John Healey says there have been "really hard negotiations" between the UK and US on trade tariffs to achieve "the best possible deal for Britain". The defence secretary's comments come as a new trade deal is expected to be announced. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Well, look, any update is for the Prime Minister, any announcement is for the President.
00:06But what this reminds us is that the U.S. is an indispensable ally to the U.K.
00:12on our economic security and on our national security.
00:16And there have been really hard negotiations between the U.S. and U.K. trade teams
00:20since Keir Starmer went to the White House in February.
00:24And the role for ministers like me really has been to give the negotiators the space
00:31to get the best possible deal for Britain.
00:34And so we haven't been offering a running commentary.
00:36And I've got nothing to add on the process of that negotiations or any timelines this morning.
00:42As Defence Secretary, I've had a number of really detailed conversations face-to-face
00:46and on the phone with my counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in the U.S.
00:50They definitely and are rightly wanting the Europeans and they want Britain to lead as we are,
00:57to step up and do more for European security and to lead on Ukraine as we are.
01:02But this is not about the U.S. stepping back.
01:05And they also welcome the role that we will play alongside them,
01:08as we did last week in dealing with freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
01:13And they welcome also the fact that we will be sending our aircraft carrier into the Indo-Pacific
01:18to exercise with allies to try and reinforce that wider regional security in the Indo-Pacific as well.