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A senior Treasury minister has predicted that Donald Trump will not impose heavy tariffs on the UK, as Labour insists it can do business with the incoming US administration.
When asked if the UK had a plan to deal with potential trade tariffs from the incoming Trump government, Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “I don’t think we’re going to be in that scenario.”
“We shouldn’t be looking at president-elect Trump’s inauguration as a risk, or a bad thing for the UK. It could be an enormously positive thing with lots of opportunities,” he told Sky News on Sunday.
Sir Keir Starmer’s centre-left administration in London is seeking a functional working relationship with the new government in Washington.
Trump was swept back into the White House promising to apply steep tariffs to imports to the US from its trading partners, including a blanket 20 per cent tariffs on all goods.
Members of his cabinet have, however, in the past called Trump “inflammatory and ignorant”, “an absolute moron”, “a profound threat”, “the worst president in history” and “a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper”.
Starmer’s party angered Trump’s inner circle when around 100 Labour officials went out to the US to campaign for the Democrats earlier this year.
The prime minister has since gone out of his way to strike a pragmatic note, telling the Financial Times on Friday that he had a “constructive” relationship with the new president.
But Sadiq Khan, Labour mayor of London, threatened to disrupt those conciliatory efforts on Sunday when he warned of “resurgent fascism” on the eve of the incoming US president’s inauguration.
Khan wrote on Sunday in the Observer newspaper that the west was in a “perilous moment” with the rise of the “far right” in many countries.
“European nations are coming under the influence of extreme nativist parties that are hostile to democratic institutions, immigrant populations and fact-based journalism,” he wrote.
“In Germany, the AfD is on course for a breakthrough in next month’s federal elections. In France, the National Rally is topping presidential polls. And, of course, in the US, Donald Trump is back.”
The last time Trump was in the White House there was public enmity between him and Khan, whom he dubbed a “stone-cold loser” for criticising his presidency.
Priti Patel, shadow foreign secretary, said: “It’s really not for politicians in other countries to start making disrespectful and disparaging comments about president-elect Trump,” speaking to Sky News.
Patel is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration, along with fellow Conservatives including former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Ahead of the Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the Tories are vying for his ear along with Reform UK, which has set out more rightwing policies on issues such as net zero and immigration and whose leader Nigel Farage is close to the new president.
By contrast only one Labour politician has been invited to the event: Lord Maurice Glasman, an academic who said at the weekend there was a “real genuine working class enthusiasm” for Trump.
Jones said he doubted that Trump would block the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson, former business secretary, as UK ambassador to the US against a backdrop of speculation that he could challenge the appointment.
“I mean . . . I think someone said something at Mar-a-Lago and it’s probably being propagated by some politicians that would like to cause a bit of a nuisance,” he said.
One Labour official said there had been “no sign or indication from Trump himself that this is at all likely”.
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