UK-US trade deal: Tories hit back at ‘disappointing’ Trump agreement while businesses call for clarity – UK Times

Sheffield steel manufacturer Marcegaglia’s president Liam Bates urged “more clarity” on the deal. “It would be good to get more clarity on when this removal is effective from,” he said.

Levies on steel and aluminium will be reduced to zero, however, a general 10 per cent tariff for other goods will remain.

Sir Keir Starmer’s trade agreement with the US is “disappointing”and a more “comprehensive” deal is needed, the shadow trade secretary warned.

Conservative MP Andrew Griffith said the historic deal was not a “classic trade agreement” and there were still questions to be answered about industries like film and pharmaceuticals.

“There’s nothing on film and TV, and yet at the start of the week the government was talking about 100 per cent tariffs on that. It’s not a trade agreement in the classic sense.”

Mr Griffith added that it was unclear whether tariffs will be negotiated down on pharmaceutical exports as part of the deal.

The deal will see US tariffs on cars immediately slashed from 27.5 to 10 per cent, up to 100,000 vehicles – almost the total number exported last year.

Levies on steel and aluminium will be reduced to zero, however, a general 10 per cent tariff for other goods will remain.

By any standard, going from “Two-Tier Keir” to “Two-Deal Keir” in the space of two days counts as a considerable achievement.

Britain’s new multibillion-dollar trade deal with the United States, coming as it does so soon after the equally consequential, far-reaching partnership agreement with India, has bestowed a much-needed sense of momentum and purpose on Sir Keir Starmer’s beleaguered administration.

So also, presumably, will the “Brexit reset” that may well be revealed at the EU-UK summit later this month.

Britain has thus concluded – or shortly will – closer economic partnerships with the largest population on earth (India), the largest and still the most dynamic economy (America), and the UK’s most crucial single market (Europe). Last week may have been a miserable one for the prime minister, but he has every reason to feel confident now.

Sir Keir should feel vindicated, too. Even as equable a man as the prime minister will have felt sorely tried since President Donald Trump launched his tariff schedules, not to mention the doubts some of his most prominent colleagues, notably the vice-president, JD Vance, have cast on support for Ukraine, Nato and the transatlantic alliance.

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There have been no concessions secured for the film and TV industry, after Mr Trump threatened to apply a 100 per cent levy on films made outside America, which the PM has been warned would devastate film and TV production in the UK.

Marcus Ryder, chief executive of the The Film and TV charity told The Independent: “Trump’s tariffs could wipe out the UK industry because we are so dependent on foreign direct investment for films being made here.”

Mr Ryder said dozens of people had contacted him since Mr Trump’s announcement with “existential dread” about the future of the industry.

“People are worried and their anxiety levels are off the scale,” he said. “The tariffs are already having an impact before they have even been introduced.”

“It would cut off production houses and strangle the entire ecosystem, including the TV industry. But nobody has any idea what the tariffs could mean. There is a lot of uncertainty.”

There are concerns that the new reciprocal market access on beef could lead to a decline in food standards. However, the UK government insisted that there will be “no weakening of UK food standards on imports”, amid concerns a deal could pave the way for the import of hormone-treated beef from the US.

Donald Trump also played down concerns that it could open up UK markets to chlorine washed chicken, saying the UK will “take what they want” when it comes to US beef and chicken imports, rather than being forced to accept lower standards.

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins added: “Specific to the beef, this is going to exponentially increase our beef exports. And to be very clear, American beef is the safest, the best quality, and the crown jewel of American agriculture for the world.”

Alongside this, there were also concerns that the US was trying to win concessions on Britain’s digital services tax, paid by overseas search engines and social media sites on revenues from the UK. But today’s deal saw the tax left unchanged.

A change to the tax would have been a boost to major American firms such as Amazon, Facebook owner Meta and Google owner Alphabet.

Instead the two nations have agreed to work on a digital trade deal that will strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – something the government said would open the UK up to a “huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy”.

The deal, which the UK government has said will save “thousands of jobs”, will see car export tariffs slashed from 27.5 per cent to 10 per cent, for a quota of 100,000 UK cars. This, the government said, is almost the total the UK exported last year.

Mr Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on steel will be axed entirely, while a levy on ethanol – which is used to produce beer – coming into the UK from the US has been removed entirely.

In addition to this, the two governments have negotiated new reciprocal market access on beef, giving UK farmers a tariff free quota of 13,000 metric tonnes of meat.

Downing Street has also said that the US has agreed to give the UK “preferential treatment” in any further tariffs imposed as part of Section 232 investigations – a process where the US government determines if certain imports threaten US national security.

Donald Trump’s top trade adviser has suggested British consumers would like US-produced chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef if it were made available in UK supermarkets.

Peter Navarro said concerns over food hygiene standards were a “phony tool that’s used to suppress what is very fine American agricultural product”.

He added: “We don’t believe that once they taste American beef and chicken that they would prefer not to have it.”