Three graphs show how Britain managed to secure a landmark trade deal with America because of Brexit.
It comes after Britain jumped to the front of the queue and secured the new Trump administration’s first trade agreement on Thursday.
The UK car manufacturers will be breathing a sigh of relief after the carve-out, but the same cannot be said for their EU competitors, whose exported goods to the US still face a much higher tariff rate.
While negotiators on both sides of the Atlantic comb over the fine print of the agreement, which President Trump said was only possible "because of Brexit", one sector is already reaping the rewards of Britain's historic decision to leave the EU: cars.
As Facts4EU lays out in three graphs below, Britain's historic decision to leave the bloc has benefitted America - and now Uncle Sam is repaying the favour.
The think tank has analysed the Top 20 export product groupings in 2024 and easily the most important is the automotive sector. Cars alone account for 15.3 per cent of total UK exports to the US by value (see graph two).
The Trump deal has been praised by Brexiteers
Getty/Reuters
Brexit dividend
As the analysis by Facts4EU shows, the US is not just the UK’s biggest export market by far, but also the UK’s exports have grown at a rate 1.74 times higher than to the rate of those to the EU since 2016 when the EU Referendum took place (see third chart below).
Even without a trade deal, UK export growth rate has been much faster in the US than in the EU.
The announcement of the deal this week is being read as a rebuttal tp comments made by former President Barack Obama before the referendum, who announced the UK would go "to the back of the queue" if they chose to leave the European Union.
Obama said during the press conference on April 22, 2016: "The UK is at its best when it's helping to lead a strong European Union. It leverages UK power to be part of the EU. I don't think the EU moderates British influence in the world, it magnifies it."
The US tariff on UK cars compared to the EU
Facts4EU
Cars remains the highest percentage of UK exports
Facts4EU
The UK's exports to the US has soared since Trump first took office in 2017
Facts4EU
The overall feeling that many Brexiteers will have got from yesterday, of course, is one of vindication.
Far from the UK’s exports ‘falling off a cliff’ as had been threatened by the government and Establishment figures, Brexit Britain is now poised to build on the trade successes it has already had such as the CPTPP, and grow globally even faster.
