Americans insist on UK trade pact

A CLEAR majority of Americans want a bilateral trade deal to be agreed with the UK before or soon after we leave the EU, a poll has found.

Donald Trump recently criticised Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement and suggested a US-UK trade deal may never happen.

But the survey by Emerson College, a university in Boston, Massachusetts, suggests ordinary Americans are more enthusiastic about the socalled ‘special relationship’.

Researchers found 63 per cent of Americans want a trade deal to be in place before or soon after Brexit, while only 11 per cent oppose the idea.

Some 58 per cent of those polled believe their country’s relationship with Britain is more important today than it was five years ago.

Almost the same proportion – 56 per cent – said Britain was America’s most strategic foreign partner.

Nell Breyer, executive director of the Association of Marshall Scholars, which commissioned the poll, said: ‘The alliance appears to be increasingly important in the eyes of the American public.

‘In a period of deep uncertainty for the British public, they should know that Americans see the ties that bind us as increasingly significant, and there is strong American support for developing new opportunities to further this relationship.’