US and Britain will have trade agreement

28/2/2025 6:20

The United States and

Britain are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement, U.S.

President Donald Trump told a joint news conference with UK

Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, saying such a deal

could help avert U.S. tariffs.



"We're going to have a great trade agreement," 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."



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.



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 JD Vance, Commerce

Secretary Howard Lutnick and national security adviser Mike

Waltz would lead the efforts.



He said he expected to get a trade deal done "rather

quickly, as quickly as it can be done."



Asked if Starmer had convinced him to skip threatened

reciprocal tariffs, Trump said, "He tried," lauding Starmer's

negotiating skills.



"He was working really hard at lunch," he 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 Wednesday she

was confident that U.S.-UK trade and investment would not be

derailed by Trump's threat to retaliate against what he sees as

barriers to U.S. 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 U.S. worked on negotiating a free trade

agreement during 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 U.S. totaled $317 billion in 2023, the U.S.

Bureau of Economic Analysis says, making Britain the

fifth-biggest U.S. 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.



Trump said earlier this month 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.