LONDON — Britain’s chances of dodging Donald Trump’s trade war appeared to fade Monday night, as the U.S. president blasted the U.K.’s “huge” trade deficit with his country while imposing sweeping tariffs on metal imports.
Speaking from the White House as he signed an executive order to slap 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S., the president insisted there would be “no exceptions, no nothing … and frankly it may go higher.”
When asked if the U.K. would get an exemption, the president said: “We have a huge deficit with the U.K. Big difference.”
His latest remarks will do little to calm nerves in Westminster, where officials are scrambling for an exemption to the president’s tariff hikes — and hoping that a largely-services driven trade surplus with the U.S. will calm a president who has traditionally focused more on goods trade.
In addition to steep tariffs on metal imports, Trump has threatened reciprocal tariffs on trading partners that would match the duties imposed by other countries in the coming days.
Trump’s threats have already sent jitters through the U.K.’s steel industry, which currently exports around 200,000 tonnes of steel per year worth over £400 million to the U.S., its second-largest export market.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Gareth Stace, director of UK Steel, the trade association for Britain’s steel industry, said Trump had “taken a sledgehammer to free trade with huge ramifications for the steel sector in the U.K. and across the world.
“This will not only hinder U.K. exports to the U.S., but it will also have hugely distortive effects on international trade flows, adding further import pressure to our own market.”
Deal to be done?
Britain’s Chancellor Rachel Reeves nevertheless said on Monday night she would still be going all-out for an exemption from U.S. tariffs, insisting there is “a deal to be done” in an interview with Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast.
“Unlike many other countries around the world, we don’t run a trade surplus with the U.S.,” Reeves added.
While trade in goods is broadly balanced between the two countries, British statistics record the U.K. as having an overall trade surplus with the U.S., driven almost entirely by services.
The chancellor said Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make the case for a U.K. carve-out to Trump directly, while she would go to work on her U.S. counterpart Scott Bessent.
The U.K.’s brand-new ambassador to Washington will also be a part of these efforts, after being officially sworn in on Monday.
Labour Party grandee and former EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson told the BBC last night: “I don’t believe that his tariffs are actually directly targeted at us,” adding: “I don’t think we should be overreacting.”
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