Trump offers Britain a ‘very big’ trade deal

BIARRITZ/BEIJING

U.S. President Donald Trump promised a big trade deal for post-Brexit Britain to Boris Johnson on Aug. 25 and praised the new prime minister as the right man to take Britain out of the European Union.

Johnson, who faces a delicate task of assuaging European allies while not angering Trump at a G7 summit in France, said trade talks with the United States would be tough but there were huge opportunities for British businesses in the U.S. market.

Speaking to reporters with Johnson ahead of a trade-focused bilateral meeting, Trump said Britain’s membership of the EU had been a drag on efforts to forge closer trade ties.

“We’re going to do a very big trade deal - bigger than we’ve ever had with the UK,” Trump said. “At some point, they won’t have the obstacle of - they won’t have the anchor around their ankle, because that’s what they had. So, we’re going to have some very good trade talks and big numbers.”

With less than three months until an Oct. 31 deadline, it is still totally unclear, how, when or even whether Britain will leave the EU.

The uncertainty around Brexit, the United Kingdom’s most significant political and economic post-war move, has left allies and investors aghast and roiled markets.

Trump and Johnson were in the French seaside resort of Biarritz for a summit of G7 industrialized nations that exposed sharp difference over trade protectionism and an array of other issues including climate change and digital taxes before it had even begun.

On his arrival on Aug. 24, Johnson said in reference to the escalating U.S.-China trade war he was “very worried” about the growth of protectionism.

He said those who “supported tariffs were at risk of incurring the blame for the downturn in the global economy”.

Escalation in trade war

China will fight back against the latest U.S. step to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily said on Aug. 25.

“China is confident that it will follow its own path and do its own things well, and will never waver in its stand on countering any provocations by the U.S. side,” the newspaper said in a commentary.
U.S. politicians, seeking to hamper China’s economic development, still want to use the tactics of exerting maximum pressure on China that has achieved few results, the paper said.

The United States will not win the trade war because of the plight faced by its farmers and businesses, it said.

China said on Aug. 23 that it strongly opposes Washington’s decision to levy additional tariffs on $550 billion worth of Chinese goods and warned the United States of consequences if it does not end its “wrong actions”.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Washington will impose an additional 5% duty on the Chinese goods, hours after Beijing announced its latest retaliatory tariffs on about $75 billion worth of U.S. goods in the latest tit-for-tat moves in their bilateral trade dispute.

The intensifying U.S.-China trade war stoked worries about a global economic recession.