This is what David Lammy, the foreign secretary, told the BBC’s Newscast podcast about how the government would respond to Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs of at least 10% on imports from Britain and other countries. Economists say this could halve UK growth.

Asked if the government would seek an exemption, Lammy said he hoped Trump would realise his plan would be counter-productive. He said:

We will seek to ensure and to get across to the United States – and I believe that they would understand this – that hurting your closest allies cannot be in your medium or long term interests.

Earlier this week Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, suggested that the tariff plans proposed by Trump during the election campaign could be watered down following British lobbying.

In his interview with the BBC’s Newscast podcast, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, was asked about the dinner he and Keir Starmer had with Donald Trump in New York at the end of September. An account of the dinner published in the Sunday Times described it as cordial, and said that Trump offered Lammy a second helping, suggesting that this was evidence Trump did not hold a grudge about the multiple hostile comments from Lammy in the past.

Asked if Trump brought up those comments at the dinner, Lammy said:

Not even vaguely. I’ve got to say, I found him to be a very gracious host.

Asked if Trump really gave him a second helping, Lammy said:

He did offer me a second portion of chicken. He was very generous, very gracious, very keen to make sure that we felt relaxed and comfortable in his surroundings. He was funny. He was warm about the UK. Very warm about the royal family. I’ve got to tell you, [he] loves Scotland …

I suppose what I’m saying is I’ve met the man and in the end diplomacy – actually, just common manners – is in particular building relationships [with] people. And I think he’s someone that we can build a relationship with in our national interest because we must.

At that point Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, said that Lammy’s past comments including calling Trump a “woman hating, neo-Nazi, sympathising sociopath” who was “a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long”. Mason suggests comments like that had to be a problem, because Trump might weaponise them in the future. But Lammy replied:

He didn’t seem to think it mattered a few weeks ago.

Asked if he still agreed with these views, Lammy did not disown them. Instead he said:

Look, I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the the real duty of public office are two different things. And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then, and that’s the truth of it.

Good morning. As the Labour government tries to work out what having Donald Trump back in the White House will mean for Britain, and what it must do in response, David Lammy is absolutely at the centre of that debate. Partly that is because he is foreign secretary, and partly it’s because (in a crowded field) he is probably the British MP who has been most outspoken and critical about Trump in the past.

Lammy has now given a long interview to the BBC’s Newscast podcast to discuss these issues. And, as Jamie Grierson reports, he dismissed suggestions that his past diatribes about Trump would damage the relationship now, describing his comments as “old news”.

But Lammy also pushed back against suggestions that Trump’s election would be wholly negative and he said it could also present “opportunities” for Britain.

Asked if he accepted that Trump’s election had made life “harder” for the UK government, Lammy said they would certainly be “different”. But, when it was put to him that he was just being diplomatic, Lammy did not accept that. He said he wanted to make two points.

The first thing is to say that, on the whole, foreign policy is less partisan than domestic policy. And that is the case in the American system as much as it is in our system.

The second thing to say is, yes, there will be differences and there will be areas where we disagree actually, I suspect.

But there are also opportunities and we shouldn’t underestimate the opportunities that there will be as well. And we must seize those.

Lammy said he thought Trump was right to argue that Europe needed to spend more on defence. Asked about claims that the British economy would be harmed by the tariffs that Trump plans to impose, Lammy suggested that would be counter-productive for the US, and he suggested that the UK might be able to get exemptions. He also said that in foreign policy there would be areas where the UK and a Trump administration had common interests.

In a world where there’s war in Europe, where there’s a tremendous loss of life in the Middle East, where the US and the UK genuinely have a special relationship, where we got someone who’s about to become again the US president who has experience of doing the job last time around, we will forge common interests. We will agree and align on much and, where we disagree, we’ll have those conversations as well, most often in private.

I will post more from the interview soon.

Otherwise, it looks like a relatively quiet day. Parliament is in recess. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is due to be talking about Ukraine during a visit later. And the Reform UK Welsh conference is taking place in Newport, where Nigel Farage is due to speak at 5pm.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.