Global Britain in the Indo-Pacific – Trade, Illusion, and the Shrinking Horizon of British Power: When the United Kingdom announced its “Indo-Pacific tilt” in 2021, the rhetoric was thick with aspiration. Here was post-Brexit Britain, newly unshackled from Brussels, re-engaging with the world’s most dynamic region. The Integrated Review proclaimed a future anchored in economic partnerships, strategic alignment with democracies such as India and Japan, and a forward-leaning posture in the emerging Indo-Pacific order.
Fast forward to 2025, and the tilt has produced two long-awaited deliverables: a bilateral trade deal with India and another, more limited agreement with the United States. Both are now being spun as vindication of Britain’s post-EU trajectory – proof that “Global Britain” is more than a slogan. But the reality is harder. These deals do not mark a return to global relevance. They expose the limits of British power in an Indo-Pacific region increasingly shaped by larger, more confident actors with clear strategic visions. Britain is not shaping this order – it is adjusting to it.
Take the UK-India deal, signed on the eve of India’s national elections in 2024. It was meant to be the crown jewel of Britain’s Indo-Pacific trade strategy. Instead, it looks more like costume jewelry – shiny, presentable, but hollow where it counts. Yes, there are modest tariff reductions on whisky, pharma, and automotive parts. But the deeper structural asks – access to India’s services sector, digital trade liberalization, and labor mobility for skilled workers – remain unresolved. On data governance, agricultural goods, and investment protections, the deal is either silent or tentative.
That asymmetry is not accidental. It reflects the geopolitical and economic realities of a world that no longer revolves around the liberal trading system Britain once helped create and no longer controls. India’s trade strategy today is not about plugging into Western value chains. It is about consolidating national industrial capacity, preserving regulatory sovereignty, and maximizing negotiating leverage through multilateral alignment. It is no accident that India walked away from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership while selectively deepening ties with the U.S., Australia, and the European Union on its own terms.
New Delhi does not see the United Kingdom as a serious power. London is seen as a once-great actor in search of relevance. That is exactly how Indian negotiators treated it. The British wanted a deal to justify their Indo-Pacific rhetoric. India wanted a few specific gains, and it gave little in return for getting them. That is not a mutual partnership. It is a strategic extraction.
The agreement with the United States is even more revealing. Despite the celebratory press releases, this is not a comprehensive free trade deal. It offers tariff relief on a narrow range of goods: Scotch whisky, aerospace parts, and some automotive components. It gestures toward regulatory cooperation. But it offers nothing on services, little on digital trade, and no meaningful return to the broader liberalization once imagined under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
This is the cost of mistaking sovereignty for leverage. The UK left the EU promising a nimble, sovereign trade policy – a London free to strike deals with major economies. But that policy now operates in a geopolitical environment where trade has been reabsorbed into grand strategy. Under Donald Trump’s renewed presidency, the United States is pursuing managed trade, not free trade. Market access is contingent on strategic alignment. Britain got this deal not because it negotiated well, but because it has reliably echoed American positions on China, defense spending, and tech policy.
In short, it earned a seat at the table by complying, not by competing.
This matters in the Indo-Pacific because the UK’s entire tilt has been framed around strategic alignment with the United States, India, Japan, and Australia. But in all of these relationships, the UK is now the secondary player. In AUKUS, it is the junior partner to the U.S. and Australia. In trade, it brings too little to matter. And in regional diplomacy, its presence is mostly symbolic, consisting of naval deployments, high-level visits, and the occasional speech in Singapore. There is no grand design, there is only drift dressed up as strategy.
The deeper problem is structural. The UK has largely improvised its post-Brexit economic identity; it has not defined it. Accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is symbolically valuable but economically marginal. Trade with the EU, Britain’s largest partner, remains bogged down in red tape and regulatory friction. Now, these latest deals reveal the broader truth: Britain’s post-Brexit trade posture is reactive, not generative. It is making do, not making rules.
This is not a failure per se – it is the logical outcome of a strategy based on a fundamental misreading of global trends. The architects of Brexit imagined a return to a sovereign, liberal trading Britain, operating independently in a global market system. But that system is collapsing. The new global economy is bloc-based, security-inflected, and increasingly coercive. Trade is not about mutual gains – it’s about power, resilience, and control. Britain left the EU expecting to surf the waves of globalization. It emerged into an era of geo-economic fragmentation and found itself without a board.
India understands this. So does China. So, too, does the United States under Trump. But London, still steeped in the myth of liberal commercialism, continues to misread the room. These deals are being presented as proof that the Indo-Pacific tilt is working. In reality, they show how much Britain has to give just to stay in the conversation.
So what does all this mean for Britain’s future in the Indo-Pacific?
It means that the tilt needs more than symbolic gestures and handshakes. It needs actual capabilities: economic, diplomatic, and strategic. It means developing a coherent trade and investment policy that speaks to regional needs, not just domestic political optics. It means dropping the “Global Britain” fantasy and reckoning with what Britain actually is: a mid-sized power with serious assets but shrinking margins for error.
HMS Daring Type 45 Destroyer Royal Navy.
There is still a role for Britain in the Indo-Pacific, but it is not the one imagined by the post-Brexit dreamers. The United Kingdom is not a rule-setter. It is not a regional anchor. It is a contributor – valuable, but not central. It can help build coalitions around digital trust, green finance, and maritime governance. It can support regional deterrence and build defense-industrial partnerships. But it cannot pretend that nostalgia is a substitute for strategy.
The trade deals with India and the US are not strategic triumphs. They are reminders that in today’s Indo-Pacific, credibility is earned, not inherited. Britain has gained market access by offering deference. It has signed deals by conceding terms. That may be the best it can do under the circumstances. But it should not be confused with success.
If this is what it means to “deliver on Brexit” in the Indo-Pacific, then the UK needs to ask itself a hard question: Is it content being a passenger in someone else’s strategic vehicle, or is it finally ready to craft a coherent posture rooted in hard realities rather than hopeful illusions?
About the Author
A 19FortyFive daily columnist, Andrew Latham is a professor of International Relations at Macalester College specializing in the politics of international conflict and security. He teaches courses on international security, Chinese foreign policy, war and peace in the Middle East, Regional Security in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the World Wars.
