Welcome to Political Fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher.

We promised you, and it's finally here, our first ever Q&A episode.

Thanks to all of you who've sent in such a great range of burning questions, spanning political strategy, trade, foreign affairs, and I must say, some beautifully niche

policy queries. Here to help me answer them are my colleagues Stephen Bush. Hi Stephen. Hi, Lucy.

Miranda Green. Hi Miranda. Hi, Lucy. And Robert Shimsley. Hello, Robert. Hello, Lucy.

With news of the long-awaited UK-US trade deal this week, we can get straight into our first question,

which was sent via email from Nick Skinner.

He asks, is any US trade deal worth the paper it's signed on?

Won't it be tossed out on a whim anyway?

Robert.

I think it's worth the paper it's signed on.

Whether it's actually worth very much in broad terms is a different question. At the time we're

recording this, we're still waiting for a lot of the detail. It sounds as if the 25% steel

tariffs that Trump imposed are going to go, that the 25% tariff on cars will be removed, knocked down to 10% for about the number of cars we export to the US already.

The UK is going to remove a lot of the tariffs on American beef products, that kind of thing.

But I think the key point about this trade deal is that while it puts the UK in a better position than it was

a month ago or so, it doesn't put the UK in a better position than it was last December,

because the core point is that Donald Trump's 10%, as he calls them reciprocal tariffs,

on all British exports, goods exports to the US, is going to remain in place.

So essentially, we've negotiated a less bad situation than we were in.

I don't want to knock that entirely.

I think it's good to have steps in the direction of free trade.

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