UK must respect Trump’s mandate but can share views privately, Mandelson says Britain must respect Donald Trump’s “strong and clear mandate for change,” Lord Peter Mandelson has said, amid questions over how the UK will respond to global tariffs threatened by the White House.
Lord Mandelson acknowledged he was “concerned” about the looming prospect of tariffs and said Britain would “not necessarily agree” with every detail of the new US President’s agenda.
The UK’s top diplomat in Washington said that Sir Keir Starmer’s Government can “always make our views known privately and directly” but that it must “understand what drives him”.
Lord Mandelson, a former minister and key architect of the party’s renewal in the 1990s, said his “priority” in his new role would be to help encourage an investment relationship with the US fit for the 21st century.
The president has previously suggested a deal could be done to exempt the UK from tariffs, while claiming Britain is “out of line” in its trading relationship with the US.
