LONDON — The U.K.’s top diplomat insisted Brexit was not responsible for Britain being hit with a lower tariff rate by Donald Trump when compared to the EU.
The U.S. president slapped a 10 percent tariff on all U.K. goods imported into his country last week. While the “universal” tariff is still expected to deal a hammer blow to the U.K. economy, and comes alongside a 25 percent levy on auto exports to the U.S., Britain has been spared the harsher 20 percent rate which will hit the EU.
That’s prompted jubilation from some Eurosceptics in London, keen to talk up a Brexit dividend after Britain’s 2020 departure from the bloc.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy — a long-standing supporter of staying in the bloc – challenged that view in an interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica, instead talking up Britain’s negotiating nous.
“We are facing a significant change in the way the global trading system works, but it has nothing to do with Brexit,” Lammy said. “We have been working intensively in recent weeks on a negotiation for a broader economic agreement with the United States, and these negotiations will continue.”
The foreign secretary’s comments put him at odds with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, who on Sunday said when questioned by Sky News that the lower tariffs represented a benefit of Brexit. “It is, there’s one,” the former Remain campaigner told Sky News Sunday. “I’ve struggled to find one in the past but there is one we’ve ended up with.”
The U.K. government has so far ruled out imposing retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. and continues to push for a trade agreement that might soften the blow of Trump’s levies. In the meantime, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced measures to try and shore up Britain’s fragile auto industry, which is heavily reliant on exports to the U.S.
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