Sir Keir Starmer has met the US commerce secretary as the Government continues to push for its American trade deal to come into force.
The Prime Minister dropped in on a meeting between Howard Lutnick and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in Downing Street on Tuesday.
Mr Lutnick was in London for talks with China on resolving the trade war between Washington and Beijing, and Mr Reynolds took the opportunity to meet him in person to push for the UK-US trade deal announced last month to be implemented as soon as possible.
The meeting follows talks between the Business Secretary and US trade representative Jamieson Greer in Paris last week.
Under the terms of the agreement announced by Sir Keir and Donald Trump, the US will implement import quotas that will effectively eliminate tariffs on British steel and cut the levy on vehicles to 10%.
But the deal has yet to be implemented and tariffs on both steel and cars remain at 25%, although the UK has been spared the increase on steel duties to 50% that Mr Trump imposed on the rest of the world last week.
In a post on social media, Mr Reynolds said he had discussed “progress on our trade deal – including UK autos and steel” with Mr Lutnick.
UK officials remain hopeful that the deal will be implemented soon, but Tuesday’s meeting does not appear to have moved the issue beyond both sides agreeing the need to move quickly.
Speaking in the Commons last week, Sir Keir said he was “very confident” that tariffs would come down in line with the deal “within a very short time”.
Implementing the deal will require the UK to pass legislation, likely to involve regulations rather than a full Act of Parliament, while the US will also need to create a legal mechanism to bring steel and vehicle quotas into effect.
