President Trump has warned “substantial” tariffs will remain on US imports as Rachel Reeves heads to Washington to lobby for a bespoke British trade deal.

The US president said baseline tariffs, currently at 10 per cent, were likely to stay in place, despite diplomatic attempts to reduce or eliminate them.

“We’re taking in a lot of money, which we’ve never done before,” he said. “We’re going to end up with a baseline of a substantial number.”

Speaking as he hosted Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, at the White House, Trump said he was in “no rush” to sign deals. He said agreements would only be struck “at a certain point” in the future.

Trump has imposed a baseline 10 per cent tariff on all US imports and a 25 per cent duty on cars, aluminium and steel.

He has also threatened to impose further levies on pharmaceuticals, one of the UK’s largest exports to the US. Britain sold £8.8 billion of medicines and pharmaceuticals to American customers in 2023.Reeves said on a visit to Scunthorpe that the government was in “active negotiations” with the US as she prepares to meet her Washington counterpart, Scott Bessent, at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank next week.• How close are we to a UK-US trade deal? The stakes examinedBessent, the US treasury secretary, is understood to be prioritising the UK, Australia, South Korea, India and Japan for trade deals. However, asked whether the EU was on his priority list, Trump said: “Everybody’s on my priority list.” Meloni, who attended Trump’s inauguration, is in Washington to represent the bloc.The UK has offered to weaken online safety laws and scrap a 2 per cent digital services tax on tech companies in a bid to lower US tariffs on British goods.However, ministers have resisted American demands to weaken food standards to allow American farmers to sell chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef in British supermarkets.Earlier this week, JD Vance, the US vice-president, talked up the chances of a “great” deal. “The president really loves the United Kingdom,” he told UnHerd.Reeves said she would put British national interests “front and centre” during talks with the US.“We are in active negotiations at the moment with our US counterparts on a whole range of issues concerning the tariffs for steel and aluminium, and the cars which of course are at 25 per cent, as well as the headline tariff rate of 10 per cent,” she said.“Getting a deal across a whole range of areas [is] very important for British industry and British jobs, and that is my focus as chancellor.”While in Scunthorpe, Reeves said the government would play a “big role” in the future management of British Steel after ousting Jingye, its Chinese owner.Reeves visited British SteelDANNY LAWSON/PA WIREAsked about the prospect of nationalisation, she said “nothing is off the table”.“We did previously try to negotiate with the owner. That was not successful; it would have been throwing good money after bad,” she said.“It was the right thing to do to take control of this company, and nothing now is off the table as we look for a new future, not with the previous owners, but a new future with new investment here in Scunthorpe.”Asked about a UK-US trade deal, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said she had never fed chlorinated chicken to her children. “[The Conservative Party] did not reduce any of our food standards, so there’s absolutely no reason why Labour should do that,” she said.“I don’t know anything about chlorinated chicken. It’s not something that I’ve ever fed my children, but I think what we need to talk about when it comes to trade deals is, ‘what are we getting for the deal? The worst possible thing would be if we end up just getting what we had two weeks ago before the tariffs kicked in. That’s not a worthwhile trade deal.“We need to make sure that the deal is one that is mutually beneficial for both countries and brings growth to the UK.”