UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and US president Donald Trump have confirmed that talks are underway on a long-anticipated UK-US trade deal.
During a press conference in Washington DC yesterday (27 February), both leaders appeared to confirm that talks had begun.
“We’re going to have a great trade deal, one way or the other. We’re working on that as we speak,” Trump told reporters.
Starmer confirmed: “Our teams are going to be working together on a new economic deal”.
According to a Downing Street summary of the talks, technology would be the initial focus of a deal.
‘Tough negotiator’
The UK PM also said that he was working “very hard” to ensure the UK does not become the target of US tariffs.
“I’ll tell you that he earned whatever the hell they pay him over there, but he tried,” Trump said of Starmer, calling him a “very tough negotiator”.
“We could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary. We’ll see.”
Trump’s suggestion that the UK could avoid tariffs came less than a day after he threatened to hit the EU with 25% duties, and said that planned measures against Canada and Mexico would go ahead.
David Henig, UK director at the European Centre for International Political Economy, said on Twitter/X that what was said yesterday would mean “little today”.
“Don't read much into warm words not least when Trump's trade policy changes from day to day. And ‘trade deals’ come in many forms most of which probably including [what] we're talking about have no substance.”
Conservative leader and former trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, welcomed the news as “positive”, saying that she had been calling for this since her first time at Prime Minister’s Questions as leader of the opposition.
Writing before the news of negotiations was announced, Chartered Institute of Export & International trade director general, Marco Forgione, said that Trump was both an “opportunity and a challenge” for Starmer.
“President Trump is a long-standing Anglophile with Scottish ancestry and leading voices in his administration have already indicated that a deal could be worked out with the UK on tariffs. Both of these factors play into the UK’s hands.”
Trade deal
A UK-US trade deal was talked up during the first Trump administration, but subsequently played down by his successor, president Joe Biden.
Conservative governments under PM Boris Johnson and his successors, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, proposed individual agreements with US states as pathway to a deal. However, despite repeated efforts, a US-UK deal never materialised.
During her term, Badenoch played down the possibility of an agreement.
Any agreement with the US has foundered over food standards and agriculture, with farming groups and regulators remaining suspicious about accepting American imports.
Ukraine
There was less progress on support for Ukraine, with Trump avoiding giving security commitments as part of any peace deal and insisting that he trusted Russian president Vladmir Putin at his word.
However, he appeared to walk back his comments that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was a “dictator”.
"Did I say that? I can't believe I said that," he said, later adding that he had a “lot of respect” for Zelensky, who is visiting Washington DC today (28 February).
According to Downing Street, Trump accepted an invitation from His Majesty King Charles III for a second state visit to the UK.
