U.K. wants US to remove tariffs on imports, envoy says

The U.K. wants the U.S. to remove all tariffs on goods, and wants to start talks on dropping duties on steel and aluminum soon, London’s ambassador to Washington said.

“We very much look forward to starting our own talks with the administration on these issues,” Karen Pierce said Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power With David Westin,” adding that the U.K. hasn’t put a timeline on the discussions. “We want to see all tariffs removed.”

The U.S. and the European Union clinched a tariff-busting trade accord over the weekend, ending a dispute over national-security duties instituted by former President Donald Trump. The duties still apply for nations including the U.K., Japan and China.

On Monday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. plans to sit with other allies like Japan and the U.K. to negotiate a solution to end the tariffs. Pierce said she was “very encouraged” about the Biden administration’s intention to deal with the duties.

“We account for less than 1% of U.S. imports of steel,” said Pierce, who recently discussed the issue in Kentucky and Ohio with representatives of the U.S. whiskey industry, which has faced retaliatory tariffs from the U.K. “Our steel manufacturers are no threat to the American industry.”

The Trump administration imposed a 25% steel tariff, along with a 10% duty on aluminum imports, in March 2018 on a range of nations, using an arcane national-security provision in a 1962 trade law. Some countries, including Brazil and South Korea, negotiated deals to avoid the levies, and Trump dropped the duties for imports from Canada and Mexico.

Washington agreed to remove the duties it placed on EU steel and aluminum exports up to a certain threshold, with anything beyond that still subject to the additional tariffs. The EU will also suspend its retaliatory duties, effectively ending punitive measures on as much as $10 billion of each other’s goods.

Asked about negotiations over a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Pierce said it was a “legitimate question” whether the deal would stick, given that the Trump administration quit the agreement about two years after it was reached under former President Barack Obama. She said Biden has “sought to give assurances that if America makes commitments, they will endure.”

“If we can get back into the nuclear agreement, it benefits both sides,” Pierce said. “That mutual, reciprocal benefit is what keeps these agreements moving.”