0:00
Is this desperation from the president? He needed a deal, didn't he
0:03
He certainly did need to change the channel. The economy contracted in the first quarter after
0:08
three years of growth. The markets were reacting badly. So this does change the channel for him
0:14
domestically. And he knows how to sell a deal, which we all saw from the Oval Office earlier
0:19
today. And he sold a deal. Has he oversold it? Well, I don't know if there's anything that the
0:28
president doesn't oversell. That's just sort of his MO. But I do think it's helpful to look a
0:34
little bit at the larger picture, which is this really places the UK, in my view, in the driver's
0:40
seat in terms of setting a standard for what other countries are going to want to achieve
0:45
And if the other members of Europe cannot collectively force the EU to come to an
0:52
arrangement similar to the UK's, there's going to be a lot of domestic pressure on their governments
0:56
to cut separate deals. And conversely, if they are going to delay
1:01
coming to that realization, it going to make the UK much more attractive for foreign direct investment So I can see this having knock effects and benefit the UK down the road But again it really does highlight the difference between the UK
1:16
being independent and being able to act that way in the EU, which now has a collective decision
1:21
making and how slow and deliberate that is. Yes. And isn't the slight risk for the UK
1:26
that because the EU is such a larger market than the UK, there is going to be, if the UK has set
1:32
the benchmark at this level, the EU might well be thinking, well, hang on, we can do better than that
1:37
because we're a much larger market and the Americans will realise that one day
1:42
Well, that may be the case, but it's going to be that one day, which given how slowly these
1:49
deliberations take could be many, many years. After all, as we heard from President Obama
1:54
he was unable to get a trade agreement with the EU despite his wanting to do so. So there's no
2:00
guarantee that it will ever materialize. But in the meantime, the UK can move forward. And again
2:05
the larger issue is the strategic relationship between the UK and the US, what this means across
2:11
the board for military sharing for intel sharing for all the sorts of things that the two countries have done in the past and quite frankly have been a little bit sort of friction for the past few four months
2:26
So I think this augurs well for the US and the UK moving forward together
2:31
Good to speak to you. Thank you for coming on. Mitchell B. Rees, diplomat, who has worked for five US administrations
2:36
including at the White House and State Department. Twelve past five. Let's come to your calls
2:40
Matthew's in Heathrow. Hi, Matthew. Hi, Matthew. No, it's meant to be there. Matthew
2:47
Yes, you're on. Matthew. Oh, hi. Yes, I know. Yes, you're on
2:53
Yeah, what it is, I think basically we shouldn't break out the champagne yet
2:57
because we've got to see what deal the EU gets with Europe
3:03
with the US, because they're a bigger market. So I think that's why they've done the deal with us first
3:10
And now the EU is going to be fighting for a better deal and we're going to lose out well i think it's hard is it that's only if we lose out it's pretty
3:19
hard to argue that this is a bad thing particularly if you work in the car section this country to
3:22
have those tariffs reduced from 25 27 down to 10 for a hundred thousand cars a year that that clearly not a bad thing Yeah no I agree I mean it is good but we got to you know
3:36
we mustn't celebrate because I think, you know, unfortunately it's going to prove Brexit is not a success
3:42
because of, you know, what deal then the EU is going to get
3:47
I think, Matthew, this is, in a sense, this isn't about Brexit
3:52
This is a deal that we have had to come to in order to sort of get back near to where we were before the tariffs were applied
3:59
But to be fair, were it not for Brexit, we'd have had to do all this through the EU, which possibly may have been even more complicated and difficult
4:08
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I agree. Let's see what the EU gets. Break out the champagne
4:15
Do you think this vindicates Keir Starmer's strategy of, what's a nice way of being
4:21
being diplomatic around Donald Trump, let's say? Yeah, no, there's definitely, I mean
4:26
the way he's played the cards is that, yeah, I mean, we've sort of, you know
4:31
we've done it on a friendly basis and that's the way negotiations should be done
4:35
and, you know, not, you know, walking out of the room, as he was saying and everything
