
US-UK trade agreement finalised, Trump and Starmer say
US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer say they have finalised a trade deal reached between the two allies last month.
Trump, standing alongside Starmer at the G7 summit in Canada, said the relationship with Britain was "just fantastic," as he waved, and briefly dropped, a document which he said he had just signed.
"We signed it and it's done," he said.
Trump added: "It's a fair deal for both. It'll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income."
Starmer said the proclamation would implement agreements reached on auto tariffs and aerospace, without providing any details.
"(It's) a really important agreement. And so this is a very good day for both of our countries, a real sign of strength," he said.
Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the proclamation on terms of the deal would cover provisions on trade in steel, ethanol, autos and beef.
The White House said US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would determine a quota for UK steel and aluminium imports that could enter the United States without facing Trump's 25 per cent tariff on steel. No further details were immediately available.
British businesses, and the UK government, were blindsided earlier this month when Trump doubled metals tariffs on countries around the world to 50 per cent. He later clarified the level would remain at 25 per cent for the UK.
Trump said the UK was "very well protected" when asked whether Britain would be protected from any future tariffs.
Asked whether he could guarantee the country would be protected from any further levies, the US president told reporters in Canada: "The UK is very well protected, you know why? Because I like them."
Trump would not say whether British steel would still be subject to tariffs in future.
Britain has avoided tariffs of up to 50 per cent on steel and aluminium that the US imposed on other countries earlier this month, but could have faced elevated tariffs starting on July 9 unless the deal to implement the tariff reduction was reached.
with AP
US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer say they have finalised a trade deal reached between the two allies last month.
Trump, standing alongside Starmer at the G7 summit in Canada, said the relationship with Britain was "just fantastic," as he waved, and briefly dropped, a document which he said he had just signed.
"We signed it and it's done," he said.
Trump added: "It's a fair deal for both. It'll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income."
Starmer said the proclamation would implement agreements reached on auto tariffs and aerospace, without providing any details.
"(It's) a really important agreement. And so this is a very good day for both of our countries, a real sign of strength," he said.
Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the proclamation on terms of the deal would cover provisions on trade in steel, ethanol, autos and beef.
The White House said US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would determine a quota for UK steel and aluminium imports that could enter the United States without facing Trump's 25 per cent tariff on steel. No further details were immediately available.
British businesses, and the UK government, were blindsided earlier this month when Trump doubled metals tariffs on countries around the world to 50 per cent. He later clarified the level would remain at 25 per cent for the UK.
Trump said the UK was "very well protected" when asked whether Britain would be protected from any future tariffs.
Asked whether he could guarantee the country would be protected from any further levies, the US president told reporters in Canada: "The UK is very well protected, you know why? Because I like them."
Trump would not say whether British steel would still be subject to tariffs in future.
Britain has avoided tariffs of up to 50 per cent on steel and aluminium that the US imposed on other countries earlier this month, but could have faced elevated tariffs starting on July 9 unless the deal to implement the tariff reduction was reached.
with AP
US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer say they have finalised a trade deal reached between the two allies last month.
Trump, standing alongside Starmer at the G7 summit in Canada, said the relationship with Britain was "just fantastic," as he waved, and briefly dropped, a document which he said he had just signed.
"We signed it and it's done," he said.
Trump added: "It's a fair deal for both. It'll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income."
Starmer said the proclamation would implement agreements reached on auto tariffs and aerospace, without providing any details.
"(It's) a really important agreement. And so this is a very good day for both of our countries, a real sign of strength," he said.
Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the proclamation on terms of the deal would cover provisions on trade in steel, ethanol, autos and beef.
The White House said US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would determine a quota for UK steel and aluminium imports that could enter the United States without facing Trump's 25 per cent tariff on steel. No further details were immediately available.
British businesses, and the UK government, were blindsided earlier this month when Trump doubled metals tariffs on countries around the world to 50 per cent. He later clarified the level would remain at 25 per cent for the UK.
Trump said the UK was "very well protected" when asked whether Britain would be protected from any future tariffs.
Asked whether he could guarantee the country would be protected from any further levies, the US president told reporters in Canada: "The UK is very well protected, you know why? Because I like them."
Trump would not say whether British steel would still be subject to tariffs in future.
Britain has avoided tariffs of up to 50 per cent on steel and aluminium that the US imposed on other countries earlier this month, but could have faced elevated tariffs starting on July 9 unless the deal to implement the tariff reduction was reached.
with AP
US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer say they have finalised a trade deal reached between the two allies last month.
Trump, standing alongside Starmer at the G7 summit in Canada, said the relationship with Britain was "just fantastic," as he waved, and briefly dropped, a document which he said he had just signed.
"We signed it and it's done," he said.
Trump added: "It's a fair deal for both. It'll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income."
Starmer said the proclamation would implement agreements reached on auto tariffs and aerospace, without providing any details.
"(It's) a really important agreement. And so this is a very good day for both of our countries, a real sign of strength," he said.
Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the proclamation on terms of the deal would cover provisions on trade in steel, ethanol, autos and beef.
The White House said US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would determine a quota for UK steel and aluminium imports that could enter the United States without facing Trump's 25 per cent tariff on steel. No further details were immediately available.
British businesses, and the UK government, were blindsided earlier this month when Trump doubled metals tariffs on countries around the world to 50 per cent. He later clarified the level would remain at 25 per cent for the UK.
Trump said the UK was "very well protected" when asked whether Britain would be protected from any future tariffs.
Asked whether he could guarantee the country would be protected from any further levies, the US president told reporters in Canada: "The UK is very well protected, you know why? Because I like them."
Trump would not say whether British steel would still be subject to tariffs in future.
Britain has avoided tariffs of up to 50 per cent on steel and aluminium that the US imposed on other countries earlier this month, but could have faced elevated tariffs starting on July 9 unless the deal to implement the tariff reduction was reached.
with AP

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West Australian
36 minutes ago
- West Australian
Donald Trump's Iran choice: Last-chance diplomacy or a bunker-busting bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump is weighing a critical decision in the days-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy the deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, which only America's biggest 'bunker buster,' dropped by US B-2 bombers, can reach. If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Mr Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have warned that US participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Mr Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing. Mr Trump has encouraged Vice President JD Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, according to a US official. The offer may be well received, and Mr Trump said Monday that 'I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.' The urgency appeared to be rising. The White House announced late Monday that Mr Trump was leaving the Group of 7 summit early because of the situation in the Middle East. 'As soon as I leave here, we're going to be doing something,' Mr Trump said. 'But I have to leave here.' What he intended to do remained unclear. If Mr Vance and Mr Witkoff did meet with the Iranians, officials say, the likely Iranian interlocutor would be the country's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama Administration and knows every element of Iran's sprawling nuclear complex. Mr Araghchi, who has been Mr Witkoff's counterpart in recent negotiations, signalled his openness to a deal Monday, saying in a statement, 'If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential.' 'It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu,' he said, referring to the Israeli Prime Minister. 'That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.' But if that diplomatic effort fizzles, or the Iranians remain unwilling to give in to Mr Trump's central demand that they must ultimately end all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the President will still have the option of ordering that Fordo and other nuclear facilities be destroyed. There is only one weapon for the job, experts contend. It is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, and it weighs so much — 30,000 pounds — that it can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber. Israel does not own either the weapon or the bomber needed to get it aloft and over a target. If Mr Trump holds back, it could well mean that Israel's main objective in the war is never completed. 'Fordo has always been the crux of this thing,' said Brett McGurk, who worked on Middle East issues for four successive US presidents, from George W. Bush to Joe Biden. 'If this ends with Fordo still enriching, then it's not a strategic gain.' That has been true for a long time, and over the past two years the US military has refined the operation, under close White House scrutiny. The exercises led to the conclusion that one bomb would not solve the problem; any attack on Fordo would have to come in waves, with B-2s releasing one bomb after another down the same hole. And the operation would have to be executed by an American pilot and crew. This was all in the world of war planning until the opening salvos Friday morning in Tehran, Iran's capital, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes, declaring that Israel had discovered an 'imminent' threat that required 'preemptive action.' New intelligence, he suggested without describing the details, indicated that Iran was on the cusp of turning its fuel stockpile into weapons. US intelligence officials who have followed the Iranian program for years agree that Iranian scientists and nuclear specialists have been working to shorten the time it would take to manufacture a nuclear bomb, but they saw no huge breakthroughs. Yet they agree with Mr McGurk and other experts on one point: If the Fordo facility survives the conflict, Iran will retain the key equipment it needs to stay on a pathway to the bomb, even if it would first have to rebuild much of the nuclear infrastructure that Israel has left in ruins over four days of precision bombing. There may be other alternatives to bombing it, though they are hardly a sure thing. If the power to Fordo gets cut, by saboteurs or bombing, it could damage or destroy the centrifuges that spin at supersonic speeds. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday that this might have happened at the country's other major uranium enrichment centre, Natanz. Israel took out the power supplies to the plant Friday, and Mr Grossi said that the disruption probably sent them spinning out of control. Mr Trump rarely talks about Fordo by name, but he has occasionally alluded to the GBU-57, sometimes telling aides that he ordered its development. That is not correct: The United States began designing the weapon in 2004, during the Bush Administration, specifically to collapse the mountains protecting some of the deepest nuclear facilities in Iran and North Korea. It was, however, tested during Mr Trump's first term, and added to the arsenal. Mr Netanyahu has pressed for the United States to make its bunker busters available since the Bush Administration, so far to no avail. But people who have spoken to Mr Trump in recent months say the topic has come up repeatedly in his conversations with the Prime Minister. When Mr Trump has been asked about it, he usually avoids a direct answer. Now the pressure is on. Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who resigned in a split with Mr Netanyahu, told CNN's Bianna Golodryga on Monday that 'the job has to be done, by Israel, by the United States,' an apparent reference to the fact that the bomb would have to be dropped by an American pilot in a US airplane. He said that Mr Trump had 'the option to change the Middle East and influence the world.' And Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who often speaks for the traditional, hawkish members of his party, said on CBS on Sunday that 'if diplomacy is not successful' he will 'urge President Trump to go all in to make sure that, when this operation is over, there's nothing left standing in Iran regarding their nuclear program.' 'If that means providing bombs, provide bombs,' he said, adding, in a clear reference to the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, 'whatever bombs. If it means flying with Israel, fly with Israel.' But Republicans are hardly united in that view. And the split in the party over the decision of whether to make use of one of the Pentagon's most powerful conventional weapons to help one of America's closest allies has highlighted a far deeper divide. It is not only about crippling the centrifuges of Fordo; it is also about MAGA's view of what kinds of wars the United States should avoid at all costs. The anti-interventionist wing of the party, given its most prominent voice by influential podcaster Tucker Carlson, has argued that the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan is that there is nothing but downside risk in getting deeply into another Middle East war. On Friday, Carlson wrote that the United States should 'drop Israel' and 'let them fight their own wars.' 'If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so,' he continued. 'It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America's backing.' At the Pentagon, opinion is divided for other reasons. Elbridge A. Colby, the undersecretary of defence for policy, the Pentagon's No. 3 post, has long argued that every military asset devoted to the wars of the Middle East is one diverted from the Pacific and the containment of China. (Mr Colby had to amend his views on Iran somewhat to get confirmed.) For now, Mr Trump can afford to keep one foot in both camps. By making one more run at coercive diplomacy, he can make the case to the MAGA faithful that he is using the threat of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator to bring the conflict to a peaceful end. And he can tell the Iranians that they are going to cease enriching uranium one way or the other, either by diplomatic agreement or because a GBU-57 imploded the mountain. But if the combination of persuasion and coercion fails, he will have to decide whether this is Israel's war or America's. This article originally appeared in The New York Times . © 2025 The New York Times Company

9 News
an hour ago
- 9 News
The military code being used to mock Donald Trump
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here "Foxtrot Delta Tango" is the phrase that has been making the rounds online in the last few days, confusing plenty of Australians who aren't familiar with the military-inspired slang that has become popular in the US. Here's what it means and why it's being used as a political statement. US President Donald Trump's controversial military parade sparked division over the weekend. (Getty) The phrase "Foxtrot Delta Tango" is currently being used by people in the US and abroad to express the sentiment "f--- Donald Trump", without being explicit. Foxtrot, Delta and Tango are all code words in the NATO phonetic alphabet, used to communicate the letters of the Roman alphabet. They represent the letters F, D and T respectively, so "Foxtrot Delta Tango" stands for FDT. It is unclear where the phrase originated, as "Foxtrot Delta Tango" may have many other meanings outside expressing opposition to the US president. Recently, it has circulated broadly on social media platforms like TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), making its origins hard to pin down. Though the NATO phonetic alphabet is widely used in the US and other militaries, Foxtrot Delta Tango isn't an official military term nor is it used exclusively by military personnel. Military slang using phonetic codes isn't new and many such slang phrases have become common outside the military, such as "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", which stands for WTF or "what the f---". Opposition to Trump isn't new and people in the US and abroad have been making political statements against the commander-in-chief since before his first stint in the Oval Office. The phrase Foxtrot Delta Tango may have seen increased use lately in response to Trump's involvement in and promotion of the US Army's 250th anniversary parade last Saturday. The massive and controversial parade coincided with Trump's 79th birthday celebrations, a detail that drew criticism from some US military personnel. At the same time, massive "No Kings" demonstrations were held across the US to protest the president and his military parade. World Donald Trump USA US POLITICS president Politics social media CONTACT US

Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
Donald Trump departs the G7 summit
US President Donald Trump has left the G7 summit in Canada amid the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.