Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a major trade deal between the United States and the United Kingdom, the Vatican selecting an American for pope, and the ongoing clash between India and Pakistan.
The Skinny Deal
The United States and United Kingdom announced a “breakthrough” trade deal on Thursday that will lift some (but not all) U.S. tariffs on British goods. Both U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer heralded the agreement as a vital step toward improving trade relations.
“We are the first country to secure such a deal with the United States, and in an era of global insecurity and instability, that is so important,” Starmer said on Thursday. This is the first trade deal that the United States has reached since the White House’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs wreaked havoc on global stock markets last month and raised fears of a U.S. recession.
Under the framework agreement, Washington will lift 25 percent levies on British steel and aluminum, cut duties on almost all British car imports from 27.5 percent to 10 percent, and allow Rolls-Royce engines and plane parts to enter tariff-free. In return, U.S. companies will have better market access to British beef, ethanol, and other farm products worth around $5 billion; and London will commit to purchasing $10 billion worth of Boeing planes.
Notably, though, Trump’s baseline 10 percent reciprocal duty on most British goods will remain in place.
“The U.S.-U.K. skinny deal is a modest improvement compared to the reality before its announcement,” Ryan Bourne, an economist at the Cato Institute, told FP’s World Brief. “But with most U.S. tariffs still in place and a fairly narrow overall scope of the deal, we remain in a less free trading environment than the pre-Trump status quo and a far worse situation than if this was a comprehensive free trade agreement.”
The United Kingdom is the 11th-biggest trading partner of the United States in terms of goods, but the United States is the largest single trading partner for Britain. Some experts suggest that this makes the deal more important for London than it is for Washington.
Since leaving the European Union in 2020, the United Kingdom has pushed for new trade agreements with individual countries. On Tuesday, London inked its largest trade deal yet with India, in an agreement that the British government said will increase trade between the two countries by roughly $35 billion a year by 2040.
Yet Thursday’s deal also signals momentum for the Trump administration, which is hoping to secure more trade agreements. The White House has said that Trump’s tariffs have brought countries such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and India to the negotiating table, and on Saturday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, the country’s top economic official, in Switzerland for trade talks.
“One hopes that this can be the basis for future talks and more tariffs being lowered,” Bourne said of the U.S.-U.K. deal. “Yet given the glee with which [U.S. Commerce Secretary] Howard Lutnick celebrated the extra tariff revenue from U.K.-U.S. trade, perhaps today indicates that substantial tariffs are here to stay in the U.S. under Trump, and the best other countries can do is nibble around the edges for exceptions in important sectors.”
Today’s Most Read
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- Why Singapore’s Ruling Party Won Yet Again by Salil Tripathi
What We’re Following
An American pope. After roughly 24 hours sequestered at the Vatican, Catholic cardinals on Thursday chose Robert Prevost (to be known as Pope Leo XIV) as the next pope. He will be the first American pontiff in the church’s history.
A Chicago native who also holds Peruvian citizenship, Prevost assumes the papacy at a time of great turmoil within both the church and the world. Since the death of Pope Francis last month, the Vatican has been forced to decide whether it should continue Francis’s more progressive platforms or acquiesce to conservative demands. Choosing Prevost suggests a compromise; the 69-year-old is considered a centrist who has backed Francis’s devotion to social justice yet has been less welcoming of the LGBTQ community.
“Peace be with you all,” Prevost said in his first remarks as pope, addressing a large crowd gathered in Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square. “I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, to reach your families, to all people everywhere, to all the earth.”
Competing narratives. India said on Thursday that it had “neutralized” Pakistani drone and missile attacks on military targets in the country’s north and west regions. New Delhi’s Defense Ministry also said it “targeted air defense radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan,” including an air defense system in Pakistan’s second-largest city, Lahore. Islamabad, meanwhile, claimed on Thursday to have intercepted 25 Indian drones near several Pakistani cities.
The dueling claims are the latest developments in an ongoing military faceoff between the two nuclear-armed powers that experts fear could escalate and embroil the region in all-out war. However, FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal argues that these dueling claims could actually help both sides de-escalate.
“The media narratives in India and Pakistan could once again prove to be an important route for both governments to claim some form of victory for their respective populations,” Agrawal writes.
Friendship in Moscow. Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday ahead of Victory Day celebrations commemorating the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II 80 years ago. Invoking that time in history, Xi likened U.S. “hegemony” to the “arrogant fascist forces” of Nazi Germany, and he vowed to strengthen the China-Russia alliance to counter the U.S.-led international order.
The Kremlin struck a similar tone on Thursday. Europe is “preparing for war with Russia like the Third Reich once did,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, according to the state-run TASS news agency. Putin has framed Friday’s V-Day parade—to be attended by 29 foreign leaders, including Xi—as proof that Western efforts to isolate Russia for its war in Ukraine have largely failed.
Yet, attacks by both Russian and Ukrainian forces on Thursday undermined Moscow’s messaging. Earlier this week, Putin declared a unilateral three-day cease-fire beginning Thursday. But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused the Kremlin of violating its own truce 734 times between midnight and midday Thursday. Kyiv never agreed to the temporary cease-fire, calling it a “theatrical play” and warning that Ukraine “cannot be held responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation” on Friday.
Indirect dialogue. Syria has held indirect talks with Israel to discuss de-escalating tensions, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. The Syrian president’s admission marks a significant change for historically antagonistic relations between the two countries.
It is unclear who set up the back channel. Lana Nusseibeh, an Emirati Foreign Ministry official, has denied reports that Abu Dhabi was involved. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also declined to comment on Sharaa’s statement.
Since Islamist rebels led by Sharaa overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad last December, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes inside Syria. These include Israeli fighter jets targeting Damascus on Friday in what Netanyahu has called part of an effort to protect the country’s Druze religious minority. On Wednesday, Israeli police said they were now operating inside of Syria for the first time.
Odds and Ends
Instead of 100 men versus one gorilla, try 5.3 million New Zealanders against 23.6 million sheep. The Pacific island nation has long been the brunt of jokes for having vastly more sheep than it does people; in 1982, there were 22 sheep per one Kiwi in the country. However, the government announced on Tuesday that new data indicates that humans are catching up, with just 4.5 sheep in New Zealand per one person. Baaaaa-d news for Wellington’s lambs.
The post Trump, Starmer Celebrate ‘Breakthrough’ U.S.-U.K. Trade Deal appeared first on Foreign Policy.
