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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics,

power and prejudices. It is 2025 and Donald Trump is president once again of the United States.

We will, of course, be following the moves of the Donald's and his second administration very closely.

However, it won't just be politics for us this year. We'll also talk a lot and cover American culture, life and the arts.

I should also remind you, because my producer Natasha will not let me hear the end of it,

that we are on Spectator TV.

So head to our YouTube channel to watch that. Hello and welcome to The Americano Show.

Today we're going to be talking about Trump's tariffs and Great Britain.

And to talk about this, I'm delighted to be joined by Angus Hanton, who is an entrepreneur and author, author of the book Vassal State,

How America Runs Britain, which I would say is essential reading if you want to understand the economic relationship between Britain and America. Angus, there's sort of quite a lot of relief

in British circles that Trump seems to be, for now, this could have all changed by the time this podcast comes out. You never know with Trump World. But Trump seems to be not considering Britain as a prime target for his tariffs. And he will be applying tariffs on the European Union, on steel and aluminium, quite large,

25% tariffs, very significant. But Britain for now appears to escape. Should we be relieved?

I don't think so. I think this is very early counting of chickens. We're well under a month

into Trump's presidency, and it's quite clear that he's changing the relationship

between Britain and America so that instead of being a partnership with a senior and junior

partner, it's much more now a master-servant relationship. And that's what my book Vassal

State illustrates in both in terms of politics but also in terms of the economic realities that

America owns so much, American corporations own so much of Britain.

But in terms of our hopes for how we might be treated in this master-servant relationship

...