This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The most recently retired British ambassador to the United States has described the prospect of a “generous” free trade deal with Donald Trump after Brexit as an “illusion”.

Sir Peter Westmacott said he believed Brexit was bad for the country and was also damaging the nation’s standing globally because it was absorbing so much political and diplomatic attention.

“Are we going to have an easy free trade agreement with America, I find it hard to see how it [Brexit] is going to be better than what we have at the moment,” said Westmacott, who served in Washington during the Obama period between 2012 and 2016.

He was speaking amid the growing threat of a transatlantic trade war with the EU over Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium as well as European car imports.

Westmacott described trade negotiations with the US as “extraordinarily difficult” irrespective of whether Trump was in power or not.

“It is frankly an illusion to think that the day after Brexit there was going to be an very generous all-singing, all-dancing free trade agreement for the United Kingdom with the US because Donald Trump said: ‘I love Brexit, it’s marvellous.’”

He said the recent rows over tariffs on Bombardier, the rights of US airlines to continue to fly into the EU after Brexit, and the weekend tweets about steel were “indicative of how difficult it will be”.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) We are on the losing side of almost all trade deals. Our friends and enemies have taken advantage of the U.S. for many years. Our Steel and Aluminum industries are dead. Sorry, it’s time for a change! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

The UK’s desire for access to public procurement contracts would be difficult because they are protected by state, not federal law.

The British government would also be under huge pressure to drop food standards, which currently include EU bans on hormone-impregnated beef and chlorine-washed chicken from the US.

Bacon with banned additive among risks of US-UK trade deal Read more

“We are going to come under huge pressure to accept genetically modified food, chlorinated chicken and all that kind of stuff.

“There cannot be a free trade agreement with America that’s not going to include that [agriculture].

“If you look at some of the America First statements and some of the positions taken by the US government we are going to find this really quite difficult,” he said.

Addressing an audience of commercial lawyers at the city law firm HFW on Monday night, he said he was also concerned that Britain was losing its “voice in the world” because of Brexit.

“Sadly our government is so absorbed by Brexit, so absorbed with the different positions of members of cabinet or the importance of getting Brexit right that we don’t seem to have the freedom or capacity to do other things,” he said.

“As a result of that, we are not perceived to be pulling our weight diplomatically as we have in the past,” he said, citing the situation in Yemen and other international crises and conflicts.

He said some friends in pro-Brexit political circles had urged him not to express his opinions but he was no longer on the government payroll and it was right to speak.

“I do think this whole Brexit thing is a matter of existential importance and those who have something to say about how we manage it should speak up.”

“The more we leave the greater the cost, the less we leave the lower the bill,” he said.