Lord Karan Bilimoria, Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce UK, has criticised the recently announced trade agreement with the United States as "not exactly brilliant news".
Speaking on GB News, Lord Bilimoria expressed concern about the new trading terms with Britain's largest single-country trading partner.
The agreement comes after the UK recently finalised a Free Trade Agreement with India, which Lord Bilimoria had been involved with since its inception in early 2022 when he was president of the Confederation of British Industry.
He emphasised that unlike the India deal, the new US arrangement is merely a "trade agreement" rather than a comprehensive free trade agreement.
Keir Starmer was criticised by Lord Karan Bilimoria over his trade deal with the US
PA / GB News
Lord Bilimoria highlighted the stark increase in tariffs under the new agreement: "Our average duty with America both ways was about 2.5 per cent. So from 2.5 per cent you go to 10 per cent. I mean, that's jumping up by four times," he said.
Lord Bilimoria provided a detailed breakdown of the UK-US trade relationship: "In goods, it's pretty balanced, about £60billion we export to America. We import £58billion from them.
"When it comes to services, we've got a huge surplus for the United States of America, where we export £130billion, compared with about £50billion we import."
He also warned that new taxes on services would be particularly damaging to the UK.
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Lord Bilimoria placed the US-UK trade relationship within a broader global context: "America only makes up 13 percent of global trade. 87 percent is still all the other countries in the world."
He described the current American approach to trade as "disrupted" under Donald Trump, who has "completely disrupted the world trading system with the tariff wars".
Despite this disruption, Lord Bilimoria expressed confidence in global adaptation: "The world will adjust to this," he said, noting the significance of other trading blocs.
Bilimoria told GB News that the deal is 'not brilliant news'
GB News
"You've got huge trading blocks like the EU and China that make up 30 per cent of world trade."
While acknowledging some positive aspects of the new agreement, Lord Bilimoria remained critical of the overall outcome.
"Yes is better than having 25 per cent on steel - of course that's good news for our steel manufacturers," he said.
He also noted it's "better for car manufacturers to go down 10 percent, but we were 2.5 per cent before," Lord Bilimoria emphasised.
The peer concluded with a sobering assessment of the new US-UK trade agreement: "It's still much higher, so it's not exactly brilliant news."
