Vincent McAviney: UK Correspondent on the trade deal between the US and the UK

Donald Trump's struck his first trade deal since last month's tariff announcement – an agreement with the UK. 

The US will slash tariffs on British steel and aluminium, and most British cars. 

But UK exporters will still face the same 10% base tariff also faced by New Zealand exporters. 

On the flipside, the UK has agreed to remove the tariff on ethanol for US goods, and agreed to reciprocal markets for certain products, including beef.  

UK Correspondent Vincent McAviney told Ryan Bridge that in particular is likely to be quite controversial, as the UK has higher standards when it comes to agricultural products than the US does.  

He says it raises a question as to what that means for the farming industry in the UK. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International correspondence with insign Eye Insurance Peace of Mind for
New Zealand business. Vincent's with us now, Vincent, good morning.
We have a pope. I didn't quite catch as his
papal name. What are we calling him?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
No, we haven't had it come out yet. On the wise,
I think it was Leoniin, but his name before life
as a pope now was Robert Prevost. He will become
the very first ever American pope. He is a surprise contender.
He was in all of the shortlists for the position,
but he was not seen at all as a front runner.

(00:37):
He is only sixty nine years old, which is quite
young for the position. He served as the head of
Lake Pope Parantis' main advisory group on picking new bishops
and have sort of broad name recognition because of that,
and especially with the sort of large group of papal
electors which have made up this conclave over the past

(01:00):
few days. He was born in Chicago to a family
with Italian, French and Spanish roots. He trained in the
Vatican with the late Pope Francis and spent most of
his career working in Peru. He actually has joint Peruvian citizenship.
He's described as the least American American and someone who

(01:20):
was seen as a bit of a reformer.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Potentially Leo the fourteenth is his papal name. We've just
been told Leo the fourteenth is the new pope. Interesting
that he's American. Trump will be happy with that. But
you mentioned he's a reformer in what way? I mean,
what direction? Do we know this will tag the Catholic churchen?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, I mean obviously Donald Trump a you know, truth
doubt a picture of himself using AI as pope, but
that was pretty unlikely. But yeah, I think he will
be pretty delighted at something else that he can trumpet
as an achievement under his watch, getting the first American pope.
There had traditionally, of course, been a reluctance to have
an American pope, or indeed a pope from Russia. The

(02:01):
idea was that you didn't want to have a pope
from the superpower that those nations already played large enough
on the world stage, and of course China now as
well that you wouldn't want someone from there. But that
is what this conclave has decided. He's being described as
someone who is not a showboat. He's been described by
colleagues as being very calm, extremely intelligent, and very compassionate.

(02:25):
And it sounds like he is looking to be progressive
on many social issues. Some see him as a centrist,
but he's apparently, according to these reports coming out now,
as someone who a lot of Catholics would see, is
wanting to carry on the work that Pope Francis has
done over his time, which was sort of shifting the
church away from the sort of high church trapped in

(02:47):
very much sort of all Nate traditions. And you know,
we know that Pope Francis, for instance, wore simple robes,
wanted things lived very simply, wanted things that were sort
of reaching out from the church, being internal, wanting to
make sure they engage with the people that needed the
church most, the global poor, wanting to do more work
in the global South. And it sounds like this new

(03:09):
Pope is someone who wants to carry on that work
that Pope France has started.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
If you're just joining us, we have a new pope,
the US Cardinal Robert Francis Privost has been revealed as
Pope Leo the fourteenth. Then we're talking to Vincent mcavini,
who's our UK europe correspondent. Also, we should touch on
this UK US trade deal which has been announced this
morning as well. And it's not a deal that gets

(03:36):
them back to, you know, a great position, but it's
a better position than yesterday, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, it's not as good as we had this time
last year, for instance, but it's better than we had
over the past couple of weeks. And whilst the America
is calling it a trade deal, we here in the
UK are actually calling it just a tariff's deal because
it is not the sort of all around, all encompassing
trade deal that's Fraxiteers, for instance, have tried to claim
that the UK could get for the last decade or so.

(04:04):
This is a deal which sort of removes that extra
twenty five percent on steel, aluminium and cars that America
had imposed. We've got that down to just ten percent,
so still you know a little chunk there. But they
are the cars that the UK makes, and the UK
actually has a surprisingly large car industry. Now they are
the high end cars, so you're Bentley's just sort of

(04:26):
rolls Royces Aston Martins, the kind of customer base that
really having ten more percent on it won't really mean
too much for them, to be honest, but some of
those companies had for the time stopped actually exporting into
America and then for everything else the but that's just
only the first one hundred thousand vehicles. Only one hundred

(04:49):
and one thousand were exported last year, so it means
that we can't really grow the market in America much.
In return, the UK government says it's removing the tariff
on ethanol fe US goods and agrees sort of reciprocal
markets access for certain products, including beef, and that's going
to be quite controversial because the US uses things like
hormones and antibiotics which British farmers are not allowed to

(05:12):
use on their beef. Here, we have sort of much
higher standards when it comes to agricultural products, and so
there is a question mark over that. Now what that
means for our farming industry here, whether there might even
be a grassroots or of campaign to simply just not
buy American agriculture products in order to protect our farmers
and also because of that what's deemed a sort of
more chemical quality produce.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Really appreciate your time, Vincent Vincent Mecavinny UK Europe correspondent
just gone twenty five minutes after five. I'm just looking
at some live pictures from Vatican, the Vedican Balcony. The
new Pope, Leo the fourteenth has got tears and designs
is He's obviously been overwhelmed by the occasion. Forty thousand
Catholics in Saint Peter's Square Right now, we have a

(05:56):
new pope.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Listen live to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.