U.S. govt.: British exit from EU would torpedo trade deals <\/p>\n
The U.S. government has warned Britain against quitting the European Union, threatening to exclude the UK from a US-EU trade and investment partnership potentially worth hundreds of billions of pounds a year, media report said.\n<\/p>\n
The Obama government also warned that it was very unlikely that Washington would clinch a separate deal with Britain.\n<\/p>\n
The warning comes in the wake of Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Washington, which was primarily intended as a joint promotion of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Barak Obama.\n<\/p>\n
Cameron said the deal could bring \u00a310bn a year to the UK alone. However, it was overshadowed by a cabinet rebellion back in London, where cabinet ministers threatened to support a UK exit from the EU.\n<\/p>\n
The threat raised doubts in Washington on whether Britain would still be part of the deal once it had been negotiated.\n<\/p>\n
More immediately, Obama government officials were concerned that the uncertainty over Britain’s future would further complicate what is already a hard sell in Congress, threatening a central pledge in the president’s State of the Union address in February.\n<\/p>\n
“Having Britain in the EU \u2026 is going to strengthen the possibility that we succeed in a very difficult negotiation, as it involves so many different interests and having Britain as a key player and pushing for this will be important,” a senior US official said. “We have expressed our views of Britain’s role in the EU and they haven’t changed. TTIP negotiations underscore why we think it’s important that it continues.”\n<\/p>\n
If it is successful the agreement could be the biggest trade and investment deal in history, encompassing half the world’s GDP and a third of its trade.\n<\/p>\n
MOL\/HE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n