Trump trade deals 'built on sand', say senior MPs

Ministers and senior MPs said yesterday the UK's agreements with Donald Trump were "built on sand" after the Guardian established that the deal to avoid drug tariffs had no underlying text beyond limited headline terms.

- Eleni Courea Lisa O'Carroll

The "milestone" deal on pharmaceuticals announced earlier this month that will result in the NHS paying more for medicines in exchange for a promise of zero tariffs on the industry still lacks a legal footing beyond top lines contained in two government press releases.

Concerns over the basis of the agreement have been heightened by Washington's decision to suspend the £31bn "tech prosperity deal" that had been hailed by Keir Starmer as "a generational step change in our relationship with the US".

The deal was paused on Tuesday after Washington claimed there had been a lack of progress from the UK in lowering trade barriers in other areas.

It has also emerged that concessions to British farmers made in the first tariff deal with Trump, hailed as "historic" by Starmer in May, have yet to be signed off by the US despite a January deadline.

The Department of Health and Social Care said negotiators were thrashing out the agreement on pharmaceuticals. Asked to provide the headline terms, it shared its press release and a link to the US announcement of an "agreement in principle".

Critics have noted the two releases described the deal in sharply different terms. The government's release said the UK was "the only country in the world to secure a 0% tariff on pharmaceuticals to the US" while Washington's focused on how the NHS would have to pay 25% more for new medicines.