n
Since then, Mr Trump has rowed back on tariffs, reducing the rate paid on imports from most countries to 10% and, on Saturday, exempting electronics such as smartphones and laptops from the levy \u2013 including the 145% charge on imports from China.<\/p>\n
The Government has been hopeful of a deal to exempt the UK from Mr Trump\u2019s tariffs, and in an interview with the website UnHerd on Tuesday, Mr Vance said he was optimistic that both sides could come to a mutually beneficial agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer\u2019s government\u201d on a trade deal, Mr Vance said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president really loves the United Kingdom. He loved the Queen. He admires and loves the King. It is a very important relationship. And he\u2019s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [Britain]. But I think it\u2019s much deeper than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a real cultural affinity. And, of course, fundamentally, America is an Anglo country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a good chance that, yes, we\u2019ll come to a great agreement that\u2019s in the best interest of both countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Vance said the \u201creciprocal relationship\u201d between the US and UK gave Britain a more advantageous position than other European countries when it comes to negotiating new trade arrangements, adding: \u201cWhile we love the Germans, they are heavily dependent on exporting to the United States but are pretty tough on a lot of American businesses that would like to export into Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n
Business and trade minister Sarah Jones welcomed Mr Vance\u2019s comments but declined to comment on the progress of negotiations.<\/p>\n
She told LBC: \u201cThe conversations are ongoing, I can\u2019t update more than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we\u2019re in a good position.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are having good conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Secretary of State (Jonathan Reynolds) has been having good conversations with his partners and there is a deal there to be done, but as to when that will be done, I wouldn\u2019t be able to tell you, but it\u2019s positive that the vice president is positive about our negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will aim to continue negotiations for an economic deal with the US later this month when she travels to Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund\u2019s spring meetings with other finance ministers.<\/p>\n
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Mr Trump is an \u201cunreliable partner\u201d and reiterated his party\u2019s calls for a vote on any trade deal with the US.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt would be deeply undemocratic if Parliament were to be sidelined on such a critical issue for the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cConservative and Labour MPs should commit now to voting down any Trump deal that undercuts British farmers and their high food standards, sells out the NHS, or waters down protections for children online.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US is \u201cworking very hard\u201d with the UK on negotiating a \u201cgreat\u201d trade deal, vice president JD…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,32,393,14017,4884,14015,1144,712,14014,13128,16,15,14016,14013,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-21733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-european-countries","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-mr-trump","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-the-united-states","18":"tag-trade-deal","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-vice-president","22":"tag-vice-president-jd-vance","23":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114341503575754100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}