Rishi Sunak says India trade deal is ‘not a given’ as he arrives in Delhi for G20 summit
Rishi Sunak has sounded a cautious note about the prospects of signing Britain’s biggest post-Brexit trade deal, saying it is “not a given”.
Speaking to reporters as he travelled to the G20 in Delhi, the prime minister said he would “check in” with Narendra Modi about the progress towards a free trade agreement.
But he played down the prospects of an imminent agreement, with hopes of signing it off on this – his first trip to India in office – seeming to have faded.
There are now hopes that after twelve rounds of negotiations, the two leaders may be able to reach agreement on another visit to India which is being discussed for later this year.
Mr Sunak said: “Without question, India is going to be one of the most significant countries geopolitically over the next years and decades and it’s vitally important for the UK to deepen our ties, particularly economically and more broadly, with India.
“So that’s why we’ve been working towards an ambitious and comprehensive free trade deal, but it’s not a given.
“These things are a lot of work and a lot of time. That’s why I’ve never put an artificial deadline on these trade deals, I’ve always said we shouldn’t sacrifice quality for speed. And we need to end up with something that works genuinely for both sides.
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“Of course, every time I see Prime Minister Modi, it’s something we check in at, but that’s not the main purpose of this trip. There are lots of other things we’re going to be discussing.”
Back at home, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly defended the speed of trade deal negotiations with India, saying they were progressing “quicker” than talks with the EU.
“Our trade negotiations with India have actually progressed quicker than other trade negotiations, including the EU’s trade negotiations with India,” he said.
“We’ve always said we want to get the right trade deal with India because it’s an incredibly important partner, not just rush it through.
“We’ve got to recognise that influence… takes time.”
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James Cleverly on India trade deal
He also told Sky News’s Niall Paterson the UK needs to “remind the world” that the war in Ukraine is an issue for those outside Europe. India has historic ties with Russia and has so far refused to denounce its invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Sunak will have a one-on-one meeting with Mr Modi on Saturday. He told reporters travelling with him that visiting India is “special” and “near and dear” to him, adding that he had been described by commentators as “India’s son-in-law.”
But a government source told Sky News that the “trickiest” issues in the deal are yet to be agreed. One of the issues is understood to be visas for Indian workers to come to the UK.
Trade deals typically include provisions for short-term business visas, but Mr Sunak has been clear that the UK’s points-based immigration policy will not change.
The prime minister said yesterday that “immigration is a separate issue” from trade and business, and that he believes net migration is “too high”.
A youth mobility scheme for 3,000 Indian workers per year to come to the UK was announced last year, but ministers have also announced plans to tighten rules for foreign students and their dependents, for which Indians are now the largest group.
Trade talks are understood to have focused on India lowering tariffs for British exports, including cars and Scotch whisky – for which India is the world’s biggest market.
But Mr Sunak has rejected the approach of his predecessor Boris Johnson and Liz Truss who set a deadline for a deal by Diwali in October last year.
He and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch have told cabinet colleagues they do not want a simple deal on goods, but a comprehensive deal which tackles issues around services.
The UK is said to be pushing for greater intellectual property rights for companies trading in India, where pharmaceutical companies produce cheap, generic drugs.
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Why is an India-UK deal important?
It would be the first free trade deal India has done with a European country, and a coup for both leaders, who are facing elections next year.
Trade with India, Britain’s twelfth biggest trading partner, is worth £36bn a year, and supporters of a deal say it could open a big new market for British firms.
But key questions surround how it would work. Sam Lowe of Flint Global, who served on the UK’s trade advisory group, said high-level compromises were needed.
He said: “The negotiations are in a holding pattern at the moment, and what’s probably required now is senior political intervention from Sunak and Modi to change the red lines.
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“Intuitively, they should be able to reach an agreement. India has done trade deals with Australia and the UAE and it’s negotiating with the EU and Canada, at the moment.
“But only on term it deems acceptable, and that comes with challenges for UK firms, they may not get everything they want in terms of access to India.”
How firms would qualify for lower tariffs – the “rules of origin” regulations about how much of the product needs to be produced in the UK, and what paperwork firms will need – are yet to be finalised. These decisions will “matter hugely for businesses in terms of whether the benefits of the trade deal are real or not”, Mr Lowe said.
Indian ministers have sounded much more optimistic about a trade deal being done this year.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told a conference in Delhi last month, shortly after a visit by Ms Badenoch, that “I won’t be wrong in saying a free trade agreement is very close”.
GD Culture Group (GDC), a Nasdaq-listed holding company focused on livestreaming, e-commerce and artificial intelligence-powered digital human technology, plans to raise up to $300 million for a cryptocurrency treasury reserve.
In a May 12 statement, GDC and its subsidiary, AI Catalysis, announced entering into a common stock purchase agreement with a British Virgin Islands limited liability company to sell up to $300 million of its common stock.
The proceeds from the stock sale will be used to fund the firm’s crypto treasury, which will include purchases of Bitcoin (BTC) and the Official Trump (TRUMP) token.
“Under this initiative, and subject to certain limitations, GDC intends to allocate a significant portion of the proceeds from any share sales under the facility to the acquisition, long-term holding, and integration of crypto assets into its core treasury operations,” the company said in the announcement.
GDC described the strategy as a move to align with the broader “decentralization transformation.”
Founded in 2016, GDC is a micro-cap company with a current $34 million market capitalization, according to Nasdaq data.
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GDC’s chairman and CEO, Xiaojian Wang, said the initiative builds on the company’s strengths in digital technologies and positions it for a blockchain-powered industrial shift.
“GDC’s adoption of crypto assets as treasury reserve holdings is a deliberate strategy that reflects both current industry trends and our unique strengths in digital technologies and the livestreaming e-commerce ecosystem,” Wang said.
The stock offering was announced over a month after the firm received a noncompliance warning from Nasdaq related to its stockholders’ equity. The notice indicated that the firm reported stockholders’ equity of only $2,643, well below the minimum requirement of $2.5 million.
The firm was given until May 4 to submit a plan to comply with the listing requirements. If accepted by Nasdaq, the compliance plan will allow up to 180 days from the notification period to comply with the requirements.
The Nevada-based company joins a small but growing group of public firms that are allocating part of their balance sheets to crypto assets.
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Trump token dinner planned for top holders
GDC’s announcement coincides with an upcoming high-profile event tied to the Trump token project. The 25 largest holders of TRUMP tokens are set to attend a private dinner at the White House on May 22.
However, the TRUMP memecoin project said in a May 12 X post that it has stopped considering additional purchases for the dinner and that the attendees had been notified to apply for background checks.
According to data provided on the project’s leaderboard, the top 220 wallets held more than 13.7 million tokens as of May 12, worth about $174 million at the time of publication.
Some US lawmakers have criticized the dinner. Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis reportedly said that the idea of the US president offering exclusive access for people willing to pay “gives [her] pause.”
Crypto regulation experts also fear that the Trump family’s crypto endeavors may trigger more regulatory scrutiny by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as politically affiliated memecoins introduce a new challenge for crypto legislation.
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A 21-year-old man has been arrested over a series of arson attacks, police have said, after a fire at a house owned by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The suspect was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life, according to the Metropolitan Police.
He remains in custody.
Emergency services were called to fires at the doors of two homes in north London within 24 hours of each other – one just after 1.35am on Monday in Kentish Town and the other on Sunday in Islington. Both properties are linked to Sir Keir.
Police are investigating links to several fires, which they are treating as suspicious. Pic: LNP
Detectives were also checking a vehicle fire last Thursday on the same street as the Kentish Town property to see whether it is connected.
Part of the area was cordoned off as police and London Fire Brigade (LFB) investigators examined the scene.
Neighbours described hearing a loud bang and said police officers were looking for a projectile.
Emergency services were deployed to the scene in Kentish Town, north London, on Monday. Pic: PA
Pic: PA
The prime minister is understood to still own the home, which was damaged by fire on Monday, but nobody was hurt. Pictures showed scorching at the entrance to the property.
Sir Keir used to live there before he and his family moved into 10 Downing Street after Labour won last year’s general election. It is believed the property is being rented out.
In the early hours of Sunday, firefighters dealt with a small fire at the front door of a house converted into flats in nearby Islington, which is also linked to the prime minister.
Counter-terror police are leading the investigation. Pic: LNP
In a statement, police said: “As a precaution and due to the property having previous connections with a high-profile public figure, officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command are leading the investigation into this fire.
“Enquiries are ongoing to establish what caused it. All three fires are being treated as suspicious at this time, and enquiries remain ongoing.”
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The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “I can only say that the prime minister thanks the emergency services for their work and it is subject to a live investigation. So I can’t comment any further.”
Kemi Badenoch has condemned the suspected arson attacks.
Writing on X, the Conservative leader said: “This is a shocking incident. My thoughts are with the prime minister and his family. No one should face these sorts of threats, let alone people in public service.
“It’s an attack on our democracy and must never be tolerated.”
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick told Sky News on Tuesday: “It’s important that the prime minister and anyone in public life has their family, their homes, protected.
“It is absolutely wrong, disgraceful, for any individual to take the kind of action that we saw against the prime minister’s home.”
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed two key cryptocurrency-related bills that aimed to expand the state’s involvement in digital assets while signing a strict regulatory measure targeting Bitcoin ATMs.
On May 12, Hobbs rejected Senate Bill 1373, which sought to establish a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund. The fund would have allowed Arizona to hold crypto assets obtained through seizures or legislative allocations.
“Current volatility in cryptocurrency markets does not make a prudent fit for general fund dollars,” she stated in her veto letter. “I have already signed legislation this session which allows the state to utilize cryptocurrency without placing general fund dollars at risk,” she added.
That decision followed her veto of Senate Bill 1025 — the more ambitious “Arizona Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act” — on May 3. It would have authorized up to 10% of the state’s treasury and retirement funds to be invested in Bitcoin and other digital assets.
According to data from bitcoinlaws.io, 26 US states have introduced strategic crypto reserve bills, with 18 of them currently active.
Hobbs also vetoed Senate Bill 1024, which would have permitted state agencies to accept cryptocurrency payments for taxes, fines and fees via approved service providers.
Although the proposal attempted to shield the state from direct exposure to price volatility, Hobbs said it still introduced “too much risk.”
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Hobbs approves Bitcoin ATM bill
On May 12, Hobbs approved House Bill 2387, which introduces new consumer protection rules for cryptocurrency kiosk (ATM) operators, aiming to reduce fraud and improve transparency.
The bill mandates that kiosks display clear, multilingual warnings about common crypto scams and require users to acknowledge these risks before completing transactions. Operators must also provide detailed receipts that include transaction data, contact information, fees and refund policies.
Furthermore, the bill caps transactions at $2,000 per day for new customers and $10,500 per day for returning users after 10 days. Kiosk providers must also offer 24/7 toll-free customer service and post the number visibly on each machine.
Under the bill, if a new user is tricked into sending crypto under false pretenses and reports it with proof within 30 days, they are entitled to a full refund, including fees.
According to CoinATMRadar, there are currently 20 active Bitcoin ATMs in Arizona.
Notably, Hobbs has not entirely closed the door on digital assets. On Wednesday, she signed House Bill 2749, which updates Arizona’s unclaimed property laws to include digital assets.
The legislation allows the state to retain unclaimed cryptocurrencies in their original form rather than liquidating them into fiat currency.
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