Dem
47
GOP
53
Well, it happened. Donald Trump announced his "MAJOR TRADE DEAL" and it got buried by the papal news. That might actually be for the best for him, as the announcement on Wednesday was considerably more impressive than the deliverables on Thursday.
It is worth remembering that the United States became an independent nation, in large part, due to trade issues with the United Kingdom. So, it is interesting to see that trade between the U.K. and the U.S. is once again a major issue, albeit coming from a very different place than back in the 1760s. Per the headline, if Paul Revere were alive today, he would of course want to see the U.S. "win" and the U.K. "lose." We guess that makes Revere a proto-Trump, on some level, although we should note that Revere preferred silver to gold, he did not shirk his responsibilities when a war came, and he was physically fit enough to mount a horse. So, we can't take this proto-Trump stuff too far.
Anyhow, it's hard to know what Revere would think of this "deal" because, predictably, yesterday's announcement was thin on details. As expected, it's not actually a deal, it's a framework for a deal. The stated plan is that the 10% tariffs on British imports to the U.S. will remain in place, at least for now, but that the announced 27.5% tariffs on British cars will be dropped to 10%, while the tariffs on British aluminum and steel will be eliminated entirely. In exchange, the British will ease the import of American beef and ethanol (i.e., products made by the farmers who are key to Trump's base) but the specifics are unclear.
This is enough for both Trump and British PM Sir Keir Starmer to declare a "win," something they both need, politically. But it's clearly not any sort of game-changer, even when (and if) the framework becomes an actual trade pact. Since we are not economists, we'll pass along this assessment from Stan Veuger, who actually is an economist, and who works for the center-right American Enterprise Institute: "[You] could say they basically took the status quo, made marginal changes and called it a deal."
If a person wants to be hopeful about the U.S. economy, and about the (increasingly small) chance that Trump won't drive the economy off a cliff, then here's the positive spin: If the U.S. and U.K. can actually work something out, it could become a template for trade deals with other countries, trade deals that might allow Trump to back off the tariffs while still saving face and "winning." We do not propose this is particularly likely, but it's the "glass half full" way of looking at things (although, in this case, we'd say the glass is really only about 5% full, so it requires several extra servings of Pollyanna-ism to make it work). (Z)