If the President were to impose a blanket tariff on UK exports to the US it would affect around £60bn of goods sent in 2023, according to the UK's figures. Pharmaceutical products accounted for £8.8bn of the UK's goods exports to the US in that year, cars £6.4bn and power generation machinery £6.4bn.

Britain and the United States trade hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of goods and services annually, but London hopes that ambiguities in the data will help to earn it an exclusion from U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff plans.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that although Britain was "out of line" when it came to trade he thought it may be able to avoid tariffs, adding of the imbalance: "I think that one can be worked out".

Asked by the BBC, President Trump says the EU "don't take our cars, they don't take our farm products. They take almost nothing."

"Whitehall is watching anxiously," said The Telegraph, even though UK ministers are hoping that "a good dose of charm and sweet talk can keep British companies out of the firing l