THE British government must stop surrendering our rights and protections to appease Donald Trump, campaigners warned yesterday after the US president unveiled new global tariffs.

Britain’s 10 per cent rate was placed in the lowest “baseline” category, but Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged that British exporters would be hurt by the levy.

Addressing senior executives from some of Britain’s largest companies in Downing Street, Sir Keir said: “Clearly, there will be an economic impact from the decisions the US has taken both here and globally.”

He said that “nobody wins in a trade war” and stressed Britain had a “fair and balanced trade relationship with the US.”

Negotiations on an “economic prosperity deal” to mitigate the impact of the tariffs will continue, Sir Keir said as he promised to “fight for the best deal for Britain.”

But he said he would “only strike a deal if it is in the national interest and if it is the right thing to do for the security of working people.”

Britain exported £60.4 billion of goods to the US in 2023, accounting for 15 per cent of all goods exports.

Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said Mr Trump was a bully who will “continue to hang the threat of tariffs over our heads until we give him what he wants.

“As with all bullies, we need to stand up to them,” he said.

“Starmer has shown no backbone to date when it comes to Trump. We need to demand he change course.”

He told the Star that the government is “trying to pull the wool over our eyes,” adding: “For all its bowing and scraping, Britain got no special treatment.

“And now, it looks like they’re going to continue giving in to Trump’s blackmail — resuscitating Boris Johnson’s trade deal with even less parliamentary scrutiny than the Tories.

“Of course, we don’t want a trade war. Of course, these tariffs will have huge repercussions for workers here and around the world.

“But the response cannot be just to give in, especially to a president who clearly couldn’t give a damn about abiding by international agreements.”

Mr Dearden called for a shift in approach, saying: “We have to make sure our government learns this lesson: they need to stop giving away our rights and protections in a futile effort to appease Donald Trump.”

Rather than restructuring the international economy, he said the answer is “working in solidarity with those other countries affected.”

He argued that “we cannot simply champion the free-market economy which brought us to this terrible situation,” warning that Mr Trump “wants to fund the biggest tax giveaway to the super-rich in American history and bully foreign countries into paying the price.”

“The route out is a very different economy, with governments intervening, planning and working together to protect people and the planet,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean matching tariffs for tariffs, but it means using a wide array of policy tools, including restricting access to US financial corporations, overriding intellectual property, restricting data access.

“We have to get serious.”

Unite proposed several suggestions in response to the tariffs, including immediately reducing industrial energy prices — which it says make British goods uncompetitive — and designating the steel industry as critical national infrastructure to ensure all British infrastructure projects use British steel.

The union also called for a commitment to buy British goods wherever possible.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The government cannot allow a situation where yet again UK workers pay the price.

“It is likely that some employers will now use the issue of tariffs at the bargaining table, in an attempt to push down pay.

“In an increasingly uncertain world, the government has to step in and step up to protect UK workers and industry.”

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds was grilled by MPs in the Commons after saying he was working on a trade deal between Britain and the US to get the tariffs reversed.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pressed Mr Reynolds to rule out US private healthcare interests “coming into Britain to undermine our National Health Service or indeed take over sections” of the service.

Mr Reynolds replied: “[Mr Corbyn] knows I don’t comment on the details of talks but I can tell him there have been no discussions in relation to the NHS or anything that would concern him in that regard.

“This is about goods and services, and how we recognise each other’s standards, but there’s nothing relating to the health sector that I’ve been able to talk about with US counterparts, and I hope he finds that a reassurance.”