UK probes US trade deal

A UK parliamentary committee has opened a new inquiry into whether the country’s trade deal with the US has delivered any real growth. (committees.parliament.uk) The Business and Trade Committee launched the stocktake on April 13 and said it will report before summer. It is asking for evidence by May 18 on tariffs, sector barriers, and what the Economic Prosperity Deal has actually changed in practice. (committees.parliament.uk, committees.parliament.uk) The scrutiny comes after Parliament’s own 2025 report said the US was the UK’s largest single trading partner, with £315 billion in trade in 2024 and £1.2 trillion invested across both economies. The same report said UK exporters were still facing worse terms than before President Donald Trump returned to office. (publications.parliament.uk) That earlier report set out the tariff shock that forced the deal: a 25% US tariff on steel, aluminium and derivative goods, a 25% tariff on automotive goods, and a 10% baseline tariff on most other UK goods in the first half of 2025. The UK and US then announced the General Terms of the Economic Prosperity Deal on May 8, 2025. (publications.parliament.uk, commonslibrary.parliament.uk) The deal was sold as damage control more than a return to free trade. The House of Commons Library says it was meant to soften the impact of US tariffs while both sides worked toward wider arrangements in sectors including agriculture, autos, steel, pharmaceuticals, digital trade and aerospace. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk) Some parts did move. The UK government said the US would create a quota allowing up to 100,000 UK passenger vehicles into the US at a 10% tariff instead of 27.5%, while the UK would create a 13,000-metric-tonne duty-free quota for US beef. (gov.uk) Washington also said certain UK aerospace products would no longer face tariffs, and that tariff-rate quotas would be created for UK steel and aluminium products, with goods outside those quotas still facing existing Section 232 tariffs. (whitehouse.gov) But Parliament’s 2025 review said ministers had not published an economic impact assessment, many provisions were only partly implemented, and steel, aluminium and pharmaceuticals were still facing uncertainty over future tariff rules. It also said some UK sectors had secured less favorable terms than the European Union. (publications.parliament.uk) The new inquiry is broader than the original deal. Parliament says the framework has since been extended with a Technology Prosperity Deal and a pharmaceuticals tariff agreement, and lawmakers now want evidence on what those additions have delivered. (committees.parliament.uk) The pressure is not only about exports. In announcing the inquiry, committee chair Liam Byrne pointed to uncertainty over tariffs, supply chains and regulation, and the committee noted that OpenAI had just decided not to proceed with a previously agreed UK investment. (committees.parliament.uk, cnbc.com) The argument over the deal has also widened into a fight over trade strategy. A House of Lords committee said in July 2025 that the tariff relief offered welcome help to carmakers but warned that a narrow, sector-by-sector bargain with Washington could weaken World Trade Organization rules and fragment the wider trading system. (committees.parliament.uk) That wider spillover is already visible in South Africa. The South African Reserve Bank said reciprocal US tariffs and a lapse in African Growth and Opportunity Act benefits in late 2025 hurt the competitiveness of South African exports to the US, even after a one-year extension of AGOA in February 2026. (resbank.co.za) The committee’s test is now simple: whether a deal announced on May 8, 2025 reduced risk for British exporters, or merely rearranged tariffs in a more volatile trading system. (committees.parliament.uk, publications.parliament.uk)