A senior economic adviser to Donald Trump has urged Sir Keir Starmer to pursue closer ties with the US and not the “socialist” European Union if it is interested in a trade deal. The president-elect has indicated the US could introduce blanket tariffs of up to 20 per cent on imported goods and up to 60 per cent for imports from China.

Stephen Moore, who is advising the president-elect, said the UK ‘has to choose’ between the European Union and US economic models.

The UK is kind of caught in the middle of these two forms of economic model and I believe that Britain would be better off moving towards more of the American model of economic

Donald Trump would be more willing to reach a free trade agreement with the U.K. if it aligns itself with the U.S. rather than pursue closer ties with the European Union.

Britain has been told to move closer to the US to negotiate a trade deal instead of aligning itself with the "socialist model" of the EU, one of Trump’s top economic advisers has claimed. Resuscitating his previous administration’s trade negotiations with the UK,