U.S. President Donald Trump inspected an honour guard during a welcome ceremony at Buckingham Palace in central London on June 3, 2019, on the first day of their three-day State Visit to the U.K.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images
The U.K. has a “good chance” of securing a trade deal with America, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said, as global market sentiment rises on hopes there will be further respite from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs policies.
“We’re certainly working very hard with [UK Prime Minister] Keir Starmer’s government” on a trade deal, Vance said in an interview with the UnHerd website published on Monday.
“The President really loves the United Kingdom. He loved the Queen [Elizabeth II]. He admires and loves the King [Charles]. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [Britain]. But I think it’s much deeper than that. There’s a real cultural affinity. And of course, fundamentally America is an Anglo country,” Vance said.
“I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries,” he added.
The U.K. escaped relatively unscathed from Trump’s tariffs regime, struck with a 10% duty on all of its imports to the U.S. — as opposed to a 20% tariff imposed on its neighbors in the European Union — when the White House leader announced his wide-ranging global tariffs regime at the start of April.
Britain has a far more balanced trading relationship with the U.S. when it comes to goods, although it runs a sizeable surplus in the trade of services, the latest data shows.
British government officials say they are working hard to strike a trade deal with the U.S., although the scope and breadth of any agreement remains unknown.
Aside from the more balanced trading relationship, Trump’s affection for the U.K. is well documented, with the president visibly enjoying the grandeur of a state visit to the U.K. during his first term in office, when he and First Lady Melania Trump were the guests of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 27, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
During a recent visit to Washington, Prime Minister Keir Starmer hand-delivered another invitation from King Charles, inviting Trump for a second state visit. The U.S. president looked visibly pleased at the gesture.
Vance: ‘I love Europe’
While the U.K. is optimistic it can forge a deal with its transatlantic ally, the rest of Europe has a more volatile relationship with the States, which frequently lambasts the EU for its large trade surplus.
Trump imposed a 20% “reciprocal” tariff on all EU imports to the U.S., which Brussels decried as unfair and bad for trade, jobs and economic growth, before responding with its own retaliatory tariffs of the same amount.
Global market turmoil in the wake of the tariffs announcement prompted a pullback by the president, however, with Trump suspending the 20% tariff on the EU for 90 days and instead halving the import tax to 10%. In response, the EU also postponed its retaliatory 25% tariff on a raft of U.S. goods, saying it hoped to agree a trade deal with the U.S. in the interim.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance walk to welcome the Ohio State University 2025 College Football National Champions, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Vance, who has frequently singled out the EU for criticism when it comes to trade and defense spending, signaled in his interview with UnHerd that Washington could ink trade deals with the bloc, but said that these arrangements would be dictated by “fairness.”
“With the United Kingdom, we have a much more reciprocal relationship than we have with, say, Germany… While we love the Germans, they are heavily dependent on exporting to the United States but are pretty tough on a lot of American businesses that would like to export into Germany,” he commented.
Vance said he believed talks would lead to a positive trade relationships with Europe, insisting that the U.S. saw the continent as an ally. “We just want it to be an alliance where Europeans are a little more independent, and our security and trade relationships are gonna reflect that,” he said.
Vance was once more seen to be critical of Europe in recent leaked remarks detailing conversations between top officials in the Trump administration, however, saying he hated the idea of “bailing Europe out” when it came to defense.
Speaking to UnHerd, Vance appeared to row back on that position, saying: “I love Europe.”
“I love European people. I’ve said repeatedly that I think that you can’t separate American culture from European culture,” Vance said, although he again added that the bloc needed to up its defense spending.
“It’s not in Europe’s interest, and it’s not in America’s interest, for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States,” Vance said.
