ParcelHero, an international courier specialising in UK-US deliveries, says Donald Trump’s presidential victory could be good news for UK businesses that trade regularly with the US.

Republican Trump will become the 45th US president after a surprise win against Hillary Clinton in the contest to become the next American President.

David Jinks, head of consumer relations at ParcelHero, said UK companies that trading with the US could benefit from a possible fall in the value of the dollar in the short term. In the longer term, US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free-trade negotiations could collapse, enabling post-Brexit Britain to strike an independent deal with the US.

Jinks went into detail on the short-term and long-term points:

Short term:

•             Any immediate fall in the dollar means US-made products are a more attractive buy.

•             Purchases made from China, through Alibaba, are in US dollars. Alibaba is a key source of wholesale products for many UK importers. This means the price of Chinese imports through Alibaba will fall

•         The Singles Day sale (Friday 11 November) in China is the biggest shopping day in the world. UK importers will be able to buy cheap and pass on savings when they re-sell on Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Long term:

•             The proposed TTIP between the US and EU, supported by Hillary Clinton initially, would have effectively been a free-trade agreement between the two blocs, abolishing tariffs and delays at US Customs. Trump is against any such agreement. Instead, he will look to strike separate deals with different trading blocs, while protecting some US industries and businesses.

•             Trump has gone on record in saying the UK will certainly not be “at the back of the queue” when it comes to trade deals with the US. He made these comments back in May following Obama’s threat Britain would go to the back of the trade negotiation queue if people voted to leave the EU. Trump’s trade advisor Dan DiMicco has recently stated Britain would be a higher priority for a deal than the EU. "Why shouldn’t we be working with like-minded people before we do a deal with anybody else?" he asked.

•             Currently tariffs between the EU including Britain and the USA are all over the place and need sorting out. For example, we pay a 10% duty on US made cars; whereas US citizens pay 2.5% duties on EU-built cars. Imagine a situation where the UK (post Brexit) and US strike a deal that removes duties; but the US drags its heals doing the same with the EU. A US-build Jeep, for example, would be 10% cheaper here than in the EU; and a UK-built £50,000 Jaguar would be over £1000 cheaper to buy in the US than an equivalently priced EU-built Mercedes. That will boost UK exports.

ParcelHero is a member of the government’s Exporting is GREAT initiative and has already seen a marked increase in shipments to the US this year, to exploit the new US Duty threshold which increased this year from $200 to $800

In other news, during the US election night, a cake resembling Donald Trump’s head made its way into Trump Tower, New York, just before the polls began to close. 

Photos of it being wheeled in were quickly posted to social media and it instantly became the subject of hundreds of memes on Twitter.

Topics