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.

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 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.

On how the UK could try to persuade Mr Trump to change his position on certain policy areas without alienating his administration, he told the BBC: “Well, we’ve got to take all these issues as they come, realise that the president has a very strong and clear mandate for change in the United States.

“Now that doesn’t mean to say that we’re going to agree in Britain with every single detail of what he does, but we have to respect and understand what drives him, what his mandate is to do, and how his allies need to adjust sometimes.

“And I believe that, given the relationship that we have, we can always make our views known – best, by the way, directly and privately.

“We have a strong relationship that enables us to influence the president and his policies where necessary, and it certainly should not affect our ability to work well together, and that’s what I intend remains the case.”

It comes as the President said he plans to impose 25% tariffs on “any steel coming into the United States”, adding that aluminium will also be subject to additional duties.

The UK Government is waiting to see details of the policy, but the steel industry body called for decisive action from ministers while unions warned further jobs could be put at risk in an already crippled sector.

Britain exported 166,433 tonnes of steel to the US in 2023, the last full year for which figures are available.

Figures from trade body UK Steel showed that in 2024 some 162,716 tonnes were sent to the US, but that does not yet include data from December.

The US is the industry’s second-largest export market after the EU, although the Government said it only accounted for 5% of UK steel exports in 2023.

Reports suggest the Prime Minister is hoping to visit Washington in the coming weeks, though Downing Street has not confirmed any upcoming travel.

So far in his second term in the White House, Mr Trump has imposed, but then delayed, duties on imports from Mexico and Canada, and has also imposed 10% levies on goods from China.

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.

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.

“Each of us wants to grow our economies,” he said.

“I think that what we need to do is to build a technology and investment relationship between the US and the UK that’s fit for the 21st century. That’s where I want to focus.”

He added: “We’re going to depend in growing our economy on private investment, foreign investment, a large amount of which is going to come from the United States of America.”