Donald Trump hails UK trade deal – as PM agrees concessions on food and agriculture
Donald Trump has hailed the trade deal with the UK as “full and comprehensive” as he promised it would cement the relationship between the two countries for “years to come”.
The US president said it was a “great honour” to strike an agreement with the UK and said deals with other countries would soon follow.
Posting on the Truth Social website, Mr Trump said: “The agreement with the United Kingdom is a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come.
“Because of our long time history and allegiance together, it is a great honour to have the United Kingdom as our FIRST announcement. Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!”
Reports that the two countries had struck an agreement first emerged in the New York Times – and Sky News has since been told that terms had now been agreed.
Deputy political editor Sam Coates says he understands a “heads of terms” agreement, essentially a preliminary arrangement, has been agreed, which is a “substantive” step towards a full deal.
No physical UK-US trade document is expected to be signed today as a result.
While the details are yet to emerge, Sky News business correspondent Paul Kelso understands the UK has agreed to give some concessions on food and agriculture imports from the United States to secure an easing of export tariffs for the car industry.
Kelso said the “heads of terms” deal appears to be coming down to what the UK can secure by way of concessions on tariffs.
Shortly after the New York Times report emerged, the value of the British pound rose by 0.4% against the US dollar.
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What could US-UK trade deal mean for industry?
‘Renewal for our country’
Mr Trump said “this should be a very big and exciting day” for the US and UK, in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, adding there would be an announcement in the Oval Office at 10am local time (3pm UK time).
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer vowed to “deliver security and renewal for our country” ahead of the expected announcement.
Speaking to the London defence conference, Sir Keir said: “Talks with the US have been ongoing and you’ll hear more from me about that later today.
“But make no mistake, I will always act in our national interest, for workers, businesses and families, to deliver security and renewal for our country.”
Senior Trump officials have been engaging in a flurry of meetings with trading partners since the US president announced his “liberation day” tariffs on both the US’ geopolitical rivals and allies on 2 April.
Mr Trump imposed a 10% tariff on most countries including the UK during the announcement, along with higher “reciprocal” tariff rates for many trading partners.
However, those reciprocal tariffs were later suspended for 90 days.
Britain was not among the countries hit with the higher reciprocal tariffs because it imports more from the US than it exports there.
However, the UK was still impacted by a 25% tariff on all cars and all steel and aluminium imports to the US.
A UK official said on Tuesday that the two countries had made good progress on a trade deal that would likely include lower tariff quotas on steel and cars.
Read more:
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Trump Tariffs: How the 10 days unfolded
Mr Trump said the same day that he and top administration officials would review potential trade deals with other countries over the next two weeks to decide which ones to accept.
Last week, he said that he has “potential” trade deals with India, South Korea and Japan.
Asked on Sky News’ Breakfast programme about the UK-EU summit on 19 May and how Sir Keir would balance relationships with the US and EU, Coates said: “I think it is politically helpful for Keir Starmer to have got the heads of terms, the kind of main points of a US-UK trade deal, nailed down before we see what we have negotiated with the EU — or, more importantly, Donald Trump sees what we have negotiated with the EU.”
Coates said there was “always a danger” that if it happened the other way around, Mr Trump would “take umbrage” at negotiations with the EU and “downgrade, alter or put us further back in the queue” when it came to a UK-US trade deal.
US and Chinese officials to discuss trade war
It comes as the US and China have been engaged in an escalating trade war since Mr Trump took office in January.
The Trump administration has raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% while Beijing has responded with levies of 125% in recent weeks.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US trade representative Jamieson Greer are set to meet their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this week to discuss the trade war.
China has made the de-escalation of the tariffs a requirement for trade negotiations, which the meetings are supposed to help establish.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering rule changes to let companies more freely issue tokenized securities, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said in a speech published on May 8.
The regulator is “considering a potential exemptive order” for firms using blockchain technology to “issue, trade, and settle securities” that would release them from certain registration requirements, Peirce said in the speech.
For example, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) may no longer need to register “as a broker-dealer, clearing agency, or an exchange,” Peirce said. The SEC has previously brought numerous charges against DEXs such as Uniswap for failing to register as securities exchanges.
Firms should “not have to comply with inapt regulations, which, in many cases, were developed well before the technologies being tested existed and may be obviated by attributes of that technology,” Peirce said.
Under such an exemption, companies would still be expected to comply with rules designed to prevent fraud and market manipulation, the commissioner said. They may also need to meet certain disclosure and recordkeeping requirements.
Related: Nasdaq urges SEC to treat certain digital assets as ‘stocks by any other name’
Sharp policy pivot
The SEC has dramatically pivoted its stance on cryptocurrency oversight since US President Donald Trump took office in January.
Under the leadership of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, the agency brought upward of 100 lawsuits against crypto firms for alleged securities law violations.
However, under Trump nominee Paul Atkins, who was sworn in as chair on April 21, the agency has claimed jurisdiction over a narrower segment of cryptocurrencies.
In February, the SEC issued guidance stating that memecoins — if clearly identified as purely speculative assets with no intrinsic value — do not qualify as investment contracts under US law.
In April, the regulator said that stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to the US dollar — similarly do not qualify as securities if they are marketed solely as a means of making payments.
Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race
Missouri House Bill 594, a bill that would eliminate capital gains tax in the US state, has passed a vote in the state House of Representatives and now heads to Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe’s desk for signature.
According to attorney Aaron Brogan, the bill stipulates a 100% income tax deduction for any capital gains income because the Missouri tax code does not explicitly distinguish between capital gains and income tax.
Brogan told Cointelegraph that the specific mechanism to exempt capital gains taxes outlined in HB 594 is unique and compared it to a similar income tax deduction in the federal tax code. The attorney explained:
“The most natural comparison is the state and local tax (SALT) deduction that the federal government offers — where the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) permits individuals to deduct a certain amount of tax paid in state and local taxes. This is the inverse, which I have never seen before.”
The bill’s timing is significant in that it follows proposals from US President Donald Trump to overhaul the country’s income tax system through comprehensive reform.
Related: US lawmaker targets crypto investors using Puerto Rico as a tax haven
Trump proposes eliminating federal income tax in the United States
Trump has proposed offsetting federal income taxes or eliminating the income tax and replacing the federal tax revenue with money raised through import tariffs.
“When Tariffs cut in, many people’s income taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated. The focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year,” the president wrote in an April 27 Truth Social post.
Trump added the plan will create more jobs in the United States as factories return to avoid import duties on their finished products.
Despite this, the market reaction to the tariffs has been overwhelmingly negative, with the stock market recording trillions of dollars in losses in response to tariff headlines and crypto markets shedding hundreds of billions in value.
Additionally, bond yields spiked following the tariff announcements — a sign that investors were rejecting US bonds, which are traditionally seen as a flight to safety.
Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again
Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky will probably be allowed to travel for his daughter’s wedding regardless of the outcome of his May 8 sentencing hearing.
In a May 8 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge John Koeltl approved an application for Mashinsky to travel from New York to Memphis, Tennessee, between May 26 and May 29 for his daughter’s wedding. The approval was available on the public docket as of May 8, but appeared to have been removed at the time of publication.
Judge Koeltl will determine in a May 8 hearing whether Mashinsky serves prison time following a plea deal with prosecutors.
The former Celsius CEO appeared ready to go to trial in 2024 until his lawyers lost a motion to have his charges dismissed. In December, He pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of the platform’s native token, CEL.
Related: Celsius’ Mashinsky lashes out at ‘death-in-prison sentence’
Mashinsky has been free on a $40-million bond since July 2023, with travel outside certain areas requiring court approval, such as the roughly 900-mile (1,500-kilometer) distance between New York and Memphis. At the time of publication, it was unclear if he will be expected to surrender to authorities.
Potentially facing decades in prison
Prosecutors have asked the judge to impose a 20-year sentence on the former Celsius CEO, while Mashinsky’s lawyers requested that he serve one year and one day in prison. The hearing could be a bellwether for how criminal cases involving cryptocurrency could change under the Trump administration, which appointed the interim US Attorney for the court district.
On April 17, Mashinsky’s lawyers submitted a letter from his oldest daughter in support of her father ahead of sentencing. The letter claims that Mashinsky does not deserve a “severe punishment,” writing that he “never set out to steal from anyone.” Other members of his family penned similar letters.
The same court district oversaw the sentencing of former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, who is currently serving 25 years in prison.
Magazine: ‘Less flashy’ Mashinsky set for less jail time than SBF: Inner City Press, X Hall of Flame
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