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Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing US government agencies to implement his trade deal with the UK.
The president’s order will “operationalise” the US-UK agreement, under which Trump agreed to cut a 27.5 per cent American tariff on cars to 10 per cent for the first 100,000 vehicles shipped from the UK each year.
The deal will also ensure UK exports of jet engines and other aerospace parts to the US are spared from US tariffs, according to people familiar with the arrangements.
The waiving of aerospace tariffs is confirmation the UK will be exempted from any levies that emerge from a US national security probe into the industry that Trump has launched.
In the US-UK trade deal unveiled by Trump on May 8 in the Oval Office, there was a promise that Britain would be spared from some US national security tariffs if it met Washington’s requirements to exclude China from key supply chains.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has come under political pressure at home to implement the deal quickly, notably from industries affected by the tariffs.
Trump and Starmer met briefly on Monday on the margins of a G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, to discuss the trade deal.
“We just signed it and it’s done,” Trump told reporters shortly after the meeting.
White House officials said Trump had signed the executive order that will implement the trade deal.
Starmer confirmed the trade deal’s terms covering cars and aerospace trade would take effect.
“This is a very good day for both of our countries, a real sign of strength,” Starmer said.
In return for cuts to Trump’s tariffs, the UK granted the US greater market access for beef, ethanol and industrial products.
The trade deal is meant to lower US tariffs on UK steel and aluminium exports to zero, but there have been drawn-out negotiations over implementation.
UK officials said “technical and legal” issues were continuing to delay the confirmation of a quota that would enable British exporters to avoid a 25 per cent steel global tariff imposed by Trump on national security grounds.
Steel producers in the rest of the world are facing a 50 per cent levy on their exports to the US after Trump doubled the existing 25 per cent tariff this month, but he offered the UK an exemption to allow time for the implementation of the trade deal.
The negotiations have been complicated by how a significant proportion of UK steel is reprocessed from imported material and does not meet a US requirement that it is “melted and poured” in the country of origin to qualify for tariff exemptions.
UK steel industry bodies have said they do not expect arrangements to be finalised until the end of the month at the earliest.
The British automobile industry has welcomed how the trade deal provides them with a 10 per cent US tariff on 100,000 British vehicles exported to America each year.
However the decision to grant US ethanol producers a 1.4bn litre tariff-free quota, equivalent to the entire UK annual demand, has been attacked.
Britain’s bioethanol industry has warned the deal will destroy domestic producers.
