Keir Starmers' team lost when Trump rang to say that Hed won an agreement

Katy Balls: Is Us Trade a victory for the United Kingdom or were we really broken?

For months, the Prime Minister has faced intense criticism, especially his own benches, on his approach to Trump. Where other world leaders have made nails, confronting the American president on Ukraine and the world rates, Starmer took the diplomatic path. Flatterie and friendship offers were the agenda.

But when on April 2, or the Liberation Day as Trump called him, he imposed 25% tariffs on British exports of cars and steel prices of 10%, there was despair in certain circles of the government. For all the warm words, the United Kingdom had been treated in some respects more severely than many other nations.

Starmer is an agreement on the historic trade in the United Kingdom as an economic work, not the work done

Starmer decided that he had no choice but to persevere. The ministers and civil servants continued to speak, and last week there was a breakthrough. Varun Chandra, sales and investment advisor of Starmers, sent an e-mail to his counterpart in the waiting room outside the study of the Prime Ministers at number 10 telling him: were in place.

Thursday morning, it paid. Shortly after 1 a.m., when the Prime Minister and most of his team slept, Trump announced the news of the world on his social social media platform. The United States, he said, were about to announce a major trade agreement with an important and highly respected country. This country was the United Kingdom.

The number 10 hoped for a breakthrough, he did not expect him so early.

Downing Street had a few hours to rush together for a parallel ad. In the United States, Trump announced the agreement in the oval office alongside Lord Mandelson, British ambassador to the United States, at some point, holding his hand and renting his beautiful accent.

President Trump said Lord Mandelson had a great accent

Jim Watson / AFP / Getty images

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The Prime Minister headed for Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull in the West Midlands for an inherited press conference. This was the confusion that the press pack was initially sent to the Jaguar Land Rover site in Coventry, 16 miles away.

Starmer was distributed in the oval office via the speaker of a conference room where he was flanked by staff. The conversation was sometimes embarrassing because the telephone conferences can be with the two men talking about each other, but Trump was sumptuous in his praise.

The Prime Minister did fantastic work, he said. The United States and the United Kingdom have been working for years to try to conclude an agreement and it has never got there. He did it with this Prime Minister.

Starmer composed the oval office of a conference room in Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull, surrounded by workers

Alberto Pezzali / AP

The agreement attenuates the worst of Trumps prices damage. The 25% direct debit on car imports to the United States has been reduced to 10% and aluminum and steel rates were cut to zero. The coverage of 10% price remains, but Great Britain hopes to conclude another agreement.

From the start, the priority of the Prime Ministers was the automotive industry. Warnings of imminent job loss and potentially irrevocable damage to supply chains in recent weeks have caused an increasing alarm. Starmer thought that whatever the contract, he had to work for companies like Jaguar Land Rover.

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In the end, it was faced with a choice: to take the blow for a full agreement, which was to take more time, or assess a reduction in prices for the automotive industry now with the promise of going further in the future. Starmer chose the latter.

British negotiators spent most of last week in Washington, flying on Monday to try to conclude the agreement. We barely slept in four days, one said.

One of those of Washington was Chandra, who was hired by Starmer last July as a business and investment advisor.

The day of the Liberation Day, President Trump slapped the rates raised on many countries that exchange with the United States

SOMODEVILLA / GETTY Images chip

Chandra came to Downing Street in Hakluyt Capital, an emanation from the secret and very connected commercial consulting company Hakluyt whose customers include multinational blue businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.

The role of Chandras was for the man to mark Howard Lungick, the American secretary in trade, and to a lesser extent, Jamieson Greer, American secretary.

Keeping in regular contact with the two men, he became eyes and street ears in the administrative and rear conduits in the talks.

In Washington, Mandelson was the point with other administration officials, providing London information on the quantity ready to concede in the United Kingdom.

Back in London, Michael Ellam, Starmers International Sherpa, was essential to establish concessions that the government could make to Trump to obtain a line agreement.

As a main negotiator on Starmers Brexit Reset, Ellams Job was to ensure that ministers made no concession that could compromise the expected agricultural agreement with the EU.

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A source said that Starmer had decided very early to tell the Americans that the United Kingdom could never sign an agreement that would allow products such as chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef, as this would have been incompatible with an EU agreement.

It has never been said out loud, but private ministers saw the US trade agreement as an exercise in limiting damage.

This friction led to increasing concerns in Downing Street which prevail that the agreement can repel it until an EU summit on May 19.

A government source said that all the main elements of the agreement have been in place for weeks, but they were waiting for the presidents's approval. It was a great frustration, they said.

With the initial agreement concluded, Great Britain will start the next phase of negotiations with the United States. Having signed two agreements in one week, India and the United States, Starmer has a larger view in 10 days of the European Union.