US Vice President JD Vance said there is a “good chance” that a trade agreement with the UK can be achieved, suggestingT would be easier to land but with other European countries because of “much reciprocal relations”.
The Minister of Business and Trade in the UK Sarah Jones welcomed Vance’s comments and said that talks about providing an agreement with the USA were during the time, but refused to provide a time tape on their progress.
“No one wants tariffs. Nobody wants a tariff war. We want to provide a contract with the US,” she added.
The real question about the positive comments of Vice-President JD Vance and Jones about a trade agreement from the UK and the United States is what they actually mean the term “contract”.
Immediately after visiting Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the White House in February, he preferred to say that the delegation in the UK refers to what was negotiated as an “economic agreement”.
This was supposed to show that this “job” did not refer to an extensive free trade agreement, which covers almost all the goods.
In Trump’s first term, negotiations between the UK and the United States progressed quite until the controversial questions about the prices of medicine and food standards have arisen.
The Trump team then told me that they were waiting to see how many UK would remain close to the European Union rules after Brexit.
This time, it seems that “job” was related to the science, technology and collaboration of artificial intelligence in exchange for the avoidance of tariffs.
The United States wanted to talk about British “technology taxes” to mostly US digital companies and raised questions about the network security law.
However, there is a big problem now.
Now they have been charged 10% on imports in the UK as part of what it called “reciprocal tariffs”.
But there is no general problem with this trade relationship. In fact, the UK buys more from the USA than vice versa.
Washington mood music is that this 10% tariff is not for negotiations with anyone. It is a basic tariff that has been charged with almost all American trade partners.
The exception for one country would simply call for significant trade diverting.
But the UK is in a different position from other nations.
Most countries have faced higher tariffs – as is illustrated on Donald Trump’s large committee – like electronics manufacturers in East Asia and want to keep a 10%imposed rate.
The net result is that the UK may not have a lot of negotiations here, and yet it is very sharp, given that there is no US trade deficit.
The exemption factors for electronics that benefit from China and the fact that cars, the main industry of Britain are set to 25%, and the side in the UK can be complained a lot.
The second question is that all this is done at the same time when the resetting negotiations after Brexit are shown ahead of the UK summit and the EU next month.
The word is that the UK and the EU would like to ensure an ambitious job that is closely aligned with export rules. The aim of this reset would be to solve the food and export of agriculture of most bureaucracy.
Now they have been interested in it in the past. Can that be part of their negotiations?
In addition, many US officials mentioned the desire to join the Allies in China.
The US could also try to force the choice in the UK here or at least encourage the action not to divert Chinese goods.
All of this would fly despite the entire sale of the Government of the UK to the world so that Britain could be “the most lone economy in the world” with strong connections to European goods markets, US technology and Eastern market, including China.
Here is the final factor, which is very intriguing.
Given last week Chaos in financial markets, including US government debtNow the case is that now they need these offers, especially simple choices with their closest allies.
The UK has more influence than a month ago. The Prime Minister may not want to use it, but now I cannot afford to stop or leave in the UK.