Britain could do slimmed down trade deal with US within months, says former minister
Britain could do a slimmed down trade deal with the United States within months, the last politician to oversee negotiations with Donald Trump’s administration over a UK-US agreement has told Sky News.
Last night Sky News revealed that leading members of the Trump administration believe a trade deal with the UK could be sealed in a matter of months.
Mr Trump has singled out Keir Starmer for praise and suggested that he wanted to change UK trade policy.
Politics latest: Billions to be spent to increase state pension
Britain was negotiating a full Free Trade Agreement with Mr Trump during his first presidency, but this was junked by his successor President Biden.
The negotiations were overseen by then Tory trade secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who told Sky News that a deal could even be struck with the US before the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement is concluded.
Ms Trevelyan said about half the work on a deal had already been concluded under the Boris Johnson administration.
“I was the trade secretary just at the end of the first Trump administration, and we had already, been moving discussions, probably about halfway there. In terms of the trade negotiations.”
She said that the US can work faster than the EU on trade negotiations, and that might be concluded first.
Former trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan. Pic: Reuters
“I think absolutely that’s possible. I think the challenge with anything with the EU is you’re dealing with, you know, multiple countries who all have to agree. And the challenge with any trade deal, which is why TCA took a long time to negotiate to the level that we got, is that everyone’s pulling a little bit differently.”
On President Trump’s style, she said: “I think, realistically, because of the way Trump works, which is transactional but very determined, he’ll take decisions, big decisions.”
The negotiation between the UK and the US began in May 2020 when Liz Truss was trade secretary and lasted until the end of Mr Trump’s time in office in January 2021. Ms Trevelyan was trade secretary from September 2021 to September 2022.
Up to five chapters – areas of trade negotiation – had been completed but the most difficult, agriculture and trade, had not been sorted.
The United States has different food standards to the UK and EU, and is not currently able to sell into our market – which has previously been a big ask.
Trump latest: EU would respond ‘within an hour’ to Trump tariffs
However Ms Trevelyan said that omitting agriculture from the deal could get it over the line, providing there were sufficient other wins for the US.
She said that the UK and US trade deal could make a big difference.
“A UK-US trade move will be a big, punchy, broad ranging trade deal,” she said.
👉Listen to Politics At Jack And Sam’s on your podcast app👈
“I think what’s important is what are we good at? What’s the UK good at? What do we want to be able to do more? Our financial services, second only in the world to the US, are fantastic.
“(You look for) lots of things where we don’t crash into each other. Really important for success in a trade deal is where you get that complementarity.
“What is it that the US has that they want to sell to us that, you know, isn’t of concern to us? So some of the conversations with California around some of their nuts and properties like that, there’s all sorts of different pulls and pushes that you work together as a whole.”
She went on: “It’ll be everything from financial services through to whisky and everything in between. The market is enormous, important issues around metals, steel and aluminium are really important ones. So, we had got caught, when I had just come into post, actually an EU tariff last time round that President Trump was putting tariffs on people around steel aluminium.”
But Lord Kim Darroch, the UK’s ambassador to the US during Donald Trump’s first presidency, said he was sceptical about a UK-US trade deal.
Speaking to Sophy Ridge on the Politics Hub, Lord Darroch said the UK’s problems stem from the fact that food and agriculture standards are higher here than they are in the US.
He explained that there are “two big regulatory schemes” in the world, one being the EU’s and the other being America’s.
“At the moment, we are still basically aligned with the EU,” he said.
“One of the objectives of the Americans would be to pull us into their regulatory system,” he adds, and – given we do more far more trade with Europe than America – “I don’t see that being in the national interest.”
A group of investors has filed a class-action lawsuit against decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Meteora, alleging the firm was involved in manipulating the launch and market price of the M3M3 token.
In an amended complaint filed on April 21 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the plaintiffs allege that venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, Meteora, and four current or former executives “intentionally misrepresented” information in the M3M3 launch in December 2024.
The investors claimed that they suffered at least $69 million in losses between December 2024 and February 2025 after the parties presented “trusted leaders in the Solana ecosystem” as being behind the token launch, rather than a “blatant fraud” in which sales were manipulated to artificially inflate the price.
“This artificially-inflated valuation communicated highly misleading information to non-insider investors, who reasonably relied on Defendants’ representations that the $M3M3 launch was fully accessible to the public and conducted in a transparent manner fair to non-insider investors, and thus reasonably relied on $M3M3 market price as a meaningful measure of its value,” the complaint reads. “The post-launch price spike also served to corroborate Defendants’ aggressively-marketed, but misleading, assertions that $M3M3 had intrinsic value and a comparatively low risk profile.”
The lawsuit is one of many involving different crypto firms that have alleged fraud through violations of US securities laws. Though the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under acting chair Mark Uyeda since US President Donald Trump took office, has scaled back or dismissed many enforcement actions involving digital assets, the agency said in February it still intended to pursue cases against fraudulent token projects.
The investors added:
“Together, Defendants designed the $M3M3 Token and planned its launch on Meteora in a manner intended to illicitly enrich themselves at the expense of the unsuspecting investing public.”
Related: Meteora says co-founder’s X account hacked after ‘parasitic’ memecoin post
Memecoins in the Solana ecosystem
Meteora has been tied to the launch of several high-profile yet controversial tokens, including those for Trump (TRUMP), his wife Melania (MELANIA), Libra (LIBRA), and online influencer Haliey Welch (HAWK).
According to the lawsuit, the firm “purported to offer a comprehensive solution to the problems in the memecoin investment market” with the launch of M3M3. The defendants in the case allegedly attempted to distinguish the token from other notable memecoins by highlighting the “legitimacy and trustworthiness” through the involvement of Meteora co-founder Ben Chow and the platform.
Kelsier Ventures, KIP Protocol, and Meteora face a similar class-action lawsuit filed in New York in March over LIBRA allegedly being launched in a “deceptive, manipulative and fundamentally unfair” manner. Argentine President Javier Milei briefly promoted the token over social media after his sister reportedly received payments from the project.
Magazine: Memecoin degeneracy is funding groundbreaking anti-aging research
More than 70 cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are slated for review by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this year. According to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, the list includes proposed ETFs holding a range of assets, from altcoins to memecoins to derivatives instruments.
“Everything from XRP, Litecoin and Solana to Penguins, Doge and 2x Melania and everything in between,” Balchunas said in an April 21 post on the X platform. “Gonna be a wild year.”
Related: ARK adds staked Solana to two tech ETFs
Uncertain institutional demand
The planned funds listings come as institutional investors turn increasingly bullish on crypto as an asset class.
Upward of 80% of institutions say they plan to increase allocations to crypto in 2025, according to a March report by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon.
However, analysts caution that just because ETFs are approved for US listings doesn’t guarantee widespread adoption, especially for funds holding more obscure alternative cryptocurrencies.
“Having your coin get ETF-ized is like being in a band and getting your songs added to all the music streaming services,” Balchunas said.
“Doesn’t guarantee listens but it puts your music where the vast majority of the listeners are.”
Sygnum Bank’s research head, Katalin Tischhauser, told Cointelegraph she expects altcoin ETFs to see cumulative inflows of several hundred million to $1 billion, far less than spot Bitcoin funds.
Funds holding Bitcoin (BTC) — the first spot cryptocurrency approved for listing in a US ETF wrapper — attracted upward of $100 billion in net assets last year.
However, ETFs using options and other derivatives to provide structured exposure to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether might see more institutional uptake, analysts said.
Options on spot cryptocurrencies unlock numerous potential portfolio strategies for investors and could potentially catalyze “explosive” price upside for digital assets such as Bitcoin, Jeff Park, Bitwise Invest’s head of alpha strategies, said in September.
Options are contracts granting the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a certain price.
On April 21, ARK Invest added exposure to staked Solana (SOL) to two of its existing ETFs. The asset manager said it marks the first time spot SOL has been available to US investors in an ETF.
Magazine: ‘Bitcoin layer 2s’ aren’t really L2s at all: Here’s why that matters
New filings from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reveal that several cryptocurrency firms and their executives made significant contributions to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration fund after the results of the 2024 election.
According to FEC filings made public on April 20 by the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams donated more than $245,000, Solana Labs donated $1 million, and software firm Consensys sent $100,000 in January 2025 to support the then-president-elect’s inauguration. Many major crypto firms had previously announced their support of Trump through donations to the inaugural fund, including Coinbase, Ripple Labs, Kraken, Ondo Finance, and Robinhood.
Altogether, the fund reported more than $239 million in net donations between Nov. 15 and April 20 from companies and individuals. These included $1 million from McDonald’s, $1 million from Meta, $1 million from Apple CEO Tim Cook, $1 million from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and various contributions from Delta Air Lines, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Nvidia, PayPal, Target, and Coca-Cola.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20 and appointed Mark Uyeda as acting chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency has dropped multiple investigations and enforcement actions against crypto firms, including those that donated to the president’s 2024 campaign or inauguration fund. In February, Uniswap reported that the SEC had dropped its probe into the firm, and Consensys founder Joseph Lubin said the agency had agreed to end a separate lawsuit.
Memecoins, stablecoin issuers, and future elections
Trump’s memecoin, launched on Jan. 17 on the Solana blockchain — along with his wife Melania’s, which was available a few days later — has many in the crypto industry and the US government questioning the president about conflicts of interest by capitalizing on his position. The president’s family is also behind the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm responsible for a US dollar-pegged stablecoin at a time when lawmakers are considering legislation to regulate the technology.
In addition to the Consensys case, the SEC said it intended to drop enforcement actions or investigations into Ripple, Kraken, Robinhood and Coinbase. The three firms donated a combined $9 million to the inauguration fund.
Related: Trump’s next crypto play will be Monopoly-style game — Report
The 2024 US election cycle saw crypto-backed political action committees (PACs) spending more than $131 million to influence races in crucial congressional districts. The Fairshake PAC has already said it had more than $100 million available, in part from contributions from Coinbase and Ripple, to spend on the 2026 midterms.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway