Skip to main content
CND protest at Fairford
Tory trade deals on the rocks
The Prime Minister’s pursuit of post-Brexit deals with other economies is going nowhere, reports TONY BURKE
Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that a UK-US trade deal this year was 'unlikely'

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had bad news for Boris Johnson last week.

Lighthizer told the House ways and means committee — the chief tax-writing committee of the House of Representatives — that securing a US-UK trade deal by the end of the year is unlikely.

It is Britain’s stated objective to strike deals with the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan that would make up the shortfall of no deal with the EU — and open the way for Britain to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement For Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). That agreement covers Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
CWU leader Dave Ward
TUC Congress 2025 / 8 September 2025
8 September 2025

CWU leader DAVE WARD tells Ben Chacko a strategy to unite workers on class lines is needed – and sectoral collective bargaining must be at its heart

Monica Crowley, White House chief of protocol (obstructed at left) greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, right, upon arriving to meet with President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, August 18, 2025
Features / 28 August 2025
28 August 2025

US tariffs have had Von der Leyen bowing in submission, while comments from the former European Central Bank leader call for more European political integration and less individual state sovereignty. All this adds up to more pain and austerity ahead, argues NICK WRIGHT

Prime Minister Keir Starmer picks up UK US trade deal papers dropped by US President Donald Trump before speaking to the media at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, June 16, 2025
Britain / 17 June 2025
17 June 2025