Starmer is maintaining his turn-the-other-cheek diplomacy with Washington, declining to retaliate over Trump’s decision to impose 10 per cent tariffs on goods exported to the US, and 25 per cent tariffs on UK car and steel exports. Instead, Starmer is offering concessions on areas such as digital taxes and agriculture.
By international standards, the UK fared relatively well out of the tariffs debacle even as turbulence has rocked the global stock market. But something bigger than money was lost: trust. The idea of the Special Relationship has also vanished quicker than you can say “wiped out pension funds”.
“Trump has destroyed trust, and no one is going to get over that for a long time. People are not going to trust the US to be a reliable partner anymore, so we won’t ever restore the status quo and see trust return, or at least not this decade,” he told The i Paper.
Inside Government, there are tight lips and disciplined messaging – officials have been told not to give a running commentary on how the talks are going. That’s because everyone from No 10 down to Whitehall is well aware of how capricious the Trump administration is and how any British pitch-rolling could turn the talks negative and even lead to the US tearing up a deal.
No one should be lulled into a false sense of security that Vance is suddenly playing nice. He aptly demonstrated that Trump’s ideas of liberty, free speech, and role of government differ from ours when he laid into his hosts at the Munich Security Conference in February.
Europe’s low favourability in the eyes of Vance should be a concern, given he could be a potential future president. The challenge before Starmer is to evaluate the scope of achievable change, to separate rhetoric from reality – no mean feat – and consider how much leeway he has.
When it comes to the US deal, the specifics will be fascinating and controversial. Look out for deals on digital services (the UK’s current tax system affects US tech companies) and any opt-outs that could affect the safety of children online. Could the UK lower trade barriers for US vehicles in exchange for a reciprocal reduction? What impact will this have on UK road safety standards?
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A deal could even be signed within a fortnight or three weeks, according to a UK source. The Department for Business and Trade declined to comment.
Chairman of the Business and Trade Committee Liam Byrne told The i Paper his panel scrutinised the UK’s trade deal with both Australia and the 12-nation trans-Pacific partnership, the CPTPP. They want Starmer to give MPs at least 15 sitting days to examine the deal, rather than whipping it through the House of Commons at warp speed.
But there is a wider issue here and that’s whether Trump can be trusted at all. Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey has said Trump is “no longer a reliable ally”, adding any trade deal with the US should be “properly examined” by ministers
All this puts Starmer in a potentially difficult position if Britain has rushed a dodgy deal to earn a carve-out from the tariffs. The Labour Party shudders at the institutional memory of when they were rushed along in the US’s wake towards the Iraq War. Trust in Trump has vanished all together.
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