UK won't jeopardise US trade talks with rushed tariff response, says Reeves

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will not rush into action to counter any import tariffs announced later on Wednesday by U.S. President Donald Trump because it does not want to risk undermining a possible trade deal with Washington, finance minister Rachel Reeves said.

"The government has been really clear that we are going to approach this in a clear-headed way and always represent the national interest," Reeves told lawmakers in parliament.

Reeves said she met representatives of British exporters earlier on Wednesday and "they don't want government to rush into any response because the prize on offer is an economic agreement. We don't want to do anything that undermines that."

Britain is hoping that any tariffs imposed by Trump will be reversed quickly if the two sides can agree the outline of a new economic partnership which is likely to focus on areas such as technology and artificial intelligence.

Unlike the European Union, Canada and other major economies, Britain has not retaliated over U.S. tariffs that have already been announced.

Reeves said she had spoken to EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, who is in charge of the bloc's economy, and other countries about their responses to Trump's expected announcement of tariffs before deciding on any retaliatory moves.

Reeves also told parliament's Treasury Committee that specific tariffs on UK exports were less relevant to the British economy than the broader global demand picture.

Britain's exports to the U.S. are mostly in services - which, unlike goods do not typically incur tariffs - including from its huge financial services sector.

Reeves said she was taking action to make sure Britain's finance industry could continue to compete as the Trump administration cuts red tape.

"We need to make sure that we remain competitive on that world stage if we are going to secure jobs and investments into UK financial services," she said.

British regulators have postponed the implementation of the global Basel III rules on banks by a further year and dropped proposals for so-called name-and-shame rules for financial institutions since the Labour Party won last year's election.

(Reporting by David Milliken, Suban Abdulla and Ben Ezeamalu; Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)