The first big trade agreement since “Liberation Day” came on May 8, with President Donald Trump celebrating a deal with the United Kingdom that leaders from each nation say will be beneficial for their citizens.

“Both countries have agreed that economic security is national security,” Trump said during a triumphant Oval Office announcement Thursday morning. “We’ll be working together as allies to ensure that we have a strong industrial base, appropriate export controls, and protections for key technologies and industries like steel.”

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So, what’s in it?

The deal is the first of what Trump officials hope will be nearly 100 new trade agreements over the next few weeks. However, it’s also very much an incomplete package of terms that leaves much to be determined at a later date.

“Things are going to move very quickly both ways,” Trump promised of future negotiations. “The final details are being written up in the coming weeks.”

What’s in the agreement

Some details are already known. Perhaps most notably, a White House fact sheet revealed that Trump’s 10% universal tariff remains in place, indicating that it could be a part of future deals as well.

The fact sheet estimates that U.S. ethanol exports to the U.K. could reach $700 million a year, with another $250 million coming from beef exports.

Going the other way, the first 100,000 vehicles imported from Britain to the U.S. will face only the base 10% tariff, with anything over that tariffed at 25%. Britain mostly ships luxury car brands such as Rolls-Royce, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Aston Martin into the U.S., and usually in numbers not much more than 100,000.

Trump also said that Britain has agreed to buy $10 billion worth of Boeing airplanes.

A similar release from the U.K. government says the deal will save British steel and auto makers, with car tariffs cut from 27.5% to 10% and steel and aluminum duties cut to zero.

Notably, the steel and aluminum figure was not mentioned during Trump’s Oval Office announcement, though it is expected to be finalized soon.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said British farmers will get more access to the U.S. under the agreement, and the release noted that U.S. ethanol is used to produce beer and that the country’s beef and poultry import standards will not be lowered.

“This is a really fantastic, historic day, in which we can announce this deal between our two great countries,” Starmer said via phone at the White House. “And I think it’s a real tribute to the history that we have of working so closely together.”

The U.S. enjoyed a $12 billion trade surplus with the U.K. in 2024.

What it means for both countries

But not everyone is convinced that the deal is good today or will be in the future.

Daniel Hannan, a member of the House of Lords, said that both countries remain worse off than they were before “Liberation Day.”

“Not great, but it could lead to bigger and better things,” Hannan said. “Getting back to a position which is slightly less good than where we were before the 2nd of April is not a victory by any normal metric.”

The U.S. tariff is still higher for most exports than it was before Trump took office, which Hannan said means higher prices for domestic consumers who will have less money to spend on other things.

“It’s great that we’ve got this deal. It’s great that it’s the first one,” he added. “It’s much better than not having one, but we’re still worse off than we were pre-Liberation Day.”

According to the president and British officials, Trump personally negotiated the deal with the U.K. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump was the “closer,” and Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the U.S., credited Trump’s “eleventh hour intervention” with a phone call “demanding even more out of this deal than any of us expected.”

Trump announces preliminary trade deal with UK keeping 10% tariffs in place

Trump boasted that “Everybody wants to make a deal with the United States,” predicting that other countries will line up to make their own agreements within the next few weeks while still touting the “special relationship” that has historically existed between the U.S. and Britain.

Lutnick estimated that concessions from the U.K. would provide $5 billion in market opportunities for American exporters and claimed that the 10% tariff the president will maintain on the country will produce $6 billion in revenue.

Trump’s approach to trade has always had plenty of critics, and this deal will not change that fact.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Daniel Hamilton said the deal is highly selective and limited despite Trump promoting it as a breakthrough.

“The deal is better viewed as a first installment on an ongoing negotiation, with many details left unclear and many issues left to be addressed,” he said.

Who’s next?

Another question is which country might be next up to secure a deal. Britain signed a trade agreement with India on Tuesday, and the U.S. and India have been negotiating on a deal in recent weeks, with both countries indicating progress in the talks.

“There is a serious lack of reciprocity in the trade relationship with India,” Vice President JD Vance said in late April. But he added, “India’s constructive engagement so far has been welcomed, and I look forward to creating new opportunities for workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs in both countries.”

What it means for Trump

The announcement did provide a modest boost to the stock market, which has been wobbly so far in Trump’s second term, rising a little more than 1% overall across Thursday.

David Madland, an economist at the Center for American Progress, said the deal indicates that Trump is taking any opportunity he can to announce progress on his trade agenda, which remains “a massive problem.’

“Trump’s own Agriculture Secretary called it ‘an agreement in concept,’ and Trump himself admitted that final details were still being written,” Madland said. “The announcement just memorializes that conversations on trade issues are ongoing between our two governments and changes little about Trump’s failed tariff strategy.”

The deal could prove a bigger win for Starmer, as the U.S. is Britain’s largest single trading partner and gets an agreement before the European Union.

Britain famously left the EU in 2016, a process known as Brexit, which Trump has compared to his own surprise election later in the same year. For now, the U.K. will face a 10% tariff for most exports to the U.S., while EU countries face a 20% tariff, giving their former colleagues a major advantage.

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Ian Fletcher, co-author of “Industrial Policy for the United States,” said it’s not surprising that Britain got the first trade deal, noting the two countries have a long-term friendship and historically similar approach to trade.

“The U.K. is one of the least mercantilist countries in the world, rivaled only by the United States itself,” said Fletcher, an advisory board member at the Coalition for a Prosperous America.”So this was kind of a peace treaty with a country we weren’t really fighting with.”

— Naomi Lim contributed to this story