£40billion US is our top trade partner – not the EU

BRITAIN has a huge trade surplus of almost £40billion with America, making the country by far our most important trading partner, a new study shows.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal that the UK exports £37billion more in goods and services to America than we import from the US.

The figures appear to justify the importance that Theresa May’s government has placed on securing a new trade deal with the US once Britain leaves the EU.

At the same time, the figures show that Britain has a £61billion deficit with the European Union – meaning EU countries export more to this country than the UK does to them. It suggests the Brussels bloc would be unwise to cut the UK off from the Continent with fresh trading barriers. Conservative MP John Redwood said: ‘It would make no sense for them to insult the customer, slap on a tariff and send us the bill.’

He said that America, on the other hand, was a valuable destination for British goods. Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the trade figures showed the power of Britain’s hand in the upcoming nego- tiation. ‘We shouldn’t underestimate the strength of our own position in the negotiations,’ he said. Britain has been pushing for close ties with President Donald Trump’s administration, despite criticism from protesters. Meanwhile, the President is keen to do a trade deal with Britain – further increasing UK firms’ access to US markets.

The Office for National Statistics figures from 2015 show the Germans are Britain’s biggest Continental trading partners, taking £48.5billion of exports and sending imports of £70.4billion. Our next most important European export market is France, which takes goods and services worth £32.9billion, followed by the Netherlands with £31.8billion.

But Britain still has a deficit with both of them. Immediately after the Brexit vote, French and German politicians crowed that they had a golden chance to steal this business from London. But they have since fallen silent as fears grow the European firms will suffer if they are unable to access UK finance expertise.

Last month, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said that the EU had more to lose if no Brexit deal was reached, and that the Continent faced a risk to financial stability if it was cut off. ‘I am not saying there are not financial stability risks in the UK, and there are economic risks to the UK, but there are greater short-term risks on the continent’, he said. After America, China is Britain’s next-largest trading partner outside the EU. We buy £38.4billion of Chinese goods and services each year but only send it exports worth £16.7billion.