A senior minister has branded claims that the new US-UK trade deal includes a veto for Washington over Chinese investment as ‘complete nonsense’. Darren Jones poured cold water over claims that the treaty hands Donald Trump a “sort of veto” over Chinese investment in Britain, including in Government procurement.
He told Times Radio: “This story on the front page of The Telegraph is complete nonsense. I mean, I’m at a bit of a loss as to know where it’s come from. I think it was a Conservative Party criticism. But as you said, we’ve not even published all of the documents yet. So I’m not quite sure how they were able to come up with that.”
“I can be completely categorical with you. There’s no such thing as a veto on Chinese investment in this trade deal.
“This is not what this trade deal is about. It’s a sectoral trade deal in relation to tariffs in key sectors in the way that we’ve just been talking about.”
The Telegraph claimed that under the terms of the deal, the full text of which is yet to be published, the US would have the ability to lodge a formal objection to Chinese companies investing in the UK.
A press release of the agreement said both the UK and US “intend to co-operate on the effective use of investment security measures”.
Government sources were far less categorical than Mr Jones, saying that while the deal doesn’t amount to an outright veto, Washington will be able to “flag” concerns about Chinese companies buying critical infrastructure.
A negotiating source said that this was a key ask of the US during talks.
The Tories’ shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel said that allowing the US to intervene on foreign investment decisions is proof Sir Keir gave away too much.
She warned: “Keir Starmer has already given Trump a bigger UK tariff cut than Trump has given him.”
“Now it looks like he’s effectively handed America a veto over investment decisions in the UK. When Labour negotiates, Britain loses. The US has told Starmer to jump, and he’s said, ‘how high?’”
Dame Priti echoed criticism from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who said Britain had been “shafted” by the deal.
She added that the agreement – which leaves the UK still paying 10% tariffs on car exports to America – is more evidence that the country “loses” when Labour negotiates.
The new deal will remove tariffs on British steel and aluminium while they will be slashed from 27.5% down to 10% for 100,000 vehicles every year.
It means the UK will still be in a worse-off position than before.
a chart displayed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the White House suggested the US has trebled its tariffs on the UK since Trump took over – and Britain has more than halved its own.
Mrs Badenoch said the UK is still worse off than we were three months ago, before Mr Trump’s “Liberation Day” blitz, indicating that jobs and businesses will still continue to suffer.