Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands at a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 27. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP/File)
WASHINGTON — The United States and Britain are expected to announce a trade deal May 8 that will lower the burden of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, delivering a political victory for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Trump can also use to validate his turbulent approach to the international economy.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the agreement will be “full and comprehensive.” No details were immediately available, and it’s more likely that the deal will be limited to providing tariff relief to certain sectors like car manufacturing.
The U.S. president is scheduled to speak from the Oval Office at 10 a.m. EDT, and Starmer will make his own announcement around the same time.
It’s the first bilateral trade deal since Trump began his stutterstep efforts to rewire the global economy by dramatically increasing import taxes in an attempt to increase domestic manufacturing. The Republican president first announced sweeping tariffs on April 2, then retreated a week later and announced that his administration would seek individual agreements with various countries over the next few months.
Thank you @POTUS! This is an important step towards fair and reciprocal trade with our partners around the world. Looking forward to the many great deals your administration will deliver for the American people! pic.twitter.com/gr2uEspLMH
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 8, 2025
No new deals have been reached with America’s largest trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and China. Trump has left the highest tariffs in place on China, sparking a confrontation between the world’s two largest economies. Washington and Beijing are sending officials to Switzerland this weekend for an initial round of trade talks.
Trump promised on May 8 that there are “many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!”
Starmer, speaking at a defense conference in London, said “talks with the U.S. have been ongoing, and you’ll hear more from me about that later today.”
The U.S. and the U.K. have been aiming to strike a bilateral trade agreement since the British people voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, allowing the country to negotiate independently of the rest of the continent. Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted a future deal with the U.S. as an incentive for Brexit.
Negotiations started in 2020, during Trump’s first term. But the talks made little progress under President Joe Biden, a Democrat and a critic of Brexit. Negotiations resumed after Trump returned to office in January and intensified in recent weeks.
Shipping containers wait to be processed at London Gateway port, in Stanford-le-Hope, east of London. (AP Photo/File)
A major goal of British negotiators has been to reduce or lift the import tax on U.K. cars and steel, which Trump set at 25%. The U.S. is the largest destination for British cars, accounting for more than a quarter of U.K. auto exports in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Britain has also sought tariff exemptions for pharmaceuticals, while the U.S. wants greater access to the British market for agriculture products. Starmer’s government has said it won’t lower U.K. food standards to allow in chlorine-rinsed American chicken or hormone-treated beef.
The British government will see a deal as a vindication of Starmer’s emollient approach to Trump, which has avoided direct confrontation or criticism. Unlike the European Union, Britain did not announce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods in response to Trump’s import taxes.
A trade deal with the United Kingdom would be symbolically important and a relief for British exporters. But an agreement would do little to address Trump’s core concern about persistent trade deficits that prompted him to impose import taxes on countries around the world.
The U.S. ran a $11.9 billion trade surplus in goods with the U.K. last year, according to the Census Bureau. The $68 billion in goods that the U.S. imported from the U.K. last year accounted for just 2% of all goods imported into the country.
The U.S. is much more important to the U.K. economy. It was Britain’s biggest trading partner last year, according to government statistics, though the bulk of Britain’s exports to the U.S. are services rather than goods.
Trump has previously said that his leverage in talks would be U.S. consumers, but he appeared to suggest that the U.K. would also start buying more American-made goods.
“I think that the United Kingdom, like every other country, they want to … go shopping in the United States of America,” he said.
A trade deal with the U.S. is one of several that Starmer’s government is seeking to strike. On May 6, Britain and India announced a trade agreement after three years of negotiations. The U.K. is also trying to lift some of the barriers to trade with the EU imposed when Britain left the bloc in 2020.
