‘We could be in a difficult and lonely place’: What Trump means for Britain
| Updated:
From trade deals to a right-wing surge, how will a Trump presidency impact Britain?
Listen to this article
Read time: 5 minutes
In brief…
- Donald Trump has won the US presidency, and it is expected to have big ramifications for the UK.
- The News Agents say that with Britain having left the EU, it risks becoming even more isolated if it can’t cosy up with the US.
- Trump’s win could also push Britain further to the right, a trend occurring internationally, The News Agents say.
What’s the story?
From Blair and Bush to Thatcher and Reagan, Britain has for decades viewed the US-UK “special relationship” in the highest regard.
With Donald Trump, a right-wing populist Republican, set to become US president in January, eyes are on centrist Prime Minister Keir Starmer to see whether he can strike up those cosy ties we have previously been used to.
From trade to security partnerships, the US is seen as a key partner across a range of vital areas.
So if Starmer struggles, where could it leave the UK, which has already distanced from a different key partner - the EU - after Brexit?
Not only will the Republican’s victory have an impact on how Starmer responds, but how other political forces in the UK do too.
With right-wing allies like Nigel Farage, could Trump’s win amplify and strengthen this wing of British politics? And will it drag other political parties in this direction?
'Trump can do what he likes now; he has proven he is above the law'
How will Trump’s win impact Britain’s standing in Europe?
With Trump pledging to pull military aid from Ukraine in its war against Russia, as well as previously threatening to withdraw from NATO, the European community is no doubt concerned about a Trump presidency.
Britain may have left the EU, but is still one of 47 countries in the European Political Community.
Leaders from member states, including Britain, are meeting today in Brussels and they will need to figure out how to deal with the next US president.
But according to Lewis Goodall, this should have been worked out long ago.
“Europe has had so much time to prepare for this. We knew that this could be coming. And frankly, we still haven't done enough”, says Lewis Goodall.
Geopolitically, Lewis says this could be particularly damaging for Britain.
“The Starmer government could find itself in a really difficult and really lonely place,” he says.
The Labour government got off to a bad start in its relations with Trump during the president elect’s campaign. The party faced criticism when 100 current and former Labour staff went to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris.
That, on top of Elon Musk’s recent disdain for Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy previously calling Trump a ‘neo-nazi’, could leave a bitter taste.
As Lewis says, there is the potential for a “certain personal animus from Trump towards Starmer and Britain”.
But Britain’s loneliness also stems from leaving the EU.
Trump’s win could therefore now put a greater premium on Britain developing stronger relations with the EU.
But Emily suspects that in Europe, Trump will be looking in particular to strike up the closest ties with the autocrats in the trading bloc he “models himself on”.
Namely, Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan.
“Those are the two autocratic Democrats that he will be looking to for support”, Emily says.
Meanwhile, other right-wing forces are looking strong in Europe too.
Lewis says it is “very likely that the hard right in Germany is going to have a big impact on the next German Government, and so could the fascist politician Marine Le Pen in France.
He adds” “If you take Starmer’s Labour as a vaguely progressive, social democratic force, it could end up looking pretty lonely on the world stage. It's the outlier here, because most of the world is moving to the hard right.”
But what if Trump’s win pushes Britain in this direction?
Will Trump’s win push Britain to the right?
Nigel Farage has made no secret that he and Trump are allies.
This gives him some political currency, Lewis argues.
He says: “I think that it does amplify his voice within British politics, because he can legitimately say that he is the British politician with the closest relationship by far to Trump.
“This is another way in which it will be destabilising. He can lob those grenades into the Starmer camp and into the British government, because he has that relationship.”
That in turn, Lewis says, impacts his Reform UK party as well as the Conservatives.
Lewis adds: “It does push them to the right.”
But he notes that this is where politics appears to be moving anyway, with Kemi Badenoch newly elected as Tory Party leader.
“It's clear which way the trends internationally are going, and I think it's very likely that British politics moves to the right as a result.”
Trump takes BACK control
Can Britain strike a trade deal with Trump?
Post-Brexit, the UK needs economic trading partners after leaving the economic grouping.
That is where America comes in. The problem, Jon Sopel notes, is that we still don’t have a Post-Brexit trade deal with the US despite voting to leave the EU in 2016.
With Trump at the wheel, any potential deal with the Americans will be on their terms, Jon argues.
He says: “It was promised that [a US deal] was going to be so easy, that it was going to be one of the ones that would be a slam dunk. It hasn't arrived, [there’s] still no sign of it arriving.”
While we've done individual trade deals with states like California, Jon points out, we are still not close to striking a nationwide deal with the US.
“If we do want to get a trade deal, it will be on their terms… it will be chlorinated chickens, it will be hormone injected beef, it will be their pharmaceutical products”, he says.
Meanwhile, Trump has pledged to ramp up tariffs on foreign imports.
With trading with the EU already more difficult because of Brexit, if Trump slaps tariffs on British exporters, it could make trading with the United States more difficult as well.
“It's pretty tough”, Jon says.
Listen in full on The News Agents
