The Trump administration has told Congress that it wants to start formal trade talks with the UK “as soon as it is ready” after Brexit, a sign that negotiations with London are a priority even as Washington seeks separate deals with the EU and Japan and fights a trade war with China.
The notification from Robert Lighthizer, US trade representative, to Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Senate finance committee, came in a letter sent on Tuesday, as the UK was engaged in a tense, last-ditch round of negotiations with Brussels over the terms of Brexit.
It was sent alongside similar notifications from Mr Lighthizer that the US also intends to launch formal trade talks with Japan and the EU, following agreements reached by Donald Trump with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, in recent months.
The messages to Congress represent the first step in a process of consultation with lawmakers about the terms of any trade deal which allow them to move expeditiously through the House of Representatives and the Senate once they are signed.
US officials have consistently said the UK would be at the front of the queue for a trade deal with the US after it left the EU and could set its trade policy independently, but there was always uncertainty about Mr Trump’s determination to pursue any new trade agreements.
The timing and the scope of the negotiations would, however, depend on the structure of the deal that the UK reaches with the EU over their future trading relationship, and in particular whether Britain remains in the European customs union.
In his letter, Mr Lighthizer said that the US wanted to tackle “tariff and non-tariff barriers” in order to achieve “free, fair and reciprocal trade” with the UK. The goal was to “support higher-paying jobs in the US” and to “grow the US economy”, Mr Lighthizer wrote. [...]
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