US President Donald Trump has said his administration is working on a trade deal with the UK, while suggesting that Britain could escape tariffs if such an agreement were struck.
During a press conference in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said that the US vice-president JD Vance and US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent were among senior Republicans in the administration working on the potential deal.
“I think we’ll have the confines, I think we’ll have something — maybe even in terms of possibilities — agreed to very shortly,” Trump said.
“We’ll see if we can do something pretty quickly, but we’re going to make some great trade agreements with the UK,” he added.
Starmer confirmed that the UK and US on Thursday decided “to begin work on a new economic deal with advanced technology at its core”.
Trump added that if such a deal were struck, the UK may escape tariffs, even as he plans to impose levies on the EU.
“I think there’s a very good chance that, in the case of these two great, friendly countries . . . we could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary,” Trump said.
The remarks came at the end of a bilateral meeting in which Starmer urged Trump to provide US military cover to secure peace in Ukraine and to make clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that any future aggression from Moscow would be repelled.
In return, he wants Trump to provide a US “backstop” to support a European stabilisation force in Ukraine, including air cover, heavy lift aircraft, aerial intelligence and missiles.
However, Trump declined to commit to providing any such military backstop, saying that the US would provide an effective deterrent for potential Russian aggression by having its workers in Ukraine under a proposed minerals deal with Kyiv.
