Vice-president says Donald Trump ‘loves’ the UK and there is good chance of reaching mutually beneficial agreement
The US is optimistic it can negotiate a “great” trade deal with the UK, JD Vance has said. Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports to the US several weeks ago, sending the global economy into turmoil as stock prices tumbled and fears of a global recession mounted. Since then, Trump has rowed back on many tariffs, reducing the rate paid on imports from most countries to 10% and exempting electronics such as smartphones and laptops from the levies, including the 145% charge on imports from China.
Britain was spared the most punitive treatment in Trump’s initial tariff announcement, due to the two sides enjoying a largely balanced trade relationship. But British imports in the US still incur a 10% charge while its steel and car sectors incur a rate of 25%. Officials from both countries have been locked in talks for weeks that initially focused on boosting cooperation on artificial intelligence and tech but could also expand to include food and other goods.
The UK government hopes it can strike a deal that would exempt the UK from Trump’s tariffs. In an interview with the website UnHerd, Vance, Trump’s vice-president, said he was optimistic both sides could come to a mutually beneficial agreement.
“We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government” on a trade deal, he said. “The president really loves the United Kingdom. He loved the queen. He admires and loves the king. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [Britain]. But I think it’s much deeper than that.
“There’s a real cultural affinity. And, of course, fundamentally, America is an Anglo country. I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.” The 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’s spring meetings with other finance ministers.
Vance said the “reciprocal relationship” between the US and UK gave Britain a more advantageous position than other European countries when it came to negotiating new trade arrangements. “While 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,” he said.
He added that he wanted to see European leaders strengthen their immigration and defence policies. “European populations keep on crying out for more sensible economic and migration policies, and the leaders of Europe keep on going through these elections, and keep on offering the European peoples the opposite of what they seem to have voted for.”
He said it was “not in Europe’s interest, and it’s not in America’s interest, for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States,” noting that a strong Europe was “good for the United States” to challenge and rein in its foreign policy mistakes, such as the Suez crisis and the Iraq war.
He added: “I love Europe. I love European people. I’ve said repeatedly that I think that you can’t separate American culture from European culture. We’re very much a product of philosophies, theologies, and of course the migration patterns that came out of Europe that launched the United States of America.”
British government officials say they are working hard to strike a trade deal with the US, although the scope and breadth of any agreement remains unknown. Aside from the more balanced trading relationship, Trump’s affection for the UK is well documented, with the president visibly enjoying the grandeur of a state visit to the UK during his first term in office, when he and first lady Melania Trump were the guests of the late Queen Elizabeth II. During a recent visit to Washington, Starmer hand-delivered another invitation from King Charles, inviting Trump for a second state visit. The US president looked visibly pleased at the gesture.
Global market turmoil in the wake of the tariffs announcement prompted a pullback by the president, however, with Trump suspending the 20% tariff on the EU for 90 days and instead halving the import tax to 10%. In response, the EU also postponed its retaliatory 25% tariff on a raft of US goods, saying it hoped to agree on a trade deal with the US in the interim.
