Two trade deals in one week? For that, you can thank the Brexiteers, writes Lord Malcolm Offord

9 May 2025, 15:36

By Lord Malcolm Offord

Who knew that the Labour Party would embrace so enthusiastically the Conservative Party agenda on Global Britain?

By signing two massive trade deals in one week with India and the USA (respectively the 4th and 1st ranked world economies). Deals that could only be done because of Brexit.

How beautifully ironic for Brexiteers (and no doubt bitter sweet for him) to watch that arch remainer Peter Mandelson grinning from ear to ear in the Oval Office while shaking hands with Donald Trump on a US trade deal that Europe can only dream of?

When I was a trade minister in Department of Business & Trade reporting to the Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch in the last government, our team was laser focused on global trade and making a success of Brexit. By July 2024, we had signed Free Trade Agreements with 73 countries representing 60% of world GDP. Most notably, we signed up the CPTPP (11 trans-Pacific nations representing 12% of global GDP) and were 95% done on FTA negotiations with India. Our target was 80% of global GDP and the missing piece was the USA.

During the Trump 1.0 administration, DBT had five rounds of extensive trade talks with the US, laying the foundation for an historic FTA. Then Biden shut it all down in a period when the USA disengaged from trade negotiations with all nations. But Kemi was smart and nimble and led a series of bilaterals with 12 individual federal states, resulting in mini trade deals (called MOUs) with the likes of Texas, Florida and California. There is no doubt that these foundations will have greatly assisted the formulation of this new deal announced yesterday by Trump and Starmer.

Yes, of course, the devil is in the details, and a number of my colleagues now in Opposition say this deal makes us worse off than three months ago because we have lost our tariff-free trading arrangements with the US. But I would respond by saying that we need to play the ball as it lies. Two months ago, Trump 2.0 ripped up the global rule book. He said that the 350 million US consumers were being ripped off and that, if any country wants access to this wealthy cohort for their products, they now need to pay a fee.

We should be proud that the UK was the first to strike a deal with the US and celebrate with our auto manufacturers, steelworkers and whisky distillers that the worst outcome has been mitigated. We should congratulate the Government on pursuing our trade agenda, and they should acknowledge the huge contribution made by previous administrations to these two deals. And we should get on and grow our exports in the regions of the world which are growing the fastest, namely the USA, India and the Indo-Pacific.

Last word on Europe. It is often misunderstood that Brexit was actually a Free Trade Agreement. In fact, it was the first trade deal we did when we left the EU. Approximately half of our £850 billion exports still go to Europe, and we continue to trade well with our closest European neighbours. It's just that the other half of our exports go to the rest of the world, which is growing much faster. Brexit gives us the best of both worlds in trade, and Global Britain is now becoming a reality.

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Lord Offord of Garvel CVO is a Scottish businessman who was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State to the Scotland Office in October 2021.

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