True North Director Peter Jackson responding to the new UK-US Trade Deal in the Evening Chronicle on 13th May 2025.
The Government was criticised for making decisions that will impact the North East “far away in London”.
The former leader of Northumberland County Council has slammed the Government’s much-heralded trade deal with the United States, branding it “unfair” and “panicked”.
Peter Jackson, who is a farmer and a director at the True North Think Tank, described Keir Starmer’s deal with Donald Trump as a “body blow” for the rural economy. Mr Jackson, who did not stand for re-election at this month’s local elections, feared the impact the deal would have on British beef farmers and ethanol production.
The Government has argued the deal has given UK farmers access to American markets without compromising on British food standards, which are some of the highest in the world. Earlier this week, the National Farmers Union (NFU) was appreciative of the access for beef exports, but also raised concerns about the inclusion of a “significant volume” of bioethanol in the deal.
Bioethanol is a petrol substitute produced from agricultural products. The deal includes an agreement to reduce British tariffs on American ethanol from 19% to zero.
The Guardian has reported that executives at ABF Sugar and Ensus, the companies behind almost all of the UK’s production capacity of bioethanol have warned hundreds of jobs in North East England and Yorkshire could be at risk as a result of the deal.
Mr Jackson said: “The recently concluded trade deal with the US is yet another body blow for the rural economy in the north. Allowing in to our country thousands of tonnes of beef produced under different ethical standards makes for unfair competition for our livestock farmers.
“Allowing an unlimited flood of US produced ethanol will likely result in the closure or the entirety of our British ethanol manufacturing with the largest factory being based at Wilton, Teesside and its feedstock produced on farms throughout the north.
“In a panicked response to tariffs on luxury cars being imported by the US, our Government has effectively given away the UK ethanol manufacturing industry – perhaps not recognising that these US imports are from a massively subsidised US agricultural industry, and produced with electricity a third of the price of our own.
“Due to this unfair competition UK produced ethanol will now be uneconomic, removing over one million tonnes of UK wheat demand with much of this coming from the north. A little known fact is that much of the UK supply of carbon dioxide, which is used in many and varied industrial and food processing operations, is an important by-product of ethanol production.
“So the knock-on effects are not just on rural areas of the north but they also have serious consequences for other industries. It seems that, once again, the north suffers from decisions made far away in London.”
Responding to the comments, a Government spokesman said: “This Government signed a deal with the US in the national interest to secure thousands of jobs across key sectors – from farming to pharmaceuticals – and lay the groundwork for greater trade in the future.
“British farmers produce some of the best food in the world and this is a great deal as we have opened up access to a huge American market, but without any weakening of UK food standards on imports.”
It was pointed out that the import of hormone treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal, with any agricultural imports coming into the UK will have to meet our high food (SPS) standards.
The deal was described as a “major opportunity” for British farmers to increase their exports to the US, which is the world’s “largest consumer market”. The Government said that currently, only a few other countries enjoy this access.
The Government did not address concerns around bioethanol production.