Trump could offer trade lane to UK over ‘Brexit sympathy’, Democrat says

Donald Trump could offer the UK a “lane” easing trade with the US, a senior Democrat has suggested amid concerns that the president-elect’s desire for tariffs could damage Britain’s economy.

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, who knows Mr Trump personally, said he believed the Republican politician would have “sympathy” for the decision to leave the EU and show more leniency towards Britain than with Brussels or Nato.

Speaking to journalists on a visit to London, Mr Murphy said the president-elect’s victory at the polls had been “very sobering”, with the potential loss of both the House and the Senate “particularly troubling” for Democrats.

But he offered a more optimistic assessment of what a Trump presidency might mean for British exports.

“I’m sure you are concerned about tariffs, the bilateral relationship. If I had to speculate I would say there’s a lane for the UK. There’s less of a lane for the EU and Nato. There’s a lane for the UK to be determined,” he said.

“He is somebody who I think will have sympathy with an entity leaving a larger club. There was a certain relationship here – Brexit and Trump were born in the same year.

“I can’t speak for the president but I think there is an embedded sympathy for someone who leaves a bureaucracy, leaves a club.”

Mr Murphy has forged links with the former president where some of his Democrat colleagues have been reluctant to do so, staying in contact after the former businessman left the White House.

On a visit to London and Cambridge aimed at bolstering business ties in industries such as artificial intelligence (AI), life sciences and renewable energy, he said he was confident that the change of administration would not harm these efforts on a sub-national level.

“We believe with great passion that those relations can be strengthened,” he said. “We start in a good place here.”

But he added that the impact of tariffs would cause “significant damage” domestically, and “households would pay that price” due to inflation.

Mr Trump vowed on his campaign that he would tax all goods imported into the US if he won back the White House, saying he thought “tariff” was “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”.

“I’m not sure how much of that is going to get put into action,” Mr Murphy said, adding “it doesn’t make economic sense” to impose aggressive levies on allies.