When President Donald Trump announced tariffs on most countries, the propaganda press reported that he was dangerously offending allied nations like the United Kingdom. The sky was falling. It would be a disaster!
And while they doubted much good would come of Trump’s strategy to renegotiate U.S. trade agreements, the media complained it was taking him too long to show any results. As if countries benefiting from trade deals that have been in place for decades would be willing to ink new deals in a matter of weeks.
CNN’s Senior Business Editor Olesya Dmitracova wrote this week that there was a new trade deal between the United Kingdom and India but still no deal from Trump.
“For weeks, Trump has said that at least one trade deal is imminent with one of the dozens of countries in active negotiations with the United States to avoid his punishing tariffs — with India among the most likely to reach such an agreement first,” Dmitracova wrote. “The prospect of an agreement with any one major trading partner has boosted confidence in US financial markets and raised hopes that the world may avoid the worst impacts of America’s tariffs. But so far, no deal has emerged. Instead, it’s the United Kingdom that has secured a trade deal with India.”
Former Biden mouthpiece Jen Psaki mocked Trump on CNN for not yet having a deal.
“It’s been more than a month, if you can believe it, since Donald Trump announced his sweeping and pretty ridiculous tariffs. But Mr. Art Of The Deal, as he calls himself, has not yet struck a single trade deal. Not a single one. With any single country.”
A few hours after Psaki’s rant, Trump announced a deal with the U.K.
As word got out, the left started to whine that the U.K. was an easy get — low hanging fruit — and the agreement would not be meaningful or complete.
If you are keeping track, the message has devolved from “Trump’s tariffs are bad” to “Trump can’t even make a deal” to “The deal is garbage.”
The corporate media have no idea what they are talking about, but they keep talking and making things up as they go along.
During the Oval Office announcement of the trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K., Trump explained the significance of the agreement.
The two countries had been discussing a trade deal for 25 years, Trump said, including during Trump’s previous term, but were never able to come to an agreement.
“They said this is all a pipe dream,” Trump said. “And this was a tough one. … This is much tougher, I think, than any other deal, because they’ve been at it for so many years — decades — trying to make this deal. And it’s very conclusive, and it’s a great deal. And it’s a very big deal, actually.”
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed that up.
“This is going to boost trade between and across our countries. It’s going to not only protect jobs, but create jobs, opening market access,” Starmer said from a speaker phone in the Oval Office. “We’ve managed to achieve what many people have tried to achieve for many years.”
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the deal involved the steel, aerospace, automobile, and pharmaceutical industries in ways that save jobs and benefit both countries. It also opens the U.K. market, inviting “$5 billion of opportunity to American exporters.”
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
