MPs are calling on Boris Johnson to intervene directly with Donald Trump to prevent the US imposing punitive tariffs of 25% on imported scotch whisky later this month.
The US announced last week that scotch would be among a range of European goods subject to hefty import taxes from 18 October, as it hits back against the EU in the long-running trade dispute over subsidies for Airbus.
Conor Burns, an international trade minister, responding to an urgent question on the issue from the former Scottish secretary David Mundell, called on the prime minister to tackle Trump about it personally.
“I’m sure if the PM was able to convey directly to President Trump the damage that these proposals will do to Scotland, particularly to rural Scotland, that would have an impact,” he said, warning up to 3,000 jobs could be at risk, many of them in rural Scotland.
He added: “I want to urge the government to show even more urgency than they have to date.”
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that EU support for Airbus, dating back decades, broke international rules. It announced last week that it would allow the US to impose $7.5bn (£6.1bn) of tariffs in retaliation.
Scotch whisky is among the products set to be targeted, along with French wine, Italian and Dutch cheese and Spanish ham.
Several Scottish MPs have challenged Burns about what the government was doing to avert the tariffs.
Burns, a longtime ally of Johnson’s, said he had not yet spoken directly to the US government, as he had only recently returned from a trade mission to Vietnam, but said he would telephone Washington on Tuesday.
At one point he urged MPs to contact the US ambassador themselves.
Asked why the UK had not sought an exemption for scotch, Burns said: “We want to deal with the macro on this. These are very bad tariffs that we believe have no foundation. We believe they are wrong. We believe they are profoundly unhelpful, and we believe they undermine the whole concept of free trade, and will damage people who are producing and employing.
“So I would rather go down the route of trying to persuade our American friends to abandon this entire series of tariff attacks, and look at the issue calmly and reasonably, based on the current facts, not ancient dispute.”
He said the the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, had raised the issue with the US vice-president, Mike Pence, and the chancellor, Sajid Javid, had challenged the US treasury secretary about it. He said Johnson was likely to raise it next time he spoke with Trump.
Johnson has seemingly struck up a close personal rapport with the US president, who has referred to him as “Britain Trump”, but it has so far yielded few tangible results.
All of the governments affected by the ruling, including the UK but also France, Spain, Italy and Germany, have changed the way they support Airbus, but the WTO has yet to confirm whether they were now compliant with the rules.
The EU has requested the right to impose tariffs on the US, in a parallel dispute about Washington’s backing for the US aircraft maker Boeing – with no ruling expected until 2020.
Mundell suggested it might help if the UK would commit not to impose import tariffs on American bourbon, in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
More details of the government’s planned no-deal tariffs are expected to be published in the coming days.
The whisky row came as official government figures revealed that customs declarations after Brexit will cost British businesses £7.5bn a year, £1bn more than previously estimated.
In an update to its Brexit impact assessment, HMRC has said the administrative burden on combined UK-EU trade will be double that, at £15bn a year.
It also revealed that businesses would effectively be paying £46 and £56 in labour costs per customs declaration because of the detail required.
HMRC estimates businesses involved in high volumes of cross-border trade, such as car manufacturers, will spend about one hour and 45 minutes filling out customs declarations forms, at a cost of between £17 for exports and £28 for imports.
If companies use specialist freight forward companies the costs rise to between £46 per export to £56 per import.
