The United States' window of opportunity to secure a trade deal with the United Kingdom could soon shrink, a trade policy analyst told lawmakers on Tuesday, as the Labour government mulls closer alignment with the European Union.
The UK is in a “pivotal spot,” Meredith Broadbent, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told members of the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee during a hearing on U.S. trade negotiations.
During the UK general election last year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer campaigned on a platform to reset the UK’s relationship with the EU. Since entering office, Starmer’s Labour government has started to flesh out what that might look like and has tapped trade, including a future sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, as a key pillar.
“The EU will try to demand realignments” that may include the UK readopting some EU regulations, Broadbent said. “That’s not good for U.S. interests.”
“We have a chance here to work with the UK on some more constructive procedures on mutual recognition and just exchanging viewpoints on how we regulate – trying to find the least intrusive ways to do it,” Broadbent added.
This is particularly important for U.S.-EU agriculture trade, Broadbent argued.
Agriculture “may be a sensitive issue in the UK,” Broadbent said. But she stressed that the U.S. needs to take this opportunity to try to make headway on some of the nontariff barriers limiting U.S. ag exports.
Robby Kirkland, chairman of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, agreed with Broadbent, arguing that the industry sees ample opportunities in post-Brexit Britain.
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When the UK left the EU, it left its high-quality beef tariff rate quota with Europe, closing off some access to U.S. beef exporters. UK beef imports are also subjected to strict requirements around pathogen reduction treatments and hormone use.
“We believe there's a great opportunity there for extended trading and new deals with the UK,” Kirkland said. “British consumers, we've seen, they love U.S. beef.”
But he insisted that the U.S. needs to push for “science-based trading” to remove some of the non-tariff barriers U.S. beef faces.
President Donald Trump launched discussions on a U.S.-UK trade deal with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his first term, but the talks ultimately stalled. The Biden administration restarted talks with Rishi Sunak’s government on a skinnier “foundational” trade deal, but those also fell apart. Reporting from Politico EU at the time suggested that disagreement over an agriculture chapter had contributed to the deal’s disintegration.
During Starmer’s visit to Washington last month, Trump announced that the two countries would begin work on another economic and trade deal that would enable the UK to avoid future tariffs.
Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, told Agri-Pulse after Tuesday’s hearing that Trump’s threats of reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trade partners present a new backdrop to negotiations this time around and could help the administration avoid a deadlock.
“There are leverage points that can be used,” Moore said. “I struggle with the concept of a lot of this playing out because it is going to be highly disruptive, but if we need to make advancements and to get more support for our ag, then we've got to have the threat and the threat has to be real.”
Meanwhile, Democrats used the hearing to remind their Republican colleagues that any binding trade agreement would need congressional approval. The Biden administration and lawmakers sparred over whether a trade initiative with Taiwan needed to go through Congress, prompting lawmakers to pass legislation in 2023 that stipulated Congress should sign off on any binding trade agreement, including the Taiwan pact.
That legislation was approved unanimously in the Ways and Means Committee, with support from both Republicans and Democrats.
“I hope my Republican colleagues will remember this if President Trump decides to sideline Congress by relying on executive authority to enter into trade agreements,” subcommittee ranking member Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said.
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