Tariffs Catch-All

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Mulberry Heel said:
Trump, his minions, and right-wing media are so desperate for a trade deal - any kind of deal with any nation anywhere - that of course they're going to present this as the greatest trade agreement ever signed by any president anywhere. Anything that will allow them to claim that Trump's trade war is working and that other nations are just begging us to cut deals will be eagerly seized upon. The fact that the UK is in economic trouble due to Brexit and thus is pretty desperate for a deal themselves no doubt was a big factor leading to this agreement, and as these posts point out the deal is going to be limited and far less sweeping than right-wing media will no doubt make of it.

I expect that Fox & Friends and other Fox programs today and tomorrow will be practically weeping with joy and gratitude to Dear Leader for this historic agreement (to solve a problem that he's causing), and they will no doubt slam his critics as lacking faith and patience in the GOP's glorious plan to MAGA.
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It's going to be hilarious when the numbers on this are crunched and it's a better deal for the UK than for us. I have a hunch this deal, whenever it's finalized, might actually increase our overall trade deficit.
 
www.theguardian.com

Experts cast doubt on Trump’s claim of ‘comprehensive’ UK-US trade deal – UK politics live

Warnings come as environment secretary says UK will not allow British farmers to be undercut on environmental or welfare standards by US
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Experts suggest US-UK trade deal won't be as comprehensive as Trump claims​

In his post on Truth Social Donald Trump said that trade deal with the UK would be “full and comprehensive”. (See 11.31am.)

But commentators and journalists who have been briefed on what to expect are suggesting it will be much more limited.

Speaking on the Today programme this morning, Jonathan Haskel, an economics professor and a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said:

People should remember that there’s a very big difference between trade deals and trade agreements.

Trade deals are limited and short-term and partial, just covering a few items. Trade agreements are broad based and long term.

Now, in his Truth Social post [the first one – see 6.59am] Mr Trump announced that this was a trade deal. So I’d urge people not to expect very much.
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The Financial Times is reporting that “British officials acknowledge [the deal] will fall far short of the kind of comprehensive post-Brexit free trade agreement targeted by the past Conservative government”.

In its report on the trade deal, the New York Times says:

Timothy C. Brightbill, an international trade attorney at Wiley Rein, said the announcement would probably be “just an agreement to start the negotiations, identifying a framework of issues to be discussed in the coming months.”

“We suspect that tariff rates, nontariff barriers and digital trade are all on the list — and there are difficult issues to address on all of these,” he added.
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This how Politico sums up what we are expecting.

This was never meant to be a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S., of the sort that previous Tory governments tried and failed to win. Instead, this had been pitched by U.K. officials as a narrow economic pact to avoid tariffs and work together on AI and critical tech. How narrow or otherwise, we should know soon.
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And Sky News is reporting that nothing will actually be signed today. It says:

No physical UK-US trade document will be signed today, Sky News understands.

That’s because the announcement from London and Washington is around what’s being described as the general terms of an agreement, rather than a full fat trade deal.

A big India-style agreement, this is not.
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Keir Starmer is holding a press conference later on a visit outside London. But, as Hugo Gye from the i reports, Downing Street’s attempts to get reporters there too have gone a little awry.

Oh dear.

No10 seems to have sent all the lobby journalists hoping to question the PM about the US trade deal to the wrong location.

The address they gave us for his speech is a 35-minute drive from the correct one (or 90 mins on public transport).

Oh well!
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So, the claim is that the U.K. is lowering tariffs from 5.1% to 1.8% but a “reciprocal” U.S. tariff needs to be 10%? Would be curious how they calculated potential tariff receipts and new opportunities for market access.
 

Starmer says tariffs will be cut from 27.5% to 10% on 100,000 car exports to US every year​

Keir Starmer is at a Jaguar Land Rover factory. Summing up the deal, he says:

This is a deal that will protect British businesses and save thousands of jobs In Britain, really important, skilled, well paid jobs. It will remove tariffs on British steel and aluminium, reducing them to zero. It will provide vital assurances for our life sciences sector, so important to our economy, and grant unprecedented market access for British farmers without compromising our high standards.
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And he says the deal means US tariffs on cars from the UK will be cut from 27.5% to 10% for 100,000 vehicles every year.

He claims that, as he negoiated the deal, he kept his focus on the needs of car workers.

In politics, what matters sometimes is who you have in your mind’s eye when you’re making these deals. Who do you have in your mind’s eye when you’re taking decisions? But what I took away from here last time [I was here] was you and the brilliant work that you do, and had you in my mind’s eye as we did that.
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Trump managed not to call the reporter’s pointed question stupid, but stumbles through saying nothing much other than I don’t know much about anything.

“… I actually until I looked at the numbers I didn’t realize that this is a very conclusive deal but we think we can grow it even from that, but this is a maxed out deal, not like you said it, uh you said it prr really incorrectly. This is a maxed out deal that we’re going to make bigger and we’ll make it bigger through growth … I was surprised to see how big your country is in trade, actually … I think it is a very big deal right now but uh it’s going to grow, just of its own volition it’s going to grow. Over time there’ll be changes made, there’ll be adjustments made because we’re flexible, well we things that we can do even better but is very conclusive and we uh think everyone is going to be happy. … It’s a great thing that it came together, it’s uh so nice, because we have many countries want to make a deal and many countries are very unhappy that we happened to choose this one to be honest with you …”
 


Reporter: “… now thousands of dock workers and truck drivers are worried about their jobs “

Trump [interrupting question] “that means we lose less money. When I see that, that means we lose less money. Look, China was making over a trillion, $1.1 Trillion in my opinion, you know you have different numbers from $500 billion to a trillion or a trillion-one, I think it was $1.1 trillion and frankly if we didn’t do business we would have been better off, OK, you understand that, so when you say it slowed down, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. But we’re going to make it so they can, I’d like to say they’ll do better actually in terms of the bottom line. Uh we’d like to see China opened up so we can compete in China …”
 
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Trump says US-UK trade deal framework ‘maxed out’ as British ambassador describes it as ‘starting point’​

 
What’s crazy is watching the market go up during this train wreck presser.
 


JD Vance continues playing sycophant peanut gallery laugh track for Trump (here and at Trump’s comments about Buttigieg and Crocket that I put in the current events thread).
 
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