ALEX BRUMMER: This is why the UK-US trade deal is NOT the triumph that Starmer wants us to think it is

Anyone listening to the love-in between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer as they announced their VE-day trade deal might easily conclude this was the greatest day in the post-war history of the two English-speaking peoples.

No doubt Labour, aided and abetted by the Prince of Darkness Peter Mandelson, will proclaim its triumph. Britain is first to sign a trade deal with the United States after Trump unleashed global tariff mayhem on ‘Liberation Day’ – April 2 to the rest of us.

The Prime Minister can fairly say that he helped move Britain to the front of the queue, after Boris Johnson was famously bumped to the back by Democrat president Barack Obama after the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Yet before anyone puts up the bunting and the band plays Hail To The Chief, it is worth considering the lack of substance to this deal.

By no stretch of the imagination can it be considered the gold-plated ‘free-trade agreement’ Britain has long hoped for. The deal temporarily rescues Britain’s car and aerospace industries, as well as what remains of our steel-making, but it leaves the most vexed questions unanswered.

By no stretch of the imagination can Donald Trump and Keir Starmer's trade deal be considered the gold-plated ‘free-trade agreement’ Britain has long hoped for

Will American big tech, for example, be allowed to run roughshod over Britain’s creative sector? And what about providing Britain’s leading life sciences sector with access to US markets?

And then there is the ongoing uncertainty and unpredictability which has smashed consumer, investor and business confidence on both sides of the Atlantic. That is far from being banished.

There is much for British consumers, farmers and business to be worried about. There was no reference at all, from either side, to the dreaded idea of chlorine-sterilised chicken on our supermarket shelves. But Trump was bursting with pride at the idea of flooding Britain with beef from hormone-enhanced American steers.

It must be acknowledged the deal will relieve some of the most immediate pressure on British commerce. The removal of the 27.5 per cent levy on the first 100,000 British cars exported to the US will be a great benefit to Jaguar Land Rover, BMW-owned Mini, and luxury manufacturers Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls-Royce Motors.

Britain is first to sign a trade deal with the United States after Trump unleashed global tariff mayhem on ‘Liberation Day’

But that quota of 100,000, against the 93,000 vehicles delivered in the last year, places a strong restriction on expansion. The removal of tariffs on UK specialist steels and aluminium will also be a relief. Given, however, that British steel production stands on the brink of extinction, this is something of a hollow victory.

In the background at the Oval Office, as Trump extolled America’s admiration for Britain, was a whiteboard showing top US trade official Howard Lutnick believes he had the better of the art of the deal. It showed the remaining general tariff of 10 per cent on British goods arriving in the US would raise $6billion (£4.5billion) for the US Treasury. Meanwhile, the opening of the British market to American goods would be worth $5billion (£3.8billion) to US exporters.

For the past several weeks there has been frenzied speculation that ‘technology’ would be front and centre of any trade pact between the two countries.

The bargain as outlined is that the UK would open its doors wide to billions of pounds of Silicon Valley and AI investment in exchange for Britain removing the digital services tax on big tech retailers such as Amazon. That is expected to raise £800million for the Exchequer this year. Yet when push came to shove there was no detailed mention of any of this.

When the mutual back-slapping fades, the deal they have unveiled is far shallower and much less advantageous that Downing Street wants us to believe

Pharmaceuticals and film production, two critical sectors for Britain, that had been hoping for an end to uncertainty, were left none the wiser. UK giants AstraZeneca and GSK have been quietly lobbying for a no-tariff deal on the grounds that their exports are of vital importance to the health of the American people. Yet for the moment the 10 per cent tariff remains in place.

Independent forecaster Oxford Economics noted that the Starmer deal would provide ‘limited relief for autos, steel and aluminium’ but these exemptions would only ‘nibble away at the effective tariff rate’.

The apparently fond relationship between the sometimes robotic Prime Minister and America’s mercurial President is one of most unlikely between world leaders. Yet the truth is that when the mutual back-slapping fades the deal they have unveiled is far shallower and much less advantageous that Downing Street wants us to believe.