Trump’s Scotland visit opens door for UK to settle some unfinished business

As U.S. President Donald Trump visits Scotland this week, the U.K. will be looking to further cement warm ties with the White House leader and to complete some important unfinished business.

The president is due to visit two Trump-owned golf sites in Turnberry and Aberdeen between Friday and Tuesday, as well as one of his new golf courses that’s set to open in August.

He’s also due to have an informal meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and “refine” a recent U.S.-U.K trade deal, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters last week.

The deal between Washington and London centered on a 10% baseline tariff on British goods arriving in the States, while also setting certain quotas and exemptions for autos and aerospace exports.

While the “deal” kicked in on June 30, there are parts of the pact that remain in the “commitment” stage. One of them is the pledge to remove the 25% tariff on UK steel and aluminum — the rest of the world was hit with a 50% duty — with the U.K. needing to ensure that British steel imports are “melted and poured” domestically and don’t originate in China.

There are also ongoing, thorny discussions over a digital services tax that hits tech companies even if they’re not headquartered in the U.K., which Washington wants removed.

As such, while the U.K. is in a better position than many of its peers, particularly its neighbors in the European Union who are looking for a last-ditch trade deal before August 1, there is unfinished business.

The question is where might we see some “give and take” in the U.S.-UK trade deal, Kallum Pickering, chief economist at Peel Hunt, told CNBC on Wednesday.

“Of course, the U.K. would probably like the steel and aluminium tariffs to go down. And the U.S. has a bit of an issue over the digital services tax, so it’s possible that that’s just an easy deal,” he said, adding that there could be some specific headline announcements when Trump and Starmer meet.

“Anything that puts a positive spin on U.K.-U.S. relations in context of this [wider] August 1 deadline, probably at the margin, is actually positive for the U.K., even the deal itself is not a good one. We wouldn’t sit here look through the detail and say, ‘Oh, this is a brilliant trade deal,’ it’s just in context, actually, it doesn’t look too bad,” Pickering noted.

While they’re unlikely bedfellows politically, Republican Trump appears to get on well with Starmer, who heads a center-left government. When the leaders appeared in a jovial mood together at the Group of Seven summit in June, Trump was asked whether Britain would be protected from further tariffs.

“The U.K. is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them. That’s their ultimate protection,” Trump responded.

Ahead of this latest meeting with Starmer, the U.S. president said talks with the British prime minister would take place “probably one of my properties” in Aberdeen. The White House has yet to publicly confirm that detail, however.

The Scotland trip comes ahead of a state visit that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will make in Sept. 17-19, the White House said, noting that the president was “honored” and looking forward to meeting King Charles and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle in the early fall.