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US vice-president JD Vance has said there is a “good chance” of Washington and London clinching a “great agreement” on trade, injecting new hope into bilateral negotiations.
Britain was singled out by Vance as likely to achieve more agreeable trading terms on account of President Donald Trump’s affection for the nation and wider, long-standing cultural links between the UK and US.
“The president really loves the United Kingdom. He loved the Queen. He admires and loves the King. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [Britain],” Vance told the UnHerd website in an interview published on Tuesday.
Vance said the connection between the UK and US ran “much deeper than that”, however, underscored by a “real cultural affinity” because “fundamentally America is an Anglo country”.
He said the US administration was “certainly working very hard” with the government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on a trade agreement. “I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.”
The pound hit a six-month high against the dollar at $1.325 following Vance’s remarks, and also strengthened against the euro.
Starmer has been vying to secure an “economic prosperity deal” with the US, but his trade strategy with America was derailed when Trump unveiled 10 per cent “baseline” tariffs on all UK exports on so-called liberation day on April 2.
While the two leaders have built a rapport, they have not spoken since the US president first unveiled his tariff schedule — or subsequently paused the most punitive rates on the 60 countries he deemed the “worst offenders” in terms of their trade practices towards America.
The UK prime minister last week pivoted to focus on getting the US to cut the 25 per cent tariff on British cars, admitting he did not know if he could persuade Trump to abolish his new 10 per cent tariff on all British imports.
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Vance compared the balanced UK-US trade relationship favourably with America’s trade deficit with Germany, Europe’s biggest economy.
“With the United Kingdom, we have a much more reciprocal relationship than we have with, say, Germany . . . While we love the Germans, they are heavily dependent on exporting to the United States but are pretty tough on a lot of American businesses that would like to export into Germany,” he said.
Vance predicted that Washington would negotiate “a lot of positive trade relationships with Europe” and insisted he viewed Europe as an “ally” of America. “We just want it to be an alliance where Europeans are a little more independent, and our security and trade relationships are gonna reflect that.”
Additional reporting by Ian Smith
