This has been a brainchild of certain US Republican congressmen for around 20 years. Brexit and the Trump Administration’s keenness to do an early trade deal with the UK have given the idea a contemporary boost. One of the options mooted is to replace Mexico in Nafta with the UK.

The Trump administration is keen to prove it is not simply anti-trade but, rather, wants trade to be with countries of similar wages and regulatory standards and reasonably “balanced” (i.e. not to involve a large deficit for the US). And whilst on UK data, the US does indeed import much more from the UK than it exports to us, on official US data the US actually runs a small surplus. (They can’t both be right, but this statistical anomaly has existed for more than a decade and isn’t likely to go away any time soon.)