UK and US have agreed trade deal terms, Sky News understands

It’s an extremely busy morning for us here in the Politics Hub, as news travels that the US and UK have agreed a trade deal at long last.

Our experts have had a lot to say on the matter – and just what this deal could mean for the British economy.

Ed Conway, our economics and data editor, notes that although this won’t be an “Earth-shattering” deal – it is highly symbolic for the UK.

He says: “It’s on – I’ve heard that from multiple sources now – it’s just a question of what the precise details of it are, which sectors are covered by it.

“But this has been worked on for months now. You’ve had officials from the UK and the US in many, many different meetings.

“In fact, I was in Washington DC just a couple of weeks ago, and at that point officials thought they were going to get it done within a fortnight.

“It’s been just 13 days since then, so that was quite right.”

However, Ed does set our expectations on the deal.

He said: “This is not going to be a big trade deal, so this is not the kind of thing those enormous, Earth shattering kind of trade deals that take many years to negotiate.

“By definition, there are just too many areas where the UK and the US just still have big differences.”

He mentions the matter of agriculture, and “whether hormone-fed beef and chlorinated chicken is acceptable for import to the UK”.

But when you’re looking at things like cars and steel, Ed explains, there are some areas where the UK “now faces tariffs that it didn’t have to before”.

Ed says this trade deal is a “massive deal for the UK symbolically, it’s a massive deal – maybe arguably even more so for Donald Trump”.

Our deputy political editor Sam Coates agrees that there’s no doubt today will be a political win for the prime minister.

“It is a big moment, but the detail will be the question.”

He explains: “Britain is the head of the queue, we weren’t expecting to be the head of the queue.

“It means that Keir Starmer’s approach to Donald Trump has paid off. It’s been controversial, it’s been a rollercoaster, but it really does depend on exactly what he’s been able to negotiate.”

Sam says “nobody thinks that Donald Trump’s White House is a pushover when it comes to negotiations”.

“And while I have a hunch that there’s good news for cars – just some of the intel that’s floating around – so I think Keir Starmer will want to claim a win when it comes to cars today.

“And you would hope steel as well. But sources were very pessimistic about getting rid of the 10% tariffs one everything going to the US.”

“You’ve got to contextualise the win,” Sam says. 

“Not as some great win for the economy, but minimising the damage our alleged greatest ally has inflicted on us.”