Donald Trump announces US trade deal with Britain, suggests call with Xi Jinping for China

US President Donald Trump unveiled a new trade agreement with Britain on Thursday, touting it as a model for the kind of “fair” deal he wants from China, as he suggested a call with Xi Jinping loomed and that levies on Chinese goods “could be” coming down. “Because of our long-time history and allegiance together, it is a great honour to have the United Kingdom as our FIRST announcement,” Trump wrote on social media. Trump during a White House briefing told reporters that “many meetings” were being planned “today and tomorrow”, adding that “every country wants to be making deals”. The US president said he “might speak with Xi” depending on how talks in Switzerland go, referring to the Chinese leader as Washington prepares to negotiate with Beijing its steep tariffs targeting the Asian economic giant. Asked about a possible phone conversation with Xi, Trump said: “I might, yeah, sure.” “I always got along very well” with the Chinese president, he added. Trump cited Britain in stating he would “like to see China opened”. “The UK was largely closed,” he said. “It was very much closed to trade, and now it’s open.” Details of the newly announced deal are yet to come, but the White House said Britain would “reduce or eliminate” discriminatory non-tariff barriers against American products and “significantly” expand access for US agricultural exports. The developments come as Trump faces mounting scrutiny over the lack of visible progress in trade talks with China – America’s third-largest trading partner – as the clock ticks on the 90-day pause in his reciprocal tariffs on all countries. Just days after imposing new tariffs on all US trading partners on April 2, Trump paused the measures to allow time for renegotiating trade agreements, except with China, which remained the primary target of his tariff strategy. Tariffs on Chinese imports now stand at a cumulative 145 per cent. On Thursday, Trump described US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s coming meeting with China’s top economic official, Vice-Premier He Lifeng, in Switzerland as poised to be “very, very interesting”. China wanted to “make a deal very badly too”, Trump added. as he hinted that the tariffs on Chinese goods could be lowered after the talks on Saturday. “It could be, I mean, we’re going to see, right now, you can’t get any higher. It’s at 145 so we know it’s coming down,” Trump said, adding: “We’re gonna have a good weekend.” Earlier, the US president had insisted that discussions were ongoing as Chinese officials denied his claims. “We can all play games. Who made the first call, who didn’t make them? It doesn’t matter,” Trump said on Thursday. “It only matters what happens in that room.” A trade deal between the US and Britain could potentially accelerate discussion with China and other significant American trading partners in Asia, according to Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Depending on what’s actually in the deal, this may add momentum to negotiations under way with other Asian partners,” Cutler said. “Most importantly, this announcement comes before the weekend meeting between the US and China.” It remained unclear, however, whether Britain agreed to address challenges relating to China, including transshipment and investment restrictions, she added. If it did, Cutler continued, the deal would “embolden other partners, particularly Japan and [South] Korea, to also insist on favourable treatment under the sectoral tariff regime.” On Wednesday in Beijing, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued a cautionary message for countries pursuing trade deals with the US. “It should be emphasised that appeasement does not lead to peace, compromise does not command respect and adherence to principled positions and fairness and justice is the right way to safeguard one’s own interests,” the ministry said in a statement. Zongyuan Zoe Liu of the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, believed that China’s substantial trading volume gave it leverage in the near term when entering trade talks. “Chinese leaders probably are very much aware that at least in the short run, they have the upper hand against the United States because US consumers and factories are going to experience shortages in industrial inputs, empty shelves and all that,” Liu said during an event at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a US think tank, on Thursday. But with China’s economy highly dependent on trade, the US and the European Union were crucial markets and shrinking exports could have “domestic ramifications” for China, she added, potentially leading to unemployment and “the building of social pressure”. Another point of leverage in China’s favour could be its control over critical minerals essential for US production and national security, said Evan Medeiros of Georgetown University and a former White House official. “The Chinese have a monopoly on the production of so many critical minerals, rare earths, both heavy and light,” Medeiros told the CSIS panel. “Rare earths are a particular area of concentrated supply for China. The Chinese have been using these export controls as a way to manipulate Western access.” “It gives the Chinese, over the short term at least, added leverage,” he said. “It means that they can cut off the supply of all these critical minerals … that are used in defence production.”

Donald Trump announces US trade deal with Britain, suggests call with Xi Jinping for China

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Agreement marks first such pact secured by American leader’s administration since launching sweeping effort to overhaul global trading system

Agreement marks first such pact secured by American leader’s administration since launching sweeping effort to overhaul global trading system