President trumpets ‘big, exciting’ trade deal
Trump claims ‘special relationship’ will become stronger, as UK accused of sacrificing food standards
DONALD TRUMP has said a post-brexit trade deal between the United States and Britain will be “big and exciting” as he attacked the “protectionist” European Union yesterday.
The US president said he was working on a “major trade deal” with the UK. His comments came as Liam Fox, the Secretary of State for International Trade, met with Mike Pence, the Vice President, Robert Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative, and other officials over two days in Washington.
Writing on Twitter, Mr Trump said: “Our special relationship with the UK is going to be even better. The US Trade Representative and UK’S Liam Fox met today to begin new chapter for stronger trade!”
Mr Trump added: “Working on major trade deal with the United Kingdom. Could be very big and exciting. Jobs! The EU is very protectionist with the US. Stop!” However, his remarks came amid concern in the UK that a free trade deal could affect food safety standards, including leading to the import of US chlorine-washed chickens.
Dr Fox has dismissed that as a “detail” of the overall agreement that would be decided at a late stage. But those comments were criticised as “ignorant” by politicians in Brussels.
Gianni Pittella, leader of the socialist group in the European Parliament, said: “This reinforces why the EU will eventually need to have checks and controls on goods coming from the UK. We won’t accept a race to the bottom on standards.” Speaking in Washington, Dr Fox said: “We were very fortunate in our ability to access the most important members of the administration. I met with the vice-president who was as charming and as well informed as we would expect him to be.
“The point we were making at all our meetings was that the prosperity we seek through an open trading agreement underpins social stability, that in turn underpins political stability, and in turn our collective security.”
He projected trade between the two countries could be increased by $40billion (£30billion) a year by 2030, adding: “That’s a lot of jobs.” Dr Fox produced a report showing that 707,100 US jobs were already supported by exports to the UK. Totals were established for each of America’s 435 congressional districts, a tactic which will help British representatives as they lobby individual US members of Congress.
The report showed in each of 291 of the districts, more than 1,000 jobs were maintained by trading links with the UK. Dr Fox said: “So it’s far more than a cuddly, emotional special relationship that we have. It’s a hard-edged, economic relationship that we have. I’d like to be coming back in five years to say it was small fry five years ago, look how great it’s grown.”
Sir Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, called on the Government to guarantee Parliament a vote on any post-brexit trade deals.
He said: “It is Parliament, not Liam Fox, that should be the final arbiter on whether to sacrifice our standards to strike a deal with Trump. MPS must have the right to scrutinise and reject any deal that would be bad for UK consumers and farmers.”