LONDON (Reuters) – British business minister Jonathan Reynolds said the government was hopeful that any tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump would be reversed shortly, if the two sides agree a tech-led economic deal.
Britain expects to be hit by Trump’s plan to put tariffs on goods from countries across the globe this week, but the government has said it will continue to negotiate a new economic partnership to help secure exemptions after the levies come in.
Reynolds told Sky News on Tuesday that Britain was taking a “calm-headed approach” and asked if he was hopeful that a deal would lead to tariffs being dropped in weeks or months, he said: “I am, that would be my objective.”
He added that he could not give a timescale on such a reversal, but warned the longer a deal took, the more likely it would become that Britain would need to impose retaliatory tariffs.
“The longer we don’t have a potential resolution to that, the more we will have to consider our own position,” he said.
“I think we have to have all options available to us. I think that’s reasonable,” he added when asked about the prospect of retaliatory tariffs.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Sarah Young; Editing by Kate Holton)
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