What’s the big deal?

Trump described the US-UK trade deal with his favourite adjective, ‘beautiful’. Well, if you don’t mind the old saw, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And this beholder can’t help asking the question in the title above. This beholder looks at the key personages involved, who are Trump, Starmer and Mandelson, considers the source and then looks for the catch.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch went further than just asking a polite question. Switching from the interrogative to the affirmative mode, she expressed herself in the elegant style we’ve learned to expect from politicians. According to her, Britain has been “shafted”. Well, at least she didn’t say ‘f***ed’. Good to see that some restraints are still in place, for the time being.

Perhaps the coital reference was a tad too strong, but the US does come out ahead when all is said and done. British tariffs on American goods were 5.1 per cent on average before the deal and are now 1.8 per cent. However, US tariffs on Britain were 3.4 per cent and are now 10 per cent, just as they are on most other countries. That’s what Trump calls “reciprocal”.

Where Britain got some relief was in the tariffs on car, steel and aluminium exports. Our car exports were spared the extra 27.5 per cent tariff Trump has slapped on everyone else, while the tariffs on our steel and aluminium go down to zero.

Yet even 10 per cent is four times the 2.5 per cent tariff on our cars that was in effect before Trump’s misnomer, ‘Liberation Day’. Still, things could have been much worse, and Messrs Starmer, Mandelson et al. are jubilant. This is great news for British luxury car makers, they say.

This inspires another question: What British luxury car makers? It’s true that British labour is still used to manufacture those vehicles. But all the profits go to the company owners, who are none of them British.

McLaren is owned by the Kingdom of Bahrain. Aston Martin, by a Canadian consortium. Land Rover, Range Rover and Jaguar, by the Indian Company Tate. Rolls Royce, by BMW. Bentley, by Volkswagen. These are the real winners in this so-so deal, although it’s true that some British jobs will be saved.

In return, US agricultural products, including beef and ethanol, will enjoy easier access to UK markets, which gets our farmers’ overalls in a twist. According to the National Farmers’ Union, its members are the ones bearing the brunt of the reduced tariffs.

On the plus side, American chlorinated chickens and hormone-laden beef will remain banned in Britain, although US meats conforming to British food standards will be coming in on a larger scale. This is good news for me, what with the taste of Texas steaks remaining for ever a fond memory.

Yet one part of the trade deal upsets my sense of balance and insults my intelligence, which hates being insulted. Trump said that the agreement had been struck “because of Brexit”, and he is right.

Neither this agreement nor the one with India signed earlier this week would have happened had Britain still had the yoke of the EU around her neck. If Trump and I agree on one thing, it’s certainly our feelings about that bureaucratic monstrosity with socialist leanings.

However, as part of the deal, Starmer has given Trump a virtual veto over Chinese investments in Britain. Specifically, the US has concerns about Chinese companies buying up key infrastructure in Britain, and it’s a valid concern.

China should be treated as a hostile power that can’t be allowed to gain control over such strategic resources as our electronic communications, transport or power supply. However, giving a foreign country, however friendly it may be, a veto power over Britain’s economic policy doesn’t sit well with Brexit ideals.

Some 10 years ago, when I still had access to the rarefied atmosphere of British politics, I chatted with some leaders of UKIP, the progenitor of today’s Reform Party. We agreed that Cameron’s government was useless, and some of its economic policies were inferior even to their EU equivalents.

That, however, wasn’t the point, I was told. It’s better for our own government to adopt bad policies than to let those bloody foreigners impose their policies on Britain, however good they might be. That’s what sovereignty is all about.

That argument made sense, and it still does. Sovereignty means that all our policies are established by our own government, not that contrivance in Brussels, and endorsed by our own Parliament, not that aberration in Strasbourg.

But how is relinquishing our sovereignty to the US any different from relinquishing it to the EU? It’s not, and I’m not going to swallow that old chestnut about the ‘special relationship’.

Trump has every right to be concerned about China’s strategic muscle growing in bulk and strength. But we shouldn’t depend on foreign countries to save us from the craven stupidity of His Majesty’s Government. Isn’t that what Brexit is all about?

One outcome of this trade agreement, and also the one with India, isn’t what Sir Keir intended. His federastic loins are aching to sneak Britain back into the EU through a crack in the back door.

That door has always remained ajar, and Britain didn’t just turn around and walk out. Her exit wasn’t what is called ‘French leave’ in English and ‘English leave’ in French (another example of such mutual appreciation is that a certain contraceptive is called ‘French letter’ in English slang and ‘capote anglaise’ in the French equivalent). Britain didn’t really leave, banging the door behind her.

Hundreds of EU laws are still in force here, and we still haven’t left the European Convention on Human Rights, a pernicious pact making it next to impossible for Britain to limit the influx of illegal immigration. It’s as if our two main parties, both predominantly Remain, are reluctant to burn the bridges, hoping one day to use them to walk back across the Channel.

All in all, I can’t describe this deal as ‘beautiful’, ‘major’ or ‘comprehensive’. Its economic benefits are slight, though not non-existent.

In general, however, whenever tariffs come down, it’s a good thing even if the reductions aren’t exactly equitable. What’s unequivocally welcome about this agreement is that dragging Britain back into the EU will now become more difficult. That’s quite a big deal.