US President Donald Trump has said the United States and Britain are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement.
Trump stated this at a joint news conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, saying such a deal could help avert US tariffs.
“We’re going to have a great trade agreement. We’re going to end up with a very good trade agreement for both countries, and we’re working on that as we speak,” Trump said.
According to the UK prime minister, the two countries had begun work on a new economic deal, with advanced technology at its core, to boost the already strong trading relationship.
Trump said the outlines of a trade agreement between the two allies could be agreed very shortly, stating that his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and national security adviser Mike Waltz would lead the efforts.
He reiterated that he expected to get a trade deal done rather quickly, as quickly as it can be done.
When asked if Starmer had convinced him to skip threatened reciprocal tariffs, Trump lauded Starmer’s negotiating skills, saying he has tried.
“He was working really hard at lunch. I think we could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary. We’ll see,” he added.
Meanwhile, British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday that she was confident that US-UK trade and investment would not be derailed by Trump’s threat to retaliate against what he sees as barriers to US exports.
Recall that Britain and the US worked on negotiating a free trade agreement during Trump’s first term, but did not quite complete that work.
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.
US, Britain will have trade agreement – Trump, Starmer
