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The United Kingdom has accepted strict American security requirements for its steel and pharmaceutical industries, in what diplomats see as a model that Washington could use to exclude China from strategic supply chains from other countries.
Thursday's trade agreement Offered a price relief to the two industries, but only to the State that Great Britain “works quickly for American requirements” on their security of the supply chain and the “ownership of relevant production facilities”.
British officials said the provision applied to all third countries, but recognized that Trump had reported that China was the planned target.
While industrial groups sought to clarify the nature of the American requirements on the security and property of the supply chain, trade experts argued that the agreement indicated that the Trump administration intensified long -standing requests to restrict Chinese inputs to strategically important goods.
“Washington wants the United Kingdom and other countries to open their books and finally move away from Chinese trade and investments, in particular in sensitive fields such as steel,” said Allie Renison, former head of the British trade department.
THE text From the US five -page agreement, which was in a hurry in seven weeks after Trump announced the global import rights on April 2, specifies that the prices for British products will depend on the so -called article 232 – probes to determine whether and how specific imports affect American national security.
This adds that the United States plans to reduce prices for the United Kingdom are based on “shared national security priorities” as well as what it describes as the “balanced commercial relationship” of countries.
Sam Lowe, trade leader at Consultancy Flint Global, said that he expected that “similar conditions reproduced in other transactions, in particular in export centers in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam and Cambodia”.
But the senior EU trade officials said that the conditions relating to China had potentially serious ramifications for their efforts to agree with the Bloc agreement with Washington.
Two officials involved in negotiations with the Trump administration told Financial Times that the block would find it difficult to reproduce these US-UK trade agreement.
“There is no unit on how to approach China,” said one of the officials about 27 EU members.
The British Labor Government rejected the accusations of “complete nonsense” by the opposition conservatives that this week's agreement, which also provides pricing relief to British aluminum, maintains Washington a “veto” on supply chains.
“There is no veto on Chinese investments in this trade agreement, this is not what this trade agreement concerns,” said Darren Jones, chief secretary of the Treasury, Times Radio.
A British official said: “The United States does not want, since the United Kingdom will have much lower prices than the rest of the world, to become somewhere where countries or companies could bypass their rules via British exports to the United States. The details of this will be worked.”
Renison, now at the DRA Newgate consultation, said US requests were in accordance with an acceleration trend, noting that the Biden administration had demanded to see the British audit on a steel company belonging to Chinese before lifting the previous Trump steel tariffs.
She said Beijing was likely to retaliate in one form or another if the United Kingdom's final agreement with the United States-which will be the subject of new negotiations-links Great Britain to a more complete alignment with the American approach to trade with China.
British industrial groups said they were pushing the government for more information having received no immediate indication of what prices or the proposed supply chain might be.
The initiates of the British pharmaceutical industry said that the final terms would depend on the outcome of the US investigation Announced in April in the implications on national security of pharmaceutical imports.
“Obviously, the United States and the United Kingdom are ready for additional negotiations following the conclusion of article 232 pharmaceuticals,” said one.
UK Steel, The Industry Lobby Group, underlined the lack of clarity in the five -page text, including the failure of the reference to any reduction in zero prices, as well as questions on the conditions of the supply chain and a suggestion that the quotas would be applied.
“The terms of the agreement highlight a number of hoops to jump before the British steel sector can see the advantages of this agreement,” said UK Steel. “To fully assess the impact on our sector, we will have to understand the conditions of the supply chain which must be met, how the quotas will be defined and when these take effect.”
