Britain signed its eighth trade pact with a US state earlier this year, adding the gigantic economy of Texas to an already impressive list of states Britain is opening up trade with.
Analysis by GB News and Facts4EU has revealed the economies of Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington, Florida and now Texas have a market value of $7.3 trillion dollars, larger than the biggest 23 economies of the EU combined.
The combined economies of the eight US states Britain has trade pacts with is larger than than the EU’s 23 biggest economies
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Sir John Redwood, former Conservative Secretary of State, said: “Great to see the UK using its Brexit freedoms and making trade deals with eight US states with more to come.
“The US is our largest trading partner and we have a much better balance between exports and imports than with the EU. Who said none of this would be possible when we left the EU?”
Critics have highlightedLabour’s lack of commitment to Anglo-American trade, as proven in the recent House of Commons library report on UK trade priorities.
The independent report states: “The Labour government has said that … its priorities will be negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE), India, Israel, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey…
“Negotiations with all these countries had started under the previous Conservative government.
“The new government’s plans for Free Trade Agreement negotiations did not mention the US … Canada … or Mexico.
“The government has said that trade policy goes wider than FTAs. It will publish a trade strategy which will align with its industrial strategy and promote the UK’s economic security and net zero aims.”
The largest buyer of goods and services from the UK by far – the USA – did not warrant a mention by the new Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer.
It was Kemi Badenoch who signed the pact between Texas and Britain when she was Business and Trade Secretary.
Speaking at the time, Texas State Governor Greg Abbott said: “Texas is the economic engine of America, where entrepreneurs from around the globe can cast a vision and know they can achieve it.
“Working with our British partners, we will chart a greater path towards success and opportunity and create an even more robust economic partnership.”
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Brexit fans point to Texas as an example of where Britain should be focusing its diplomatic efforts, not on ‘resetting Brexit’ with the EU as Starmer has promised.
Encouragingly, discussions between the Department for Business and Trade and many other US states, including California, Colorado, and Illinois are also underway.
What is not currently clear is whether the new government is pursuing these or not.
This comes after it was revealed last week that America bought £186billion worth of goods and services from Britain in 2023 alone, three times as much as Germany – the EU’s largest economy – who came in second place on £63billion.
America’s largest physical import from Britain was medicinal and pharmaceutical products (£8.2 billion), followed by cars (£7.5 billion), mechanical power generators (£5.3 billion), scientific instruments (£2.5 billion) and aircraft (£2.3 billion).
These numbers were dwarfed by America’s imports of goods and services from Britain.
‘Other Business Services’ accounted for £58.0 billion worth of trade, ‘Financial Services’ at £29.1 billion, ‘Insurance and Pension services’ at £11.5 billion and ‘Telecommunications, computer and information services’ at £8.8 billion.