President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with the United Kingdom in the Oval Office on Thursday, claiming it is the “first of many” to come as his 90-day tariff pause deadline creeps ever closer. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined the announcement over the phone and Trump took questions from reporters following their remarks.
Sky News’s James Matthews asked a pointed question of Trump when called on and insinuated that the detail-light announcement may not actually be a substantial change in the trade agreements between the two countries.
“I’d like to ask, why Britain, and why now? And you describe this deal as a full and comprehensive deal, and yet we’ve just heard from Mr. Malmer, saying it’s the end of the beginning. Clearly, there’s much more work still to do. With respect, are you overstating the reach and significance of this deal because you’re a president who needs a result at a difficult time?” Matthews asked.
“I think that it’s a great deal for both parties. It’s for us. We’re opened up. I didn’t know how closed it was. Quite closed, the market, as you know, the U.K. And it opens up a tremendous market for us, and it works out very well, very well,” Trump began. Notably, the U.S. reported a near 12 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.K. – Trump has long held his tariffs were meant to force countries away from historic trade deficits with the U.S..
“And a lot of assets, you see the chart, and those are tremendous assets. But we’ve been trying, and when you say why us, meaning your country. We’ve been trying for years, and they’ve been trying for years to make a deal, including when I was in the, you know, first term. It would always be people talking, but they weren’t getting it done. But for 25 years before that, they were trying always to make a deal. A very significant deal,” Trump continued, adding:
I actually, until I looked at the numbers, I didn’t realize this is a very comprehensive deal. But we think we can grow it even from that. But this is the maxed out deal, not like you said it. You said it really incorrectly. This is a maxed out deal that we’re going to make bigger and we make it bigger through growth.
But we have tremendous assets involved. I was surprised to see how big your country is in trade. Actually, one of the biggest in technology and so many other things. It’s agriculture. I really didn’t know. Depending on your definition it’s from four to five to six. That’s pretty big in the world.
So I was very impressed by that, but we’re going to take it to new levels. It’s a very big deal right now, but I think it is going to grow. Just of its own volition, it’s going to go. Over time, there will be changes made, there’ll be adjustments made because we’re flexible. We’ll see things that we can do even better. But it’s very conclusive, and we think everyone’s going to be happy.
And the people of your country are going to be very impressed with the result and they’ll be able to buy from more people, they’ll be able to price things differently, they’ll be able to get some products that aren’t available to them now that we make better than anybody in the world. And it’s just something that it’s a great thing that it came together, it’s so nice because we have many countries want to make a deal and many countries are very unhappy that we happen to choose this one to be honest with you, but it’s long time our oldest ally, or just about. I guess a couple of people claim that too, but let’s put it right at the top. I think it’s gonna be something very special for UK and special for the United States.
Watch above via MSNBC.
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