Embattled Rachel Reeves gets Budget boost with growth forecast - but Trump tariffs will damage UK economy The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said GDP growth was likely to be 0.2 percentage points lower in the first year of tariffs if they were implemented by the US president.
Niesr said it was projecting that the UK economy would grow by 1.5 per cent this year, lifting its previous forecast of 1.2 per cent, which is mostly driven by the spending programme announced by the chancellor in the October Budget.
Economists at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said Britain could become the third fastest growing country in the G7 this year – but the economy would be knocked if there was a trade dispute with the divisive US president.
Buy shadow trade minister Dame Harriet Baldwin hit out at the government, saying the PM should have “got on a flight to the States at the first possible opportunity” as she criticised “years of student politic-style insults hurled at the president by the frontbench opposite” which she said had put the UK’s relationship with the US “in jeopardy”.
The revelation increases pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to secure a carve out for the UK after president Trump said he could exempt Australia from punishing tariffs on steel.
