Donald Trump has hit the UK with a 10% tax on imports into the US, which is half the size of the tariff the president has imposed on the EU.It looks like Britain therefore escaped the worst of Trump’s sweeping announcement with just the base rate charges – even though ministers had initially hoped to get a complete exemption from the potentially crippling tariffs.

More than four years after the UK's withdrawal from the European Union became effective, Britain has escaped harsher US tariffs, facing only half of the 20 percent imposed on its EU neighbours. Although he called the 10 percent levy "a disappointment,