The British government is expected to appoint Peter Mandelson, a Labour Party elder, as ambassador to the United States, two senior British officials said on Thursday, putting an influential onetime aide to Tony Blair at the helm of a potentially fraught relationship with President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Mandelson, who once harshly criticized Mr. Trump’s trade policies, will replace Karen Pierce, whose term in Washington is scheduled to end early next year. There had been speculation that Prime Minister Keir Starmer would extend Ms. Pierce’s tenure by a few months, since she had forged relationships with people in Mr. Trump’s orbit.
But Mr. Starmer and his foreign secretary, David Lammy, have cultivated their own ties with Mr. Trump, meeting him for dinner at Trump Tower in September and dispatching two senior aides, Jonathan Powell and Morgan McSweeney, to meet his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
The choice of Mr. Mandelson, 71, for Washington is a conspicuous one: He is a political heavyweight, having held multiple cabinet posts under Mr. Blair, a former prime minister, and his successor, Gordon Brown; led the trade portfolio at the European Commission; and worked as a globe-trotting business consultant.
Mr. Mandelson’s trade experience could come into play if Mr. Trump follows through on his threat to impose tariffs of up to 20 percent on some trading partners, including Britain. Those reports have unnerved British officials, who fear the tariffs could throttle the country’s already sputtering economic growth.
Britain, analysts say, could face a predicament if Mr. Starmer seeks closer relations with Europe, as he said he would during his election campaign. Analysts warn that such a move would antagonize Mr. Trump, who has been hostile toward the European Union. He had encouraged Theresa May and Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime ministers during his first term, to pull away from Brussels.
Speaking recently on a Times of London podcast, Mr. Mandelson said of the three-way relationship among Britain, the United States and the European Union: “We have got to find a way to have our cake and eat it.”
Mr. Mandelson has also pushed for engaging with China, criticizing previous British governments for their diplomatic distancing and Mr. Trump for the aggressive trade policies of his first term.
“He is a bully and a mercantilist who thinks the U.S. will gain in trade only when others are losing,” Mr. Mandelson wrote in 2018. “His idea of a progressive trade policy is one that forces everyone else to give the U.S. more favorable treatment rather than a trading system from which everyone gains.”
Mr. Mandelson’s firm, Global Counsel, has done substantial business in China. On Thursday, its co-founder, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, celebrated his expected appointment in a letter to clients, saying, “We will watch from the sidelines as he represents King and country in Washington, D.C.”
A savvy communicator, Mr. Mandelson saw his star rise alongside that of Mr. Blair. From 1985 to 1990, he served as director of communications for the Labour Party, later helping to rebrand it as “New Labour.” But his political tactics during that period earned him the nickname “the Prince of Darkness.”
Long seen as a front-runner for the ambassador post, Mr. Mandelson mounted a parallel campaign in October to be the chancellor of Oxford University, a prestigious but ceremonial position. He lost to William Hague, a former foreign secretary and Conservative Party leader.
The Trump administration chose a lower-profile person, Warren Stephens, a billionaire banker from Arkansas, to be the American ambassador in London, replacing Jane D. Hartley. Mr. Trump’s first envoy to Britain was Robert Wood Johnson IV, a pharmaceutical heir who owns the New York Jets.
Mr. Johnson raised eyebrows after reports emerged that he told multiple colleagues in 2018 that Mr. Trump had asked him to see if the British government could help steer the lucrative and world-famous British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland.
While Ms. Pierce, the departing ambassador, has had some success in cultivating Trump officials, her predecessor, Kim Darroch, had a rockier experience. After a London newspaper in 2019 published confidential cables from him in which he described the Trump White House as “clumsy and inept,” Mr. Trump declared he would no longer deal with him — and Mr. Darroch soon resigned.
He was later elevated to the House of Lords, joining Mr. Mandelson.
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