When is a trade deal not a trade deal?
Do you remember where you were on TD Day, 2025? Do you remember what you were doing when you heard the news that a “truly historic” treaty had been signed between the UK and US? Trade Deal Day, 8 May 2025, was – for this government – a very big deal indeed.
Keir Starmer will be able to tell you exactly where he was; hunched over an Apprentice-style speakerphone in a meeting room at Jaguar Land Rover, while his emissary Lord Mandelson purred in the Oval Office, standing behind Donald Trump who had, hours earlier, demanded that the two leaders announce something together on tariffs.
Starmer didn’t let his modest surroundings dampen his rhetoric, telling the President that the deal was right up there with Victory in Europe in 1945. At the time, this felt at best fanciful and at worst crass, given that the leaders were speaking on the anniversary of VE Day. Now, a month down the line, it sounds even more absurd given that the ‘deal’ has not materialised.
Until it’s signed it remains just a draft
he absence of any signed agreement became clear this week as the UK steel industry scrambled for clarification on Trump’s latest tariffs, which came into effect yesterday morning. While the UK was granted an exemption from the new 50 per cent rate, a 25 per cent levy is still in place as the ‘zero tariff’ deal hailed by Starmer in early May is still in draft form.
The PM said yesterday he is confident that a final deal will be nailed down soon, but the clock is ticking; Trump has said that if the terms aren’t inked by 9 July the UK will join other countries facing 50 per cent rates.
Earlier this week, shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith wrote to his opposite number in government, Jonathan Reynolds, asking for an update on the trade deal, saying that following the Oval Office ceremony it has “not been signed, published and presented in any form.” It’s a fair point, and UK manufacturers are now enduring the uncertainty of not knowing whether they face tariffs of 50 per cent, 25 per cent or zero. The confusion is already enough for US firms to go cool on placing orders from the UK.
All parties should hope that a deal is ratified as soon as possible, but for as long as the agreement remains a mere proposal the PM’s jubilant TD Day celebrations look even more inappropriate.