What Trump and Johnson Want From a U.S.-U.K. Trade Deal

The unconventional leaders of the U.S. and the U.K. have both made big promises about a post-Brexit trade deal between their nations. Securing a pact won’t be easy. The two sides disagree on issues ranging from chicken to 5G. Plus, President Donald Trump is seeking re-election in November (meaning negotiations might finish under a different U.S. administration), and the U.K. can’t finalize a comprehensive deal with the U.S. until it figures out its post-divorce relationship with the EU.

For Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a trade deal with the U.S. could help vindicate the long and messy Brexit ordeal. One premise behind the decision to leave the EU was that the U.K. could make trade deals that would benefit it more than those negotiated by the EU. For Trump, it’s a chance to prove that bilateral deals benefit the U.S. more than the multilateral coalitions he scorns. It’s also another chance to repudiate his predecessor, Barack Obama, who warned ahead of Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum that the U.K. would put itself at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal if it decided to leave the EU.