How the ‘big, beautiful' UK-US trade deal led to a big, beautiful friendship

Independent

17-06-2025

He called him 'Donald'. No one calls him 'Donald' – maybe not even Melania or his kids. 'The Donald', yes. Though about him, not to him, face to face. It's 'Mr President' or 'sir'.
But that's what Keir Starmer – the 'woke', progressive left-wing human rights lawyer and the kind of chap that Maga loves to hate – did. The same guy who JD Vance tried, but failed, to bait about free speech when he was last in the Oval Office (Trump notably then did not rise to the invitation to join in and publicly maul the British premier).
Apparently, Keir is in such good terms with the US president he calls him by his first name only – like it's the most natural thing in the world, and Donald doesn't mind a bit.
I'm sure I saw it happen at the G7, when the pair announced to great surprise that Trump had signed (most of) the 'US-UK Economic Prosperity Deal' (EPD). It was like they'd said they were getting engaged. Trump dropped the papers out of the folder at the reveal, but before Trump had even started to lean down – and who could be sure he'd make it and then get up again? – Starmer had helpfully hit the tarmac and was retrieving the precious pages. 'Very important document,' he said.
Is it? Well, the 'optics' make it so. I wondered what Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson – not to mention former UK international trade minister Kemi Badenoch – would be wondering as they watched this outbreak of trans-Atlantic bonhomie succeeding, albeit modestly on paper, on a trade deal with the most dynamic economy on Earth where they had all failed.
The EPD is certainly not as good as it might be. It's not the kind of comprehensive free trade deal that was touted by the Brexiteers a decade ago. They've dropped the clauses on steel, seemingly because of residual American worries about the nominal Chinese ownership of the near-nationalised British Steel. There are also ominous clauses about pharmaceuticals and (implied) renegotiating the prices paid by the NHS.
There are the usual vague hopes about hi-tech stuff, but nothing on financial services (down to the individual states mostly), and the car industry is still stuck with a 100,000 quota before punitive tariffs kick in.
However, the glass is definitely half full in the sense that the EPD has potential – and it is one more Trump tariff deal than anyone else in the world has got. There's no mistaking it's a personal diplomatic achievement for Starmer and his diplo-political team.
In fact, the most significant words about trade weren't in the EPD but uttered by Trump – sorry, Donald, now we're all pals – as he left the improvised press conference. The British would be looked after on trade 'because I like them,' he declared.
In particular, he likes Keir. Even though he is 'slightly more liberal than I'.
Too right, Donald. This is a guy who despises everything you stand for, but, unlike David Lammy or Peter Mandelson, to take two prominent examples, Starmer was not one of the people stupid enough to slag him off in public, and then have to recant it. It just wasn't – and isn't – Starmer's style.
They say opposites attract, so maybe that's why the boastful felon and the reserved British former public prosecutor get along so well. That and the fact that both men are so desperate to show that they can actually get stuff done that they felt a sudden and compelling impulse to sign off on the EPD.
To be fair, Starmer has enjoyed remarkable success in foreign affairs. However, it is an uncomfortable fact for Donald that the EPD, such as it is, is the only international deal on peace, trade – or anything that he's managed to reach.
The great deal-maker has failed in the Middle East and in Ukraine. In fact, he's off early from the G7 summit to go deal with the Israel-Iran conflict, possibly making contingency plans to bomb Tehran (although that's denied).
Had Kamala Harris won last November, Trump would now be fulminating about how 'this would never have happened if I'd been president' – the usual hypothetical nonsense. He hasn't achieved peace anywhere, let alone on day one, and his tariffs policy is mostly a disgrace. But he can at least boast that he's got one 'big, beautiful trade deal' done. Starmer, too, can go home to tease Badenoch and Farage about this post-Brexit triumph.
No wonder he's so nice about Keir, and Keir is so nice about Donald. That's a nice deal.