It may take a while to complete the full set but the UK is steadily accumulating trade deals with individual states in the United States as Washington becomes the sixth to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on trade.
Washington State is home to major US businesses including Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft and Boeing, and has a GDP roughly equivalent to Poland.
Aerospace will be a priority sector under the MoU, which seeks to facilitate more deals between UK and Washington State. Boeing has spent over £12 billion in the UK supply chain since 2015 with its most recent investment, a £80 million composite research facility in Sheffield, establishing new long-term partnerships and supply chains.
Maria Laine, President of Boeing in the UK, Ireland and Nordic region said: “The MoU will strengthen the trade relationship between the UK and Washington. It will unlock new opportunities to develop new commercial partnerships, facilitate capital investment, foster innovation, and support global decarbonisation.”
The latest MoU means that the combined GDP of states with which the UK has agreements (Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah and now Washington) totals £2.2 trillion.
The Government has said that it is “actively engaging” with further states including Florida, Texas, California, Colorado and Illinois.
Minister for Industry and Economic Security, Nusrat Ghani, said: “Each US state is a massive global market in its own right, and many have economies larger than the GDP of whole countries. By notching up our sixth such deal we’ve surpassed the £2 trillion mark for combined GDP of states who’ve done a deal with the UK, with many more in our sights.”
