US, UK will have trade agreement, Trump says in joint news conference with Starmer

WASHINGTON – The United States and Britain are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement, US President Donald Trump told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Feb 27, saying such a deal could help avert US tariffs.

“We’re going to have a great trade agreement,” Mr Trump said. “We’re going to end up with a very good trade agreement for both countries, and we’re working on that as we speak.”

Mr Starmer said the two countries had begun work on a new economic deal, with advanced technology at its core, to strengthen the already strong trading relationship.

Mr Trump said the outlines of a trade agreement between the two allies could be agreed “very shortly”, saying his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Vice-President J.D. Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz would lead the efforts.

The US President said he expected to get a trade deal done “rather quickly, as quickly as it can be done”.

Asked if Mr Starmer had convinced him to skip threatened reciprocal tariffs, Mr Trump said: “He tried”, lauding Mr Starmer’s negotiating skills.

“He was working really hard at lunch,” Mr Trump said. “I think we could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary. We’ll see.”

British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves said on Feb 26 she was confident that US-UK trade and investment would not be derailed by Mr Trump’s threat to retaliate against what he sees as barriers to US exports.

“The last time President Trump was in the White House, trade and investment flows between our two countries increased, and I’ve got every confidence that that can happen again,” she told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a Group of 20 finance chiefs’ meeting in South Africa.

Britain and the US worked on negotiating a free trade agreement during Mr Trump’s first term, but did not quite complete that work. When Democratic President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he ended work on that relatively far-progressed effort.

Imports and exports of goods and services between Britain and the US totalled US$317 billion (S$427.5 billion) in 2023, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis says, making Britain the fifth-biggest US trade partner after Canada, Mexico, China and Germany.

The United States is Britain’s single biggest national trade partner, although the UK trades far more with the 27 members of the European Union as a bloc.

Mr Trump said earlier in February that he thought something could be “worked out” with Britain on the threat of tariffs, while he sounded more committed to imposing tariffs on EU countries. REUTERS