Donald Trump has concluded a second-rate trade with the United Kingdom with the United Kingdom, sources from the Guardian told British attempts to respect their deadline at mid-May.
US officials have decided to divide their negotiations with more than a dozen other countries in three phases, the United Kingdom being placed in phase two or three, depending on people who have been informed of talks.
A trade agreement with the United States would be the greatest price for British negotiators, who made progress on Tuesday in agreement with the EU and India.
But British officials fear that an agreement with the EU, which they hope to accept at a summit on May 19, could not make more difficult to negotiate with a Trump administration which repeatedly criticizes European trade policies.
A person who knows the American talks said: “The United States has now decided to negotiate its commercial transactions in three phases. The government was informed that it would not be in the first phase – although this leaves the door open in phase two or three.”
A spokesperson for the business department said: “The United States is an essential ally and negotiations on an economic prosperity agreement that strengthens our existing commercial relationship.
“We have been clear that a trade war is in the interests of anyone and we will continue to adopt a calm and regular approach to talks.”
The White House did not respond to a comment request.
British officials first presented a project project to their American counterparts weeks ago, before the president’s price announced. They hoped to agree on an agreement in time to grant an exemption from the United Kingdom, but when it failed, rather moved their attention to a self-imposed deadline of May 19.
Whitehall’s sources say, however, that the negotiations continued to be unpredictable in the weeks following his announcement. US officials are now would have demanding The United Kingdom reduces its food quality standards to allow imports of American beef and chicken – which the Labor government has long excluded.
The project of agreement prepared by the British team would lead the United Kingdom to reduce its tax on digital services, which is only paid by large American technological companies, in exchange for lower prices on steel, aluminum and cars. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, also kept the possibility of reducing the 10% prices on American cars as an additional edulcoator.
But in recent days, the Trump administration has decided to divide its negotiations with 17 different countries into three groups, which will each have a week to negotiate in turn – a development reported for the first time by the Wall Street Journal. The United States has imposed a deadline of July 8 to conclude – several weeks later than the British objective.
Sources have said that British officials had been informed that immediate priority would be to negotiate with Asian countries, South Korea at the top of the list.
Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, told journalists on Tuesday that Asian business partners such as India, South Korea and Japan “had been the most to come, in terms of transactions.”
He also criticized European countries for imposing tax on digital services on American companies, saying that they wanted them to be deleted. The British government has proposed to reduce the tax but not to remove it completely.
Despite the new Trump administration’s negotiation approach, British negotiators hope that they will be able to continue the talks – even if on an unofficial basis – in the coming weeks.
A government source described American tactics as “fortune and unpredictable”. Another contact had continued in recent days despite the promised phasing of talks.
However, the United Kingdom has made better progress with India and the EU.
The negotiators had crunch talks on Tuesday afternoon with their Indian counterparts after Piyush Goyal, Minister of Trade in India, told companies from a round table in London that 25 aspects of 26 of the agreement had been agreed.
British officials hoped to finalize the agreement on Tuesday, but an informed source of talks said they had broken down without agreement on national insurance contributions. A longtime collision point was Delhi’s concern that Indians temporarily working in the United Kingdom on commercial visas must pay national insurance despite not being eligible for British pensions or social security services.
The wait is that at least one more talks will be necessary to get any agreement. Managers are under discussion on a potential visit by Keir Starmer in India this year once an agreement has been finalized.
Meanwhile, the British ministers, including Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Minister of the Cabinet, and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, met Maroš Šefčovič, the EU trade commissioner, in the midst of the signs that a British-EU agreement could be closer.
Šefčovič tweeted later It was “a productive exchange on the guarantee of balanced trade relations, because we face new global dynamics”.
The Guardian revealed last week that Brussels was willing to make major concessions to his proposals for a young mobility program to obtain a line agreement, including the limitation of working visas at 12 months, limiting the sectors that EU citizens can work.
However, experts claim that plans to align British agricultural standards on European standards would make it impossible to give concessions on American demands to align with us.
Anand Menon, director of the Thinktank UK in a changing Europe, told deputies on Tuesday: “If the Americans say that you must raise the regulations that restrict access to our goods to your market, this is incompatible with what we have to do to sign … Treating with the EU.”
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