By George Parker and Sam Fleming
George Osborne, UK chancellor, told Wall Street investors on Monday that Britain will not retreat into a “Little Britain” mindset following last month’s Brexit vote, as he starts a tour to boost trade links with the rest of the world.
Mr Osborne tried to reassure investors and political leaders that the Brexit vote, which was partly fuelled by a backlash among voters against immigration, would not signal a retreat from the world.
Later this month the chancellor will travel to Singapore and China, but the first leg of his mission in New York saw him try to win US investment, even though President Barack Obama said Britain would be “at the back of the queue” for a new trade deal.
“There are those who want our exit from the EU to signal that we should now turn our back on the world, resist the free-market forces of globalisation and become a more insular, less tolerant place,” Mr Osborne wrote in the Wall St Journal.
“We must not be afraid to confront them head-on. I am determined that — on the contrary — we now set out to build a more outward-looking, global-facing Britain, with stronger links with its friends and allies around the world.”
The British Treasury says the trading relationship between the UK and the US is a pivotal one: the US is the largest single destination for UK exports and the UK is America’s largest trading partner in Europe. In 2014, UK exports to the US totalled £88bn (17 per cent of total UK exports) and last year the UK was the US’s sixth-largest trading partner.
Speaking on MSNBC on Monday, Mr Osborne said that Britain looked first to America, as its “closest friend and ally”, to start talks about closer economic and trade ties. He mentioned a meeting over the weekend with Paul Ryan, speaker of the House of Representatives, and a trip to London later this week by Jack Lew, Treasury secretary.
“I think we can demonstrate a Britain that is more non-European, more outward-facing, by starting those strong relations with the US and building on them,” he said.
Mr Osborne also addressed Monday’s withdrawal from the race for the Conservative party leadership by Andrea Leadsom, which leaves Theresa May to become Britain’s next prime minister by Wednesday evening.
“I’ve worked with her for six years, she has got the steel, the determination to do the job,” he said. Speaking before events in the UK developed during the day, he said: “Over the next few days, we should move to put her in the position of prime minister so she can lead the country, provide unity and provide that direction so Britain is open to business, open to the world, free trading, out there, taking our rightful place in the planet.”
After media interviews Mr Osborne met privately with Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, at the Park Avenue headquarters of the biggest US bank by assets. In the run-up to the referendum last month, the pair had shared a stage in Bournemouth, with Mr Dimon warning of “years of uncertainty” if Britain voted to leave the EU. JPMorgan has 16,000 employees in the UK, spread across London, Bournemouth, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
On MSNBC Mr Osborne drew a parallel between victories over the weekend for British sportsmen Andy Murray, at Wimbledon, and Lewis Hamilton in the British Grand Prix.
“There’s some economic success as well,” he said. “We’re out there selling Britain to the world.”
His comments came as a survey by the National Center for the Middle Market found that 28 per cent of US midsized companies plan to slightly or significantly decrease their investments in the UK as a result of the Brexit vote.
Some 11 per cent on the other hand will slightly or significantly increase their investment in the UK, while 61 per cent say their plans have been unaffected.
By comparison, 21 per cent plan to trim investments in the rest of the European Union, while 12 per cent say they could reduce investment in Asia, the US or elsewhere in the Americas. One in four said they could respond by boosting investment in the US.
The survey covered companies with revenue of between $10m and $1bn and was conducted shortly after the Brexit vote between July 1 and 7. A total of 569 businesses responded.