Britain hasn’t agreed a trade deal with the US – it’s ended a hostage negotiation | Gaby Hinsliff

There will be relief for carmakers but not much else to celebrate: Trump’s whims still hang over the UK – and the world – economy

Hang out the bunting and let the church bells ring. A VE Day trade deal with Donald Trump is done, and in the car plants of the West Midlands as much as in the backrooms of No 10, there will be understandable relief that, for now at least, America’s phoney war on them is over.

It’s true that the easing of arbitrary tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium that didn’t even exist until eight weeks ago falls far short of being an actual trade deal, not least because the president could rip it up again tomorrow if he felt like it. But the terms agreed between London and Washington could save thousands of jobs, which isn’t to be sniffed at, even if they’re jobs that need never have been at risk in the first place had Trump not suddenly chosen to threaten them. More surprisingly, Rachel Reeves seems to have managed to hang on to her digital services tax on (mostly US) tech companies, while for all the president’s bluster about “dramatic” new access for cattle ranchers to British markets it could have been infinitely worse for British farming: no chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-injected beef or flooding of the market with heavily subsidised US meat at prices British farmers just couldn’t afford to match.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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