Send in the king! How Britain can dodge a Donald Trump trade war

LONDON — Donald Trump’s tariff threats are reverberating through the British government.
The U.S. president-elect has promised to impose up to 20 percent flat tariffs on imports to his country, and U.K. officials are already war-gaming how they can protect billions in exports.
Trump is “going to go big this time,” Kim Darroch, a former U.K. ambassador to Washington, said this week. “He will put the tariffs on early and say to countries, ‘if you want them lifted what are you going to do to even up, to rebalance the trade relationship?’”
U.K. opposition leader Kemi Badenoch argues there’s a trade deal from Trump’s previous administration ready to go. But that would mean moving further from the EU — Britain’s largest trade partner — on agricultural standards, and could mean opening up the U.K.’s prized National Health Service to U.S. corporations.
Those were red lines under previous governments. “The current government will be very conscious of that, and I think they will be looking for alternative options,” said John Alty, a former top civil servant at Britain’s trade department and now senior adviser at consultancy Pagefield. “They know how problematic those things will be.”
It remains to be seen if the Trump administration is preparing tariffs as tools for negotiation, or to entirely reshape the U.S. economy. But former senior U.K. trade officials, experts and lawyers say there could be an alternative deal to be done.
It could even see King Charles III rolled out to wine and dine Trump in a historic second state visit.
Trump wants Washington to get tougher on Beijing — and has promised to impose 60 percent tariffs on imports from China.
The U.K. may face pressure to take a line similar to the one Canada pursued last summer when it followed U.S. President Joe Biden’s 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
But imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs is “tricky for the U.K.,” said Sam Lowe, a partner and trade expert at Flint Global. British automotive manufacturers also have Chinese-made batteries and components in their supply chains.
To buy time, the U.K. “could launch some new investigations to try to keep Trump happy,” Lowe said, pointing to an anti-subsidy investigation conducted by the EU.
John Alty agrees that it won’t be easy. “That’s a sort of classic case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he said, because China would likely slap retaliatory tariffs on U.K. exports like Scotch whisky.
The U.S. wants to reduce its global trade deficit — and Trump’s made plenty of noise about NATO members upping their defense spending. While the U.K. already imports more goods than it exports across the Atlantic, it could be pushed to go further.
“The government could package up its defense spending and the proportion that will be directed toward U.S. firms,” Lowe said. This would be similar to what Japan did in the first Trump administration to get some liberalization from the U.S.
As the U.K. increases its defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP and Trump pushes NATO allies to do something similar, “more money is going to be spent and so some level of coordination would be good there,” Oresman said.
There are other offers Britain’s Labour government can make as well — but they’ll be tough to square with the country’s climate commitments.
“There’s huge demand in the U.K. for natural gas imports and, frankly, oil,” said Matthew Oresman, a partner in London and Washington at international law firm Pillsbury. Upping oil and gas exports is “a big priority for the Trump administration,” he added.
In Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already offered to buy more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from America.
But the optics of a deal wouldn’t be easy. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to show climate leadership with ambitious green energy targets and a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
Starmer also has a royal Trump card up his sleeve.
“Another invite to the palace might help,” Lowe said. With Trump, he explained, there’s “the personal factor — i.e. what can the U.K. do to make Trump, and his wider team, feel special?”
Trump reminded Starmer during their first post-election phone call that he’s a “huge admirer” of the royal family and asked him to pass on his best wishes to King Charles III.
In 2019 Theresa May deployed Queen Elizabeth II to win points with the president during Trump’s state visit to the U.K. “It’s a piece of history at the highest level,” Trump said as he showed off the photos during the 2024 campaign.
Trump’s tariffs “will damage both sides,” Alty said. “Some people in the administration might think about that. So let’s look at what we can do positively as in some sort of agreement, and let’s not get into a trade war.”
Attempting to negotiate on agriculture with the U.S. “is a total waste of effort,” Oresman said. Market access for U.S. chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef is “not a recipe for domestic political success.”
Doing so would also mean Britain “shoots itself in the foot with the EU, which is the larger trade partner, and frankly has much more room to grow,” he said, as it would force U.K. manufacturers to compete against U.S. standards and abrogate exports to the EU. “That seems to be a poor trade,” Oresman warned.
“A lot of people will get worked up about the food and animal welfare standards,” Alty said. Opposition to a full free-trade deal with the U.S. last time around was also about U.S. access to the NHS, he argued.
“We saw all the people who didn’t like that,” Alty added. “My summary of that is: tough on substance and tough on presentation.”