DONALD Trump was last night warned not to impose tariffs on UK goods when he enters the White House.
The President-elect was put on notice by the Prime Minister that the protectionist move would damage UK trade and hit business.
The plea came just hours after Sir Keir held a phone call with Trump AND it emerged his top aide travelled to his Florida base to meet his top team recently.
Sir Keir said: “I am not going to speculate as to what he is going to do. It won’t come as any surprise to you that I am not a fan of tariffs and therefore we have to make sure that we avoid tariffs.
He added: “We have got very good trade with the US as we have got very good trade with other countries around the world.
“I want to improve on that and as you will know I have had a meeting with President Trump in September in New York, I have had a number of phone calls since including one yesterday.”
Trump has said tariffs of between 10-20 per cent could be imposed on all goods – with those rates being higher for countries such as China and Mexico.
Pressed if they discussed tariffs, he said: “I won’t go into the details of what we discussed but am I alive to the danger of tariffs? Yes of course.
Grilled by top MPs who make up the Liaison Committee, the PM added: “I am against tariffs. But I am not going to speculate as to what the incoming president might do.”
He also said that he didn’t have to make a binary choice between the US and the European Union.
He signalled that he wanted to build close trade ties with the US.
The PM said: “I think we can pursue both. I don’t accept the argument you have got to either be with the US or be with the EU, that isn’t how it works at the moment with our current trade.
“We do want a closer relationship with the EU on security, on defence, on energy and, yes, on trade, and I’ve set out how we want to reset on a number of occasions.
“At the same time, I want to improve our trading relationship with the US. Is that going to be easy? Of course it’s not. Do I think we can make progress? Yes, I do.”
But the PM asked the public to show patience over his bid to drive up living standards saying it “will take some time”.
He outlined how changes to planning rules and changes to regulations will be needed to boost growth but not promise quick-fix solutions.
The PM said: “We’ve obviously got to carry out reforms – to planning in particular, to regulation in particular – to drive the growth that we need.”
