Looking forward, maybe the most pressing question about Donald Trump for Britain is: what will he do to us? In particular, is he going to abandon Ukraine? And is he going to erect a tariff wall to keep out our goods and services?
It seems pretty clear that, on Ukraine, Trump thinks he can broker a deal for Vladimir Putin to keep his gains in Crimea and the Donbas and beyond, in return for security guarantees for Zelensky and the rump of Crimea. A ceasefire roughly recognising the status quo is all that could conceivably be negotiated in any scenario of the war ending by treaty.
The good news is that, with the strongly pro-Nato Marco Rubio as secretary of state, pressure for such a treaty would not be couched in the language or reality of a total abandonment of Europe by Trump. The aim would be a “realpolitik” deal with Putin, alongside a new deal with Europe to continue to support Nato in return for a larger European commitment to the cost of its own defence.
The bad news is that on past form Putin would probably soon try to seize the rest of Ukraine, either by another military attack or by massive interference in its politics and society, as in Georgia and Moldova. Since Putin would be virtually certain to refuse to agree that the rump Ukraine could join Nato or establish large bases for Nato forces, it is hard to see how security guarantees could stop Putin in practice. For this reason, among others, Zelensky might refuse to agree any such treaty, or be toppled if he attempts to do so. And he or a successor might appeal to Europe to continue supporting them in resisting Putin even without US aid, which would pose a fateful dilemma for Britain, France and Germany.
The history of appeasing expansionist dictators is that they usually move on to their next target in short order, so consolidating and securing Putin’s existing gains is unlikely to buy much by way of peace and stability, even with a pro-Nato Trump. However, an anti-Nato Trump would be worse still, and could leave the whole of eastern Europe exposed to Putin aggression and/or subversion.
As for tariffs, the hope is that Trump is only really concerned about China, which anyway accounts for many of the cheapest imports into the US. And that he will therefore largely build on the existing Joe Biden tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, EV batteries and solar cells.
The trouble is that last time around Trump imposed hefty tariffs on European steel and aluminium, showing no favouritism to his supposed allies, including the UK. As for our “special relationship”, the UK got an even worse deal on the last round of Trump tariffs than the EU, reflecting its lesser ability to retaliate.
In Trump’s first term there was no serious progress on a wider US-UK trade deal to reduce pre-existing tariffs and trade barriers, not least because of UK red lines on US access to the British healthcare system and refusal to accept American exports of chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-treated beef. These red lines will apply even more so with a Labour government.
In all these eventualities, we must hope—and negotiate—for the best, but prepare for the worst. And the worst could still be very bad indeed.
