UK exports fall 25% to U.S.

Goods trade got a lot more political, fast. New UK data out on May 1 shows exports to the U.S. dropped hard after Donald Trump’s April 2025 “liberation day” tariffs, and they still haven’t bounced back a year later. That matters because the U.S. is Britain’s biggest goods export market. If that channel weakens, it hits factories, exporters, and growth at the same time. ### What actually fell? The cleanest number is this: UK goods exports to the U.S., excluding precious metals, fell by £1.5 billion in April 2025 right after the tariffs landed. That was a 24.7% drop in a single month. And this wasn’t just a one-off air pocket — the Office for National Statistics says exports have stayed relatively low ever since. ### Why exclude precious metals? Because precious metals can whip trade data around and make the underlying picture harder to read. Strip them out, and you get a better sense of what’s happening to normal industrial trade — cars, chemicals, machinery, manufactured goods. Basically, the ONS is trying to show the real operating hit to exporters, not a statistical spike from bullion shipments. ### Which sectors got hit hardest? Cars stand out. The U.S. put a 25% tariff on cars and car parts in March 2025, before the broader April tariff package. The ONS says UK car exports to the U.S. have remained below pre-tariff levels since April 2025. That matters because autos are one of the most visible high-value UK export categories, so weakness there drags on the whole trade relationship. ### Didn’t the UK already cut a deal? Yes — but the deal was narrower than the headlines made it sound. On May 8, 2025, the UK and U.S. announced the Economic Prosperity Deal, and it took effect on June 30, 2025. It reduced the car tariff from 25% to 10% for the first 100,000 UK car exports to the U.S. per quarter, and it held out possible relief on steel and aluminum if supply-chain conditions were met. But most UK imports into the U.S. still faced a 10% blanket tariff. So this was damage control, not a return to the old zero-tariff setup. ### Why is the trade deficit the bigger signal? Because it shows the relationship didn’t just slow down — it flipped. The ONS says goods imports from the U.S., excluding precious metals, exceeded UK goods exports to the U.S. for three straight months starting in December 2025. Bloomberg framed that as a reversal of the old pattern, where Britain had been running goods trade surpluses with the U.S. Turns out the more durable story here is not the shock month in April 2025. It’s that the imbalance stuck around. ### What about the Scotch whisky carveout? Trump said this week he would drop tariffs on Scotch whisky after the royal state visit, and that helps one politically visible export. But it does not fix the broader problem. CNBC notes Scotch is important — especially in Scotland — yet the larger drag comes from the wider tariff regime on goods trade. One exemption on one product line doesn’t restore normal conditions for everyone else. ### Why does this matter beyond Britain? Because the UK was supposed to be the friendly case. It was the first country to secure a post-“liberation day” deal with Trump, and even that only softened the blow. That’s the real warning for businesses and investors — if a close ally still ends up with a persistent export slump and a trade deficit, tariff relief may be partial, conditional, and slow to show up in real shipments. ### Bottom line? The headline is not just that UK exports to the U.S. fell 25%. It’s that they fell after tariffs, stayed weak for months, and kept looking weak even after a bilateral deal. In plain English — markets may move on, but exporters still have to live inside the policy.