Trump's trade representative says UK-US deal 'almost impossible' before 2020 election

'I am confident that we will get an agreement and I am confident that we will get one that is warmly received by Congress. The question is really when'

A UK-US trade deal is highly unlikely to be approved before the US election in November, according to Donald Trump’s chief trade representative.

Speaking before the House Ways and Means Committee, United States Trade Representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer said that such an agreement is “almost impossible” by the 2020 election.

This raises the prospect that the president, who was supportive of Brexit and Britain forging new trade deals, could be out of office before any agreement is signed.

"I am confident that we will get an agreement and I am confident that we will get one that is warmly received by Congress. The question is really when," the ambassador said.

Mr Lighthizer said that it is imperative to have an agreement with the UK given the “overwhelming” ties and economic similarities between the two countries, but there are still fundamental issues that negotiators have to address.

The current round of negotiations with the UK ends next week and the US has tabled text on most of the 32 chapters of a potential agreement. The ambassador said he hoped that they will be able to close out at least a couple chapters of the agreement by then.

Responding to a question about the future of US trade relations with the UK and European Union, Mr Lighthizer said that what the UK does in relation to regulation in negotiations with the EU will be crucial to the US position.

Stressing that the UK has more than twice as large a trading relationship with the EU than the US, the ambassador said that the US is willing to work concurrently with the UK as it negotiates with Europe, but "what they give Europe will affect what we get".

"And if they buy Europe's total regulatory regime, then we're in a position where we're going to get substantially less, and thus the way I think about these things, and I'm a pure pragmatist, we should give them less," he continued.

One of the biggest disagreements between the US and UK (and EU) is over food and agricultural sanitary standards — routinely exemplified by the debate over “chlorinated chicken”.

Mr Lighthizer said that the perception in Europe that American food is unsafe is actually a form of “thinly veiled protectionism” and that the US will not compromise on fair access for the agricultural sector.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer asked if there were cause for the US to look at its own agriculture standards in response to the criticism from the UK and EU. “Should we really export our weak standards to another country?” he asked.

Mr Lighthizer reminded Mr Blumenauer that agricultural policy is set by Congress, and not by the US Trade Representative. He argued that the US has the best agriculture in the world and the safest standards.

“We shouldn’t confuse science with consumer preference.”

Before he became president, Donald Trump was a proponent of the UK leaving the EU ahead of the Brexit vote in June 2016. Since then he has enthusiastically talked about the potential for a trade agreement between the US and the UK and hailed the 2019 re-election of the Conservative government as a step towards such a deal.