Peter Mandelson to be announced as UK’s next US ambassador | Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson is ready to grow to be Britain’s subsequent ambassador to the US, the primary time a politician has been appointed to the position for nearly half a century.

Keir Starmer is about to announce that Lord Mandelson, a former Labour minister and European commissioner for commerce, has been given the position. The Guardian understands he’ll take over as Donald Trump begins his second time period as president.

The information comes because the UK prepares for difficult adjustments in commerce relations with the US below the president-elect. The prime minister’s chief of workers, Morgan McSweeeny, travelled to Washington for talks with Trump’s incoming White Home workforce earlier this month.

The prime minister believes that Mandelson, a former Labour MP who now sits within the Home of Lords, has the commerce experience and networking skills to bolster the UK’s pursuits throughout this “delicate interval” for its relationship with the US, based on the Instances.

He served as enterprise secretary below Gordon Brown, was made president of the Board of Commerce in 1998 and was the European Commissioner for Commerce in 2004.

A authorities supply advised the BBC: “The actual fact the prime minister has chosen to make a political appointment and despatched Lord Mandelson to Washington reveals simply how importantly we see our relationship with the Trump administration.

“We’re sending somebody near the prime minister with unrivalled political and coverage expertise, notably on the essential situation of commerce. He’s the perfect candidate to characterize the UK’s financial and safety pursuits within the USA.”

Trump has promised to situation common tariffs of as much as 20%, which is able to hit all items imported into the US from abroad and is more likely to drive up the price of these items for American shoppers.

In November, Stephen Moore, one among Trump’s senior financial advisers, mentioned that if the UK moved in the direction of the US mannequin of “financial freedom” there can be extra “willingness” by the incoming administration to agree a commerce deal between the 2 nations.

Talking to BBC’s At the moment programme, Moore mentioned: “The UK actually has to decide on between the Europe financial mannequin of extra socialism and the US mannequin, which is extra based mostly on a free enterprise system. I feel the UK is sort of caught in the midst of these two types of an financial mannequin.

“I consider that Britain can be higher off transferring in the direction of extra of the American mannequin of financial freedom.”

However Starmer lately rejected warnings that Trump may strain the UK to, in impact, choose sides between the US and the EU. “Towards the backdrop of those harmful occasions, the concept that we should select between our allies, that one way or the other we’re with both America or Europe, is apparent incorrect,” he mentioned.

“I reject it totally. [Clement] Attlee didn’t select between allies. [Winston] Churchill didn’t select. The nationwide curiosity calls for that we work with each.”

He added that he would “by no means flip away” from the UK’s particular relationship with the US. “This isn’t about sentimentality,” he mentioned. “It’s about hard-headed realism. Repeatedly the very best hope for the world and the surest option to serve our mutual nationwide curiosity has come from our two nations working collectively. It nonetheless does.”

Mandelson, a Labour veteran who labored because the celebration’s director of communications within the Eighties, beforehand advised the Instances’s Tips on how to Win an Election podcast that Britain should discover a path between the US and the EU if Donald Trump goes forward together with his pledge to introduce blanket tariffs on items.

“Now we have obtained to navigate our means via this and have, I’m afraid, the very best of each worlds,” he mentioned. “Now we have obtained to discover a option to have our cake and eat it.”