Trade
UK Will Now Find Out If Brexit Helps or Hurts in US Trade Talks
Industry groups are warning that separate, higher Trump tariffs on steel, aluminum and cars will wreak havoc on producers in those already beleaguered sectors.
Photographer: Dominic Lipinski/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Brexit spared the UK from the worst of President Donald Trump’s latest barrage of tariffs. Britain will now find out whether being small, open and alone helps the country to weather a trade war between its two biggest economic partners.
Trump’s decision to limit the tariffs on British imports to his minimum global rate of 10% — half the level slapped on European goods — was touted as “a good result, relatively,” by UK Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds. King’s College London economics Professor Jonathan Portes went further, declaring it a “Brexit dividend.”