UK’s Starmer vows to cut trade barriers with key partners

Britain will fight to secure an economic partnership with the United States while also working to lower trade barriers with key partners around the world in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariffs, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday.

Starmer has sought to secure a deal that would remove the need for tariffs, even as the new US economic policy sent global markets into a tailspin and sparked fears of a global recession.

On Monday he said Britain would continue to work for a US deal but the country’s fate had to be in its own hands, adding that the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on the car industry would be a “huge challenge for our future, and the global economic consequences could be profound”.

“When it comes to the US, I will only strike a deal if it’s in our national interest,” he said.

He added that Britain was “also going to work with our key partners to reduce barriers to trade across the globe, accelerate trade deals for the rest of the world, and champion the cause of free and open trade right across the globe.”

Starmer spoke to the leaders of France, Germany, Canada and the European Commission in recent days as governments plot a response to Trump’s tariffs.

“Nobody is pretending that tariffs are good news,” Starmer said as he visited a Jaguar Land Rover factory in Solihull, central England. JLR said on Saturday it would pause US shipments of its British-made cars for a month as it considers how to respond to the tariffs.

In a phone call later on Monday, Starmer spoke to Singapore’s Lawrence Wong about the impact the tariffs have globally and agreed there could be no winners in trade wars.

The leaders also agreed it was “vital likeminded partners work together to maintain global economic stability.”