{"id":398209,"date":"2026-01-30T06:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398209\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T06:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:01:07","slug":"trump-says-very-dangerous-for-uk-to-do-business-with-china-after-starmer-hails-progress-in-beijing-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398209\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says \u2018very dangerous\u2019 for UK to do business with China, after Starmer hails progress in Beijing | China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has warned the UK against doing business with China, just hours after Keir Starmer lauded the economic relationship during a landmark visit to Beijing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The US president said it was \u201cvery dangerous\u201d for the UK to pursue closer ties with the rival superpower as the prime minister\u2019s three-hour talks with leader Xi Jinping underlined a thaw in previously strained relations.<\/p>\n

Starmer, the first British prime minister to travel to Beijing in eight years, promised a \u201cmore sophisticated\u201d relationship with China, as he secured improved market access<\/a>, lower tariffs and investment deals.<\/p>\n

But in Washington, replying to questions about Starmer\u2019s attempts at an economic reset, Trump said: \u201cWell, it\u2019s very dangerous for them to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

His remarks could create nerves inside Downing Street given the US president\u2019s unpredictability and long-held hostility towards China<\/a>. One official said the US had been aware of the trip and the UK\u2019s objectives in advance.<\/p>\n

After his talks with Xi at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Starmer said the UK\u2019s relationship with China was in a \u201cgood, strong place\u201d, and that his meetings had provided \u201cjust the level of engagement that we hoped for\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe warmly engaged and made some real progress, actually, because the UK has got a huge amount to offer,\u201d he told a meeting of the UK-China Business Forum at the Bank of China in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The chair of the British Chamber of Commerce in China, Chris Torrens, said Starmer\u2019s visit to Beijing was \u201csuccessful\u201d, telling the BBC: \u201cIt makes sense for UK to be looking to China, it\u2019s one of its larger trading partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK prime minister was later due to travel to Shanghai before leaving for Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi for a working dinner.<\/p>\n

He is just the latest western leader to have visited Beijing in recent weeks looking to build ties with the world\u2019s second largest economy, and to hedge against an unpredictable US president.<\/p>\n

It comes amid Trump\u2019s on-off threats of trade tariffs and pledges to grab control of Greenland<\/a>, an autonomous territory of Denmark, which have rattled longstanding US allies including the UK.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canada if it went through with economic deals struck with China on a recent visit to Beijing<\/a> by its prime minister, Mark Carney.<\/p>\n

After commenting on the UK\u2019s engagement with Beijing, Trump said it was \u201ceven more dangerous, I think, for Canada. Canada is not doing well. They\u2019re doing very poorly, and you can\u2019t look at China as the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the US president, who is expected to visit Beijing himself in April, and whose country is China\u2019s biggest single trading partner, added: \u201cPresident Xi is a friend of mine, I know him very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before his trip to Beijing, Starmer said in an interview with Bloomberg that Britain would not have to choose between the US and China, saying the country could strengthen economic ties with Beijing without angering Trump or harming relations with Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got very close relations with the US \u2013 of course, we want to \u2013 and we will maintain that business, alongside security and defence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Before Trump\u2019s comments, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said it was unlikely that Starmer\u2019s efforts with China would pay off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese are the greatest exporters and they are very, very difficult when you\u2019re trying to export to them,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cSo good luck if the British are trying to export to China … it\u2019s just unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n

He played down the prospect of Trump threatening Britain with tariffs as he did Canada, adding: \u201cUnless the prime minister of Britain sort of takes on the United States and says very difficult things, I doubt it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has warned the UK against doing business with China, just hours after Keir Starmer lauded the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-398209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}