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Sir Keir Starmer will send his top company advisor to Washington next week in an attempt to resolve the outstanding trade issues around steel and medicines between the two countries, with hope in London of an agreement at the beginning of July.
Varun Chandra will become a member of the British embassy trading experts in Washington for conversations about steel, aluminum and medical drugs, after Donald Trump decided on Monday to sign tariff reductions for British car manufacturers and space companies under the American trade agreement.
While Trump’s close relationship with Starmer has been an instrumental in progress, British officials say that an important discussion partner about the details Howard Lutnick, the billionaire -businessman and American commercial secretary has been.
“Lutnick came under some criticism in the US, but we found him reasonably, involved and a constructive counterpart in negotiations,” said a British officer. “He worked in pace.”
However, the most difficult part of the conversations lies, with details that must be agreed on steel and pharmaceutical rates.
On Monday, Trump described the US-UK relationship as ‘fantastic’ before he waved a document that confirmed on the G7 summit in Canada that a deal about cars and aircraft parts was closed.
Starmer had to pick up the document if a gust of wind blew it out of the Trump folder, in an appearance that showed the unlikely chemistry between the two leaders. “He is a little liberal than me, to say the least,” Trump joked.
Asked if he could guarantee that the UK would be protected against future rates, replied: “The UK is very well protected. Do you know why? Because I like them.”
The Executive Order of Trump will ‘operational’ the US-OK deal last month, which reduces a US rate of 27.5 percent on cars to 10 percent for the first 100,000 vehicles sent from the UK each year. The deal will also save the British export of jet engines and other parts of the space of American rates.
But British officials are still negotiating about steel and aluminum provisions, with uncertainty about whether it would cover the largest steel manufacturer Tata in Great Britain.
After closing his two blast furnaces in Port Talbot last year, Tata Staal imports from his sister factories in India and the Netherlands for processing in the UK and then send to customers. However, this could violate the American rules that require all the steel to be “melted and cast” in the country from which it is imported.
Gareth Stace, director-general of Trade Body UK Steel, said that it is looking forward to “looking out Imminiet from a rate speed that is comparable to those that will enjoy the car and space industry in seven days”.
Starmer said on Tuesday at the G7 top in Canada that the steel part of the trade agreement was now in the “implementation phase”. He said this did not need that Great Britain changed the Chinese ownership of British Steel, which has two blast furnaces in his factory in Scunthorpe.
In April, the government adopted the emergency legislation to take control of British steel after the China’s Jingye said it was planning to close the factory.
Chandra, a former managing partner of Hakluyt, a consultancy firm in London, has been accused by Starmer from bringing the conversations to a conclusion, together with important American embassy-trading experts Mungo Woodifield and Kirsty Mcvicar.
The British side admits that conversations about steel with the American side, also with regard to the American trading representative Jamieson Greer, are “difficult”, but officials say that they are “reasonably certain that we will come” in the first week of July.
Steel producers in the rest of the world compete with a 50 percent levy on their export to the US after Trump doubled the existing 25 percent levy this month – although he offered the VK an exemption to allow time for the implementation of the trade agreement.
The American trade agreement is intended to reduce American rates for British steel and aluminum rates to zero.
The executive order of Trump on Monday also said that the US with the UK would negotiate potential American pharmaceutical rates that may apply. “We have some work to do about that,” said a British officer.
Starmer’s ability to make progress in a trade agreement with the US – where others have failed – is partly seen in London as a reflection of the unlikely but apparently strong relationship between the Prime Minister and Trump, together with their teams.
But there is also an opinion that Trump wants to show the rest of the world that he is willing to conclude a deal with ‘reasonable’ partners. “It is a sign for the EU, Japan, South Korea and others that he is willing to do a balanced deal,” said a British official.
