Truth Social and football phone calls: the final hours of the UK-US trade deal

Sir Keir Starmer was pulled away from the second half of his beloved Arsenal’s semi-final to firm up the final details of the US trade deal with Donald Trump.

The Prime Minister admitted that he “didn’t know the exact day” the agreement with the White House would come, but less than 24 hours after he was watching that Champions League semi-final, Sir Keir had been beamed into the Oval Office to virtually confirm the new transatlantic trading arrangements.

US import taxes that had threatened to cripple British high-end carmakers have been cut from 27.5% to 10%, while the 25% tariff on steel has also been removed. The blanket 10% tariff imposed on all imports by Mr Trump as part of his sweeping “liberation day” announcement remains in place.

A series of events was kickstarted around 14 hours before the PM’s press conference at Solihull’s Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plant, with a TruthSocial post from the president just before 2am London time.

Mr Trump wrote on his own social media platform at dinner time Wednesday in Washington, promising a “Big News Conference” on Thursday about a “MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY”.

US media, including the New York Times, reported that the agreement was with the UK and Number 10 confirmed by Thursday breakfast that the Prime Minister would be speaking “later” on the negotiations between the two countries that had been continuing “at pace”.

Sir Keir Starmer had likely expected to spend Thursday marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, but instead he sped to the West Midlands at the conclusion of the Westminster Abbey service

“The timing couldn’t be more apt,” he told Mr Trump in the phone call that was broadcast on television.

“Not only was it 80 years ago today that victory came for Europe after and at the end of the Second World War, but of course, on that the UK and the US stood together as the closest of allies”.

Asked whether the UK had been “bounced” into the announcement by the US to improve the president’s headlines at home, Sir Keir said that “our teams have been hard at work for weeks on end”.

The Prime Minister said that he is “not ashamed” of wanting to get a deal over the line and wanting to do so “in a timely manner”.

“No, I didn’t know the exact day. I wouldn’t have been having my phone call with President Trump halfway through the second half of the Arsenal PSG game had I planned it better, but that’s the way it turned out.

“That’s the discussion we were having late last night about how we proceeded with this deal.”

It was not just the Prime Minister who was surprised by the timing.

Jonathan Reynolds said he first heard trade deal negotiators had reached an agreement on Wednesday night.

The Business Secretary was fresh from giving a speech at Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of London at the heart of the City’s square mile, when the news was relayed to him.

In one of the residence’s “great drawing rooms”, he had a call from the negotiating team in the US, and then wrote to the Prime Minister recommending he accept the deal.

Sir Keir said he had made the decision to return to JLR to make the announcement, having visited the plant shortly after the tariffs came into force. He said that he wanted to speak to “the workforce there for whom this means so much”.

The UK’s political press were also invited to hear his remarks, but many almost did not make it. In a sign Downing Street had been caught off guard by the day’s proceedings, journalists were sent to the wrong JLR factory in Coventry, around 16 miles from where they were supposed to be in Solihull.

Before he addressed staff, the Prime Minister took a call with the president at the factory, in which he hailed the “historic day” between the two countries.

He was flanked by Jaguar Land Rover chief executive Adrian Mardell as around a dozen other JLR staff, as the leaders spent around five minutes discussing the deal.

As well as making occasional notes in a black folder placed to the right of the phone, set to speaker mode, Sir Keir addressed his counterpart as “Donald” several times and responded to Mr Trump’s reference to his country’s “fake news media” being “like herds of buffalo” by answering: “We have got our media in as well so we are ready to roll.”

Mr Trump was joined by the UK’s ambassador to the US, Lord Peter Mandelson, at the White House, and Sir Keir asked the president to “say hello” for him.

During their subsequent comments on their agreement, Mr Trump described it as an “economic security alignment” between the US and UK and a “big economic security blanket”.

Sir Keir then told Mr Trump: “This is a really fantastic, historic day between our two great countries. I think it’s a real tribute to the history we have of working so closely together.”