Is Starmer plotting to sacrifice British farmers to obtain a US trade deal?

We are close to striking a trade deal with America, according to J D Vance, the vice president. Government ministers have for the past few weeks been bullish about the prospect, not least since a 10 per cent base line tariff was imposed on UK exports.

A trade agreement will get rid of those levies and open up the vast American market to British goods as never before. At least that is the theory and one that free traders will cling to. The reality, however, is less auspicious.

To begin with, why would you do a deal with a president who has reneged on trade agreements that already exist. Canada and Mexico were both signatories to the North American Free Trade Agreement when Donald Trump first entered the White House in 2017. He tore it up and insisted on a renegotiation that resulted in the CUSMA, a largely free-trade relationship.

Back in the Oval Office Trump has now ratted on that as well, imposing 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian cars, steel and aluminium, as well as 10 per cent on energy.

This has been justified under a law that allows the US president to restrict the import of certain goods if there is a threat to national security, in this case one caused by illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

It is, in other words, a punishment for failing to control borders. Many CUSMA-compliant goods exported to the US from Canada remain tariff-free, but that is not the point. If a trade agreement is essentially seen in Washington as a source of leverage against recalcitrant nations and can be changed on the whim of the president, why on earth would you agree to one?

If it will wipe out the 10 per cent tariffs on UK exports to America you can see the attraction for a Government struggling to kick-start economic growth. But that makes us a weak negotiator against a continental economy for whom protecting their national interest is paramount.

When Vance says there is a “good chance of a great deal in the interests of both sides” it is time to count the spoons. It is already apparent that electronic goods, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals will not be free of tariffs, even with a trade deal.

But the biggest issue for the UK will be farming. An attempt in the first Trump presidency to negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal foundered on this very matter.

After leaving the EU we retained the food protection standards that previously applied and Labour ministers are committed by a manifesto pledge to keep them, and also want a “reset” with Europe.

This has been sold to the country as a determination to keep “chlorinated chicken” off the supermarket shelves. In reality, it is protectionism masquerading as a food standards issue since nothing associated with the US processes will harm anyone. This is about backing British farming against the might of America.

Farmers are already aggrieved by the Chancellor’s imposition of inheritance tax on land over a certain value and fear the worst from a Government with no real base in the countryside despite gains in rural areas at last year’s election.

The National Farmers Union has previously warned of an existential threat to the entire industry if it faces unfettered competition from the US, because domestic producers would find it impossible to compete on price.

American chickens cost 20 per cent less to produce than those in the UK on average and US beef is desperately looking for new markets after China, which accounted for 15 per cent of exports, effectively closed off agri-trade with the US.

American beef farmers will want better access to the UK under any trade deal but the health requirements remain a barrier, so will they be lifted? Why would Donald Trump sign an agreement that kept American livestock producers out of UK markets while allowing our lamb and beef farmers free access to theirs?

Protecting domestic agriculture from cheap imports is hardly new and the political scars are deep and historic. The great schism of 1846, following the repeal of the Corn Laws, kept the Tories out of office for 20 years as free traders and landowning farmers split.

In the early 20th century, efforts to secure preferential tariffs for British and Empire agricultural products caused another rift. The UK’s entry into the Common Market in the early 1970s was dominated by arguments over the impact on Commonwealth farmers of the EEC’s trade barriers.

What matters more: the industry or the consumer? Free traders following the Ricardian principles of comparative advantage maintain that an overall increase in economic welfare is achieved by importing from countries that produce goods more cheaply.

But there is no point pretending this does not harm specific sectors. After the Corn Laws were repealed, agriculture went through a period of depression in the late 1800s up until the First World War. Farming is no less vulnerable to competition from outside than steel or coal or shipbuilding, all of which have gone under in the past 30 years.

The Government insists it has no intention of watering down animal welfare regulations and will not accept imports from countries that do not observe our standards. But will it stick with that if it scuppers a trade deal with the US? Farming makes up a tiny part of the British economy so the temptation to sacrifice it on the altar of a Trumpian trade deal will be strong.

The free trade argument holds that if US chickens are sold here and are properly labelled, no one has to buy them. But price is important for many consumers. Free-range chickens can cost four or five times as much as a broiler sold in a cut-price supermarket. American birds will be cheaper still.

On the other hand, a deal with the US opens a huge market for UK farmers whose higher quality and ethical standards will be a brand advantage in pitching for the custom of better-off Americans. But, unprotected, can our agriculture survive?

Its extinction would be a grave matter, given how vulnerable the UK – which imports 40 per cent of its food – is to a breakdown in supply lines.

If the vaunted free trade deal with America looks like foundering over agriculture, which way will Sir Keir Starmer jump? He needs a deal for the kudos it will bring him but also to help, he hopes, reboot economic growth. But if he lets down the farmers, the tractors will be back in Whitehall in short order.