The Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Billy said that the trade agreement concluded with Washington is good, but the customs definitions of most of his country’s goods to the United States are still higher than it was before last month.
Before announcing the details of the agreement on Thursday, the British Bank published estimates that showed that the customs duties plans that US President Donald Trump intends to implement as of last April 29 that would lead to a contraction of the British economy by about 0.3% over a period of 3 years.
About two -thirds of the decline is due to the direct impact of customs duties in reducing the demand for British exports in the United States and other places, while the rest reflected the impact of uncertainty about commercial policy in reducing global growth.
According to this agreement, which was concluded on Thursday:
- The United States will continue to impose 10% new customs duties on the imports of most British goods.
- In return, the highest customs duties will reduce the imports of British car, steel and aluminum.
“It is good news … (but the actual rate of fees) will remain higher than it was before the start of all this. I think we need to take this into consideration,” the governor of the Bank of England said during an economic conference in Reykravik.
Billy has repeatedly spoke of his support to maintain an open global trading system, while treating large trade surpluses for some countries.
The BBC published an interview with Billy yesterday, in which he said that Britain should do “everything in its power” to reflect the direction of decline in the exports of goods to the European Union, which followed Britain’s exit from the conglomerate in 2020.
The Financial Times saw that the American celebration of “special relations” with Britain was not translated into a wide exemption from customs duties, reflecting the Trump administration’s adherence to imposed protectionist policies to remain, although it provides a narrow negotiating margin.
For his part, British Trade Minister Jonathan Reynolds said that the conclusion of the agreement with the United States was an urgent task for his government in order to maintain thousands of jobs that have become threatened by American customs duties.
However, this step did not pass without criticism from inside Britain, as the leader of the Conservative Party, Kimi Badenok, said that Prime Minister Kiir Starmer is only in a rush to sign the agreements, without being concerned with good negotiations on their details.
