As 18% of Brits want Trump to win – how much of an impact will US election winner have on UK?

As the saying goes, “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold”. The US presidential election outcome will not just affect Americans, but people around the world.

Among the British public, there is a clear preference for Kamala Harris to win.

Polling conducted by YouGov last month shows that 64% of British adults favour the incumbent vice president, while just 18% want to see the return of Donald Trump.

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And the same poll shows that 76% of British voters think who wins the US election matters “a lot” or “a fair amount”, while just 17% think it doesn’t matter much or at all.

So let’s take a deep dive into what a Trump or Harris presidency would mean really for the UK.

Donald Trump

If you cast your mind back, you will remember then prime minister Theresa May flew to Washington DC in 2017 to convince the new president, Donald Trump, to publicly state his support for the NATO alliance and warn him about his closeness to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

While he did so eventually, since he left office in January 2021, former members of his top team have spoken out, recalling just how close he came to withdrawing the US from the alliance on multiple occasions.

A full US withdrawal from NATO during a second Trump term would be unlikely, but it should be expected that he will demand that member states dramatically increase their spending on defence as a share of GDP – a main gripe of his – or face the removal of the US security umbrella, which would effectively shatter the key premise of the alliance.

The UK exceeds the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence, and is aiming to spend 2.5% (although the new government has not yet set out a clear timeline to achieve that) so is unlikely to face the ire of a potential President Trump in that respect.

But there is no doubt that any weakening of the NATO alliance and an apparent unwillingness from the US president to come to the aid of allies would embolden Russia’s president at a time when the UK’s domestic intelligence service chief is warning of an increased threat from “Putin’s henchmen”.

Trump claims he could end Ukraine war

Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin was a daily headline during his term in office, amid claims his presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the election.

Nonetheless, he has stated as recently as September that he has a “very good relationship” with Putin and claims he could end the war in Ukraine almost immediately.

But he has never spelled out how exactly he would achieve that and what the terms would be, and has repeatedly refused to say if he thinks Ukraine should cede territory to Russia – a possibility that would be completely at odds with the position of the UK government and other key allies.

If Mr Trump comes up with a deal with Russia that Ukraine is unhappy with, or even blocks Ukraine’s pathway to NATO membership, this could lead to a significant fracture in the Europe-US relationship.

Peace in the Middle East?

Donald Trump has offered his full backing to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who undoubtedly would like to see the former president back in office for that very reason, following a shaky (to put it mildly) relationship with Joe Biden.

The former president has reportedly backed Israel’s “war on terror”, and views Iran as a dangerous enemy, similar to Mr Netanyahu (you will recall that Mr Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear deal with Iran in his first term, something the Israeli prime minister desperately wanted).

That said, Mr Trump has previously spoken in broad terms about bringing violence to an end – and his love of making deals is well known.

His first term in office saw the signing of the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and four Arab countries for the first time, and he could decide he wants to try to make peace in the Middle East.

But the Palestinian leadership has been clear that it has no trust in Mr Trump, and they would be unlikely to want to engage with him.

Nonetheless, a push for a ceasefire from a US president with the ear of Benjamin Netanyahu would be significant, and any cessation of hostilities would certainly ease the domestic political pressure on Sir Keir Starmer. But which way Trump goes on this issue could depend on as little as his mood.

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Trump v. China round two?

One of the much-vaunted opportunities of Brexit was a trade deal with the US, but that has not yet materialised – and nor is it likely to be a priority for a second Trump term – despite the assertion of one of his former staff.

Firstly, Mr Trump has previously said that the Brexit deal negotiated by the “fantastic” ex-PM Boris Johnson “precluded” a potential trade agreement.

But even if he were open to it, the new UK government, like its predecessors, will not be receptive to Mr Trump’s desire to open up the UK’s healthcare market to US companies, nor relax animal welfare and quality standards to allow the import of US meat (remember ‘chlorinated chicken’?).

The more likely scenario is that Mr Trump will follow through on his promise to impose 10%-20% tariffs on all imports to the US in a bid to encourage consumers to buy American.

The former president is also likely to continue his old beef with China, and has promised a fresh trade war, imposing a tariff on imports of 60% – dramatically increasing the cost of goods, potentially triggering price inflation in the US, and leading to knock-on effects on the entire world economy.

A blanket 10%-20% on imports would also badly hurt the UK – the US is Britain’s largest export market, reaching a value of £188.2bn in the year to October.

Former US ambassador to the UK, Philip Reeker, told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that we should “expect” the former president to follow through on this policy.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves hinted that the UK would not retaliate, saying: “We will work with whoever becomes president and make the case for that free and open trade that we believe in.”

Like Theresa May, Ms Reeves is unlikely to find a receptive ear from the former president.

Could King Charles smooth relations?

What could hurt US-UK relations under Mr Trump are previous comments members of Sir Keir Starmer’s top team have made about him.

In 2018, now the UK’s most senior diplomat, David Lammy, called the then president “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” who is “a profound threat to the international order”, while in September, immigration minister Angela Eagle accused Trump of having helped create “vitriol” against migrants through social media.

Nigel Farage’s strong relationship with Mr Trump could also cause problems, with the Reform UK leader likely wanting to assert influence and cause some trouble for his political opponents in government.

But what will not hurt US-UK relations during a potential second Trump term is the former president’s personal affinity for the UK – his mother was born in Scotland, and his second golf course there, to be named after her, is due to open next year.

Melania Trump has also recently claimed that she and her husband are in touch with King Charles, having reportedly first met the then Prince of Wales in 2005 (Buckingham Palace did not respond to a request for comment), and Mr Trump has spoken very highly of his meetings with the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The former president met Sir Keir Starmer for a two-hour dinner in New York in September, which the prime minister has said was “good” – and the Republican nominee has been complimentary about Sir Keir Starmer.

But Mr Trump’s campaign has since accused the Labour Party of trying to interfere in the US election by sending party officials to campaign for Kamala Harris. While no evidence of a breach of US electoral law has been provided, it could be a thorn in the early days of that relationship.

Kamala Harris

While Kamala Harris insists she will not be “continuity Joe Biden”, there is one thing that will not change – full-throated support for the NATO alliance and maintaining good relations with European allies, including the UK.

As a senator during Mr Trump’s first term in the White House, she was vocal about working alongside allies as the then president unilaterally withdrew from international agreements like the Paris Climate Accords and the nuclear deal with Iran.

That robust commitment to the international community continued through her term as vice president – she has represented the administration at summits and conferences around the world, including the UK, making a trip to Downing Street during Rishi Sunak’s AI Summit.

Funding for Ukraine

A Harris presidency would also see support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion continue, and it is a clear dividing line with Trump that she has sought to draw.

She has explicitly stated that she would not meet Vladimir Putin for peace talks of any kind without Ukraine’s support, which is consistent with the position of the UK and allies, and has been vastly critical of Trump’s apparently open stance towards the Russian president.

Funding for Ukraine’s defence would continue, meaning it would be unlikely that the UK and allies would need to shoulder more of that burden at a time when budgets are already vastly stretched.

America’s biggest adversary

Joe Biden does not enjoy a warm relationship with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has known for decades, and it is unlikely that Kamala Harris would be much different.

The vice president has been walking a fine line since becoming the Democrats’ candidate for president, balancing support for Israel’s right to self-defence, which is US government policy and the position of many independent voters she needs to convince to vote for her, and condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza, which many on the left of the party think has not been strong enough.

Where Ms Harris is aligned with the Israelis is that she has said she believes Iran is America’s biggest adversary, when many is Washington would likely have said China.

Would a Harris presidency substantially shift the calculus of the last year for the Israeli leadership? It’s unlikely. But they would not have as free a hand as they would under a Trump presidency.

She has been much more forceful about coming to a ceasefire agreement than Mr Biden, so Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy are likely to find a friend in Ms Harris on this issue.

No tariffs – but no trade deal

Kamala Harris has said very little about China over the course of her (historically short) presidential campaign – but what we do know is that she is not interested in a trade war, unlike her Republican rival, which will keep a level of stability in the world economy.

Beyond that, the only clue we really have as to her views on China is an answer to a question from CBS News last month. Asked if she, like Joe Biden, would order US forces to defend Taiwan if China tried to invade it, she refused to get into “hypotheticals”.

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On trade more broadly, the Biden administration has been remarkably protectionist, not pursuing vast trade deals, and preferring to focus on domestic policy – which was not helpful to the previous Conservative administration that was desperate for a trade agreement.

Ms Harris has given no indication that she would depart from that, and has maintained a focus throughout the campaign on domestic matters.

To that end, it is hard to judge whether or not a trade deal with the US is likely under a Harris administration. But if she continues as Mr Biden has done, there is little cause for optimism.

Labour and the Democrats

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The Labour Party and the Democrats are sister parties – they are ideologically aligned to a large extent, and often help each other around elections.

Some Labour officials have been in the US having informal conversations about how they won such a resounding victory in July – although Labour has been keen to stress that there is no formal arrangement.

A less than auspicious sign is that while Donald Trump agreed to meet Sir Keir Starmer when he was in the US in September, Kamala Harris could not seem to find time in her schedule.

Nonetheless, there is no suggestion of a deliberate snub per se, and bilateral relations between Harris and Starmer administrations would no doubt be warm and collaborative, which would be no bad thing for the UK.