Tobin Harshaw, Columnist

The US-UK Trade Deal Remains Shrouded in Mystery

The nuts and bolts of Trump and Starmer’s “comprehensive” pact are nowhere to be found.

May 11, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC

Tobin Harshaw is a Bloomberg Opinion senior editor and columnist on national security and military affairs. Previously, he was deputy editor at the op-ed page of the New York Times and the newspaper’s letters editor.

Trump and Starmer agreeing on something or other.
Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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Two big things happened in my life this week. One was President Donald Trump’s threat to enact a 100% tariff on films made in other countries because “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” The other was the “tremendous,” “fantastic,” “historic” and “comprehensive” (read: sorta, kinda, maybe, let’s hash this out later) trade deal Trump hammered out with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.