BBC Radio 4 - Today programme: US-UK trade deal: Too good to be true?

Sam Lowe
13 August 2019

Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform discussed US-UK trade deals, and if deals could be done sector by sector (from 06.48am).

The UK is "first in line" for a trade deal with the US, President Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton has said. And deals could be reached on a sector by sector basis.

However, Sam Lowe, trade expert at the Centre for European Reform, is sceptical, particularly if the Trump administration proposed an agreement that focused on industrial goods and excluded agriculture to begin with.

He says: "The reason for this is that the EU actually offered this approach to the US as a means of getting away from the trade war by saying 'lets find a solution'.

"The EU said 'lets just negotiate on industrial goods, we won't do agriculture' and the US said no. The reason the US said no is because its aggressive ask when it negotiates with new partners is agriculture - that's what it cares about so I'm slightly sceptical that Congress will get behind an approach that says 'we just won't talk about the things that you care about most to begin with'."