US trade deal fears are well founded

It is naive at best to think that the UK will get a winning deal from this untrustworthy US president

All but the most enthusiastic Brexiteers must shudder at the prospect of the United Kingdom being in thrall to American president Donald Trump when it comes to international trade.

Those for whom the UK’S departure from the European Union matters above all else may be able to square the prospect of British industry being signed up to a trade deal dictated by Mr Trump with their self-proclaimed desire for “independence” but others, including some who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum, have concerns. We certainly do.

The SNP yesterday warned of the dangers of relying on a US trade deal which might see the sale of chlorinated chicken from the States in UK shops and could give American companies – many of which are notorious for putting profit before patients – access to NHS health care contracts. The SNP’S rural affairs spokeswoman at Westminster, Deirdre Brock, has called on the government to rule out the weakening of food standards in future talks. Opponents of the Nationalists might wish to dismiss this as scaremongering but Ms Brock’s concerns about the prospect of a deal between the UK and the US appear

entirely legitimate to us.

Brexit will mean existing, successful trading arrangements with the EU being torn up and the UK setting out, cap in hand, to find replacements. Puffed-up Brexiteers might continue to insist the UK will find better trade deals than those currently in place once ties with the EU are broken, but increasingly this sounds like bluster.

Three years after the UK voted to leave the EU, the case that this was a good decision grows vanishingly small.

We fear a new order in which the UK is forced to take what it can get from the US will do nothing to help an economy already battered by constitutional upheaval.

Mr Trump – who arrives in the UK for a state visit today – has torn up the normal diplomatic rules on the democratic decisions of another country, singling out Boris Johnson for praise and calling for Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage to be given a role in negotiating Brexit. Bluntly, we find the prospect of this oafish president holding cards against the UK in a future trade negotiation deeply troubling.

Erratic and aggressive, Mr Trump is not to be trusted. Those who think the UK will win in a trade deal with him are, at best, hopelessly naive.