This week, the UK signed two major trade agreements: one with India, the other with the United States. Both were marketed as diplomatic wins. But only one shows what serious trade strategy looks like.
The India deal reflects long-term planning, grounded in mutual interest and economic alignment. The US agreement, by contrast, is a tactical fix to avoid further damage from tariffs that Washington imposed in the first place. It grabs headlines but offers little of lasting value.
The India agreement, signed on 6 May, is the most comprehensive trade pact the UK has negotiated since leaving the European Union. It is broad, detailed and economically significant.
India will scrap tariffs on 99% of UK exports, while the UK will remove duties on 90% of Indian goods. For British whisky producers, that means a halving of India’s 150% tariff, with further cuts to follow. UK carmakers – until now locked out by 100% import taxes – will see those duties fall to 10%.
But the value of this deal goes beyond tariffs. It opens access to India’s vast procurement market, worth £38bn annually. It includes provisions for professional services, visa access for Indian workers and removes double national insurance payments for temporary staff on both sides.
It’s a step toward something deeper: an institutional framework that can evolve. For a UK increasingly focused on the Indo-Pacific, this agreement aligns trade with foreign policy.
Still, the deal isn’t without friction. Key areas – such as investment protections – remain unresolved. Services liberalisation is patchy and many tariff reductions will be phased in over a decade. Implementation won’t be simple, especially given India’s complex regulatory environment and history of slow follow-through on trade reforms.
But this is what strategic trade policy looks like. It identifies a partner with long-term growth potential and crafts terms that build mutual benefit over time.
Now consider the US deal, announced two days later. On paper, it’s a “very large” agreement, as US president Donald Trump declared. In practice, it’s little more than a climb-down from a trade conflict that Trump himself provoked.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed a sweeping 10% baseline tariff on most imports. That move hit the UK hard – particularly in autos and steel. The new deal offers partial relief.
The US will lower car tariffs from 27.5% to 10% – but only for up to 100,000 UK-made vehicles annually. It will also lift duties on British steel and aluminium. In exchange, the UK will import large volumes of US ethanol and allow 13,000 metric tons of American beef.
British officials stress that food safety standards remain intact – there will be no chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef. That these reassurances are needed speaks to the deal’s political awkwardness.
There’s no movement on digital trade, financial services or regulatory cooperation. For all the fanfare, there’s no deeper architecture behind this agreement.
Even so, the deal has practical value. For UK manufacturers facing sudden tariff hikes, it’s a lifeline. In an era of rising protectionism, even partial exemptions can be commercially significant.
Still, this is not trade strategy. It might be best to see it as trade triage. The deal doesn’t open new doors, just props open ones that Washington had slammed shut.
The imbalance in leverage is obvious. Trump gets to prove his tariff-first doctrine works. UK prime minister Kier Starmer avoids economic fallout at home. But there’s no pretending this is a structural win for the UK.
That’s the real contrast. The India deal looks forward toward market diversification, economic growth and shared opportunity. The US deal looks inward toward political optics, defensive positioning and short-term damage control.
This distinction matters, because it speaks to a deeper question: what kind of trade power does the UK want to be?
Since Brexit, the UK has struggled to define a coherent trade identity. It talks about ‘Global Britain’, but the substance has been uneven. Some agreements, like the India deal, show what smart, persistent diplomacy can achieve. Others, like this US pact, reveal how sharply UK ambitions have collided with the realities of negotiating alone in an increasingly protectionist world.
That’s not entirely the UK’s fault. Under the current US administration, protectionism has returned as official policy. And in that context, salvaging partial exemptions may be the best outcome available. But let’s not confuse that for progress.
If the UK wants to be a relevant force in global trade, it needs to act with strategic clarity. That means building deep partnerships in growth regions, not just scrambling to contain fallout with legacy allies.
It also means understanding that not all trade deals are created equal. Some shift the trajectory of trade flows and institutional alignment. Others simply plug holes in the hull.
In this tale of two deals, one points toward the future. The other tries not to lose more ground in the present.
Knowing the difference is what separates trade policy from trade politics. And today, the UK can no longer afford to confuse the two.