RACHEL Reeves travels to America next week as the UK looks to secure a trade deal to soften the blow of punishing tariffs.
The Chancellor was pressed on whether a deal could be finalised in three weeks which had been suggested by White House officials.
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Britain is looking to reduce the full force of 10 per cent levies on all goods and 25 per cent levy on cars.
Speaking on a visit to the rescued Scunthorpe steelworks, she said: “Those conversations with our US counterparts are ongoing.
“The key thing for the British Government is always acting in the UK’s national interest, and any deal that’s able to be secured will always have front-and-centre British national interest.”
She was at the Scunthorpe site where the government intervened to take control from Chinese owner Jingye.
She said the plant had a good future to look forward to as previous attempts to intervene was akin to “throwing good money after bad”.
But a former spy chief warned that the UK “would be in trouble” if it was to agree a trade deal with the US at the expense of China.
Nigel Inkster, the former deputy head of MI6 said a US-UK deal could negatively impact Britain’s relationship with China which is a “critical supplier” of pharmaceuticals in both Britain and America.
He told the BBC: “If it were the case that we had such a deal, I think it would come with strings, and one of those strings would be an expectation that the UK would get with the programme when it came to China.
“We’ve seen a precursor of this with the Huawei 5G saga, which the Americans said, you cannot use a Chinese company to build the 5G.”
