Trump hails Brexit for making UK trade deal possible: Inside astonishing day that saw President blindside Starmer during Arsenal match and resulted in Tories deriding 'Diet Coke' agreement
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Keir Starmer struck an emergency trade deal with Donald Trump yesterday in a bid to save the British car industry.
The deal, which President Trump said was only possible 'because of Brexit', will cut US tariffs on cars imported from the UK from 25 per cent to 10 for the first 100,000 vehicles.
Ministers had feared that leading car makers were preparing to cut thousands of jobs unless the tariffs were reduced.
Sources said Jaguar Land Rover had been poised to announce 'hundreds' of job losses as early as next week.
The deal is the first struck by the US since President Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs stunned the world.
Mr Trump said the speed of the deal with the UK was only possible because of Britain's status outside the EU.
And he hinted that rival car manufacturers in EU countries such as Germany are very unlikely to get a similar deal.
Boris Johnson last night hailed the importance of Brexit in sealing the deal – and highlighted the irony that Sir Keir was 'reaping the dividends of that policy, which he, of course, singularly failed to support at the time'.
Tariffs on British steel exports will also be slashed from 25 per cent to zero, while ministers said British pharmaceutical firms are set for 'preferential treatment' if President Trump presses ahead with threats to increase tariffs on the sector.
Ministers made no immediate progress in reducing the 10 per cent 'baseline' tariff on all exports to the US.
Britain also agreed to prevent cheap Chinese steel and pharmaceuticals being routed through the UK to America as part of an agreement on what the White House called 'security of supply'.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said an unnamed British-based airline had also agreed to buy Boeing jets worth £8billion.
The White House said that, compared to the position before Liberation Day, overall US tariffs on British goods had still risen from 3.4 per cent to 10 per cent, while Sir Keir had agreed to cut tariffs on US goods from 5.1 per cent to 1.8.
Kemi Badenoch last night said Britain had been 'shafted' by the deal. 'When Labour negotiates, Britain loses,' she said. 'We cut our tariffs – America tripled theirs.'
Referencing the President's favourite drink, Shadow business spokesman Andrew Griffith welcomed the tariff cuts but said it was a 'Diet Coke deal, not the Real Thing.'
But the PM said: 'The question we should be asking is, is it a better position than we were in yesterday?'
He claimed the breakthrough vindicated his strategy of sucking up to President Trump, adding: 'My government has put Britain at the front of the queue because we want to work constructively with allies.'
Government sources acknowledged the deal falls short of a hoped-for agreement on lifting all US tariffs, but said ministers decided to press ahead with a partial deal now to prevent redundancies in the car industry.
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the 'significance of the US market' to high-end exporters such as JLR, Aston Martin and Bentley meant the UK was facing the 'imminent announcement' of job losses if the 25 per cent tariff had remained.
Talks will now continue on a wider deal. But this could involve major concessions, such as cutting the digital services tax on US tech giants or raising the price that the NHS pays for US drugs.
Downing Street was forced to scramble into action yesterday after Mr Trump interrupted the PM watching Arsenal's televised Champion's League match against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night to finalise the terms.
Sir Keir, who had set aside yesterday for the VE Day commemorations then attended a hastily arranged press conference at a Jaguar Land Rover factory in the West Midlands where he held a choreographed phone call with the US President.
Mr Trump, who backed Brexit, said the EU would have to wait for a deal. He said: 'This was separate because of Brexit in particular. It always seemed so natural.'
He also indicated that he was willing to give the UK a special deal because car exports are focused on high-end vehicles. Mr Johnson welcomed efforts to lift the 'insane' tariffs, but said it was still not a 'proper all singing, all dancing, free trade deal'.
The former PM told GB News: 'Brexit certainly is responsible for this. We wouldn't have been able to do this deal individually if we weren't outside the EU.'
Some 101,000 cars were shipped from the UK to the US last year – nearly 17 per cent of the total exported. Mike Hawes of the Society of Motor Manufacturers said: 'This deal will provide much needed relief.'
The deal will allow US farmers to export 13,000 tonnes of beef tariff-free. But it will also open up the US market to UK exporters – and ministers insisted that hormone-treated beef and other controversial products such as chlorinated chicken, would remain banned.
Champions League ambush by Trump: PM's call from US President during Arsenal match to fix a UK trade deal
By CLAIRE ELLICOTT, Whitehall Editor
In Downing Street on Wednesday night, not for the first time, Keir Starmer had Europe on his mind.
But rather than goings on in the corridors of Brussels, it was drama playing out in Paris that was occupying the Prime Minister.
His beloved Arsenal were into the second half at the Parc des Princes, chasing the game and looking for the goal that would keep their Champions League dream alive, when the phone rang.
Since his return to the White House, world leaders have become accustomed to unannounced calls from Donald Trump at all times of day and night.
Breaking off from Arsenal's travails against Paris Saint-Germain, the PM was about to get a masterclass from the man who styles himself as the 'master deal-maker'. The US President, struggling in the polls just like his British counterpart, wanted to talk terms for a UK-US trade deal that both could chalk up as a much-needed win. Since the weekend, speculation had grown that a deal was close and could have been signed any day. But even the PM was taken aback by the timing.
'No, I didn't know the exact day,' he admitted yesterday. 'I wouldn't have been having my phone call with President Trump halfway through the second half of the Arsenal-PSG game had I planned it better. But that's the way it turned out.'
In front of Jaguar Land Rover workers in the Midlands, he said: 'I wanted to get a deal over the line and I'm not ashamed of that, because I knew how important it was, particularly for JLR, that we got a deal over the line... in a timely manner.'
Thousands of miles away in the Oval Office, US Ambassador Lord Mandelson also referred to the phone call, telling Mr Trump: 'Thank you very much indeed for that typical 11th-hour intervention by you, demanding even more out of this deal than any of us expected. The Prime Minister was delighted to take that call late at night.
'You took it to another level.'
Exactly what Mr Trump demanded be added to previous negotiations is currently unknown but the clock was certainly ticking. It had gone 9.30pm when Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds left the stage having given a Mansion House speech and was quickly hustled by aides into one of the gilded rooms of the Lord Mayor's official residence.
A call with the Prime Minister ensued before a transatlantic conversation was had with the UK team who had flown into Washington DC the previous day.
Aware of the need to get some sort of deal in train to save thousands of jobs in the car industry, Mr Reynolds wrote a letter to Sir Keir giving his blessing to the agreement. An announcement of such magnitude had very much not been planned for VE Day. The Government had cleared the decks to allow the nation to honour our war heroes, with Sir Keir paying tribute at Westminster Abbey.
But at 2am London time, as has become custom, Mr Trump took over the news agenda via his Truth Social network, posting: 'Big news conference tomorrow morning at 10am, The Oval Office, concerning a major trade deal with representatives of a big and highly respected country. The first of many!'
With the cat out of the bag, Washington correspondents were soon reporting the first trade deal since 'Liberation Day', when the US launched its worldwide tariff blitz, would be with the UK.
Downing Street aides scrambled to get Sir Keir to Birmingham so he could make the announcement in a car factory.
But in the chaos, they managed to send the invited press pack to the wrong JLR factory, with reporters being directed to Coventry, when they were, in fact, supposed to be 15 miles up the road in Solihull, sparking a Wacky Races-style sprint by Fleet Street's finest. Inside the correct venue, the scene was being set, with aides looking to have the PM set against a red, white and blue Land Rover, only for pesky health and safety to foil their plans to hoist it onto a raised platform.
When the leaders eventually spoke shortly before 4pm, with the eyes of the world's media on them, Sir Keir croaked into a speaker phone that was barely audible in the vast Oval Office. The video feed at one point went black, not exactly the high optics for such a moment. What should have been a huge announcement for the UK was also forced to contend with the momentous occasion as news of a new Pope broke, thanks to the white smoke from the Vatican roof.
Adding to the sense of being bounced into a deal, there was later disarray in Parliament as Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle berated a minister for suggesting a statement to the House be delayed until Monday.
Sir Lindsay claimed MPs had been told by the Government to go home 'as there would be no statement' despite one being scheduled after an urgent question was tabled, then pulled. Trade minister Douglas Alexander was left in no doubt to the Speaker's fury as he told him: 'We don't do business like this.'
MPs were heard heckling, before Sir Lindsay said the Government had to come forward with a statement. He added: 'I understand people were going round telling people to go home as there would be no statement, as Downing Street had decided.'
There is still a lot of dealing to be done with the White House, a lot of arguments to be had. But despite the bedlam, Sir Keir will feel he came away with a victory.
The same, sadly for him, cannot be said of his Gunners, who were knocked out of the Champions League after a 2-1 defeat by PSG.
Starmer had the tone of a gopher grateful to a mafia don for not having him rubbed out in the parking lot
WESTMINSTER SKETCH by QUENTIN LETTS
This is going to sound like a Barbara Cartland novel but it actually happened. Donald Trump seized Peter Mandelson's hand and went all husky. Soon he was telling Peter what a beautiful speaking manner he had.
'Wish I had that accent,' said the President, timbre all throaty and back-seat-of-the-taxi-ish. Peter pinkened, clasped his palms and said: 'My mother would be so proud. Late at night you took it to another level.'
This touching scene occurred in the Oval Office, Washington DC, where Mr Trump had just conducted an (excruciating) conference call with Sir Keir Starmer.
The PM, at his most Rodneyish, was on the other side of the Atlantic at a factory in Solihull. At first we could hear him only through Mr Trump's telephone loudspeaker. It made the nasal knight even more bog-snorkellish than usual.
'Great deal for both sides,' drawled Mr Trump. 'There won't be any red tape.' There speaks a man who plainly has had limited dealings with HM Customs and Excise.
After some more honeyed hyperbole, in which he simultaneously claimed the deal was 'conclusive' and not yet concluded, he turned to the voice-box on his desk and said soothingly, 'Mr Prime Minister, please take it away'.
This was spoken in the jazz-concert sense. It was the moment for Sir Keir's solo. 'Foxtrot Charlie, pick-up in ten minutes at Elsie's chippie on Lisson Grove,' obliged Sir Keir. Something like that.
He really could have been a mini-cab firm despatcher crackling through a walkie-talkie. Heavens, what a dreadful noise his larynx makes, and it only tightens when he is nervous. He could have been playing kazoo, he was so honky.
Happily the BBC TV audio soon switched to the live feed from Solihull so that we could hear his dulcet tones via that, rather than the Oval Office's tinny receiver. Sir Keir, leaning forward on his seat, proceeded at length to ladle chicken schmaltz over his opposite number. He addressed POTUS as 'Donald' and kept working the name into his sentences.
'Can I pay tribute, Donald, to your negotiating team,' he began. And 'I want to thank you for your leadership, Donald. I'm really pleased. It feels really historic. Really good to talk. Tribute to your leadership.' Etc.
The tone of a mid-rank gopher grateful to a mafia don for not having him rubbed out in a Staten Island parking-lot.
Lord Mandelson, who is British ambassador to Washington DC, was representing us in Mr Trump's den. Alongside him, standing like a wall of football defenders at a free-kick with their hands over their soft parts, stood Vice-President James Vance and three US trade negotiators.
Mandy relaxed visibly when the Starmer call ended. It is never wise to speculate what a sphinx such as Peter thinks but he would have been justified in feeling Sir Keir could have kept things shorter, and a mite less familiar. Mr Trump did not radiate energy during the PM's remarks. Mr Vance looked bored, too.
Once they had got rid of Sir Keir, Lord Mandelson delivered a pretty speech in which he disclosed that Mr Trump telephoned Sir Keir the previous night and made 11th-hour demands. After which, it seems, No 10 spiralled into frenzied activity.
Now, perhaps, one understood why Lady Starmer looked so tired when accompanying her husband to the VE Day service at Westminster Abbey at noon. Poor love probably didn't get much sleep.
Back in the Oval Office, Mr Trump repeatedly enthused about Brexit and complained about the European Union. 'You made the right decision years ago,' he said of our escape from Brussels. Lord Mandelson smiled, glassily.
Negotiate in a rush, repent at leisure? Old Trump certainly put the hustle on his British counterparts. Downing Street had plainly not expected this accelerated announcement.
In the panic, Westminster reporters were sent to Coventry – literally – before it dawned on No 10 that they had despatched them to the wrong car factory. Oh well, at least we might now still have some factories.
When back-slapping is over, we'll realise this is not the deal Labour claims it is
By ALEX BRUMMER, City Editor
Anyone listening to the love-in between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer as they announced their VE-Day trade deal might easily conclude this was the greatest day in the post-war history of the two English-speaking peoples.
No doubt Labour, aided and abetted by the Prince of Darkness Peter Mandelson, will proclaim its triumph. Britain is the first to sign a trade deal with the United States after Trump unleashed global tariff mayhem on 'Liberation Day' – April 2 to the rest of us.
The Prime Minister can fairly say that he helped move Britain to the front of the queue, after Boris Johnson was famously bumped to the back by Democrat president Barack Obama after the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Yet before anyone puts up the bunting and the band plays Hail To The Chief, it is worth considering the lack of substance to this deal.
By no stretch of the imagination can it be considered the gold-plated 'free-trade agreement' Britain has long hoped for. The deal temporarily rescues Britain's car and aerospace industries, as well as what remains of our steel- making, but it leaves the most vexed questions unanswered.
Will American big tech, for example, be allowed to run roughshod over Britain's creative sector? And what about providing Britain's leading life sciences sector with access to US markets?
And then there is the ongoing uncertainty and unpredictability which has smashed consumer, investor and business confidence on both sides of the Atlantic. That is far from being banished.
There is much for British consumers, farmers and business to be worried about. There was no reference at all, from either side, to the dreaded idea of chlorine-sterilised chicken on our supermarket shelves. But Trump was bursting with pride at the idea of flooding Britain with beef from American steers.
It must be acknowledged the deal will relieve some of the most immediate pressure on British commerce. The removal of the 27.5 per cent levy on the first 100,000 British cars exported to the US will be a great benefit to Jaguar Land Rover, BMW-owned Mini, and luxury manufacturers Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls-Royce Motors.
But that quota of 100,000, against the 93,000 vehicles delivered in the last year, places a strong restriction on expansion. The removal of tariffs on UK specialist steels and aluminium will also be a relief. Given, however, that British steel production stands on the brink of extinction, this is something of a hollow victory.
In the background at the Oval Office, as Trump extolled America's admiration for Britain, was a whiteboard showing that top US trade official Howard Lutnick believes he had the better of the art of the deal. It showed the remaining general tariff of 10 per cent on British goods arriving in the US would raise $6billion (£4.5billion) for the US Treasury. Meanwhile, the opening of the British market to American goods would be worth $5billion (£3.8billion) to US exporters.
For the past several weeks there has been frenzied speculation that 'technology' would be front and centre of any trade pact between the two countries.
The bargain as outlined is that the UK would open its doors wide to billions of pounds of Silicon Valley and AI investment in exchange for Britain removing the digital services tax on big tech retailers such as Amazon. That is expected to raise £800million for the Exchequer this year. Yet when push came to shove there was no detailed mention of any of this.
Pharmaceuticals and film production, two critical sectors for Britain, that had been hoping for an end to uncertainty, were left none the wiser. UK giants AstraZeneca and GSK have been quietly lobbying for a no-tariff deal on the grounds that their exports are of vital importance to the health of the American people. Yet for the moment the 10 per cent tariff remains in place.
Independent forecaster Oxford Economics noted that the Starmer deal would provide 'limited relief for autos, steel and aluminium' but these exemptions would only 'nibble away at the effective tariff rate'.
The apparently fond relationship between the sometimes robotic Prime Minister and America's mercurial President is one of most unlikely between world leaders. Yet the truth is that when the mutual back-slapping fades the deal they have unveiled is far shallower and much less advantageous that Downing Street wants us to believe.
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