The British government and the leading UK business organisation have mounted a two-pronged attack on the US, accusing it of "hypocrisy" for putting up barriers to trade.

"The irony of protectionism is that it destroys what it seeks to protect. Free trade is not, and cannot be, a one-way street," Mr Johnson said. "There can't be one set of rules when your team plays away and a different set of rules when they play at home. Such hypocrisy makes global progress impossible. How can the richest countries in the world lecture others about the gains from liberalisation whilst adding further barriers to entering their own markets?"

The backlash against globalisation was being fuelled by "worries about the price of oil, rising insecurity about foreign competition and anxiety about energy supplies".