For all the political difficulties inherent in President Trump’s state visit, the deluge of high-profile deals accompanying it was enough to put a spring into even the most care-worn chancellor’s step, said Reuters. Before Trump and his entourage of tech bros sat down to dinner at Windsor Castle, Rachel Reeves and the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, had already announced a “transatlantic taskforce” to deepen links between the City and Wall Street.
Taking some of the sting out of “a challenging Budget in November”, is news that Blackstone, the giant US alternative asset manager, could invest £100 billion over the next decade, said Kalyeena Makortoff in The Guardian. Bank of America, meanwhile, will create up to 1,000 new jobs in Belfast.
Sod’s law, said The Times, that the bank’s monthly fund manager survey – published on the same day – reports that “institutional investors are dumping shares in UK companies at the fastest rate in more than 20 years”, amid anxiety over tax rises, borrowing costs and the stagnant economy.
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Big numbers
Rolls-Royce’s shares jumped ahead of the visit, said the FT. The company, a pioneer of small modular reactors (SMRs), is a clear beneficiary of a joint $100 billion nuclear deal, involving speedier regulatory approvals and secure nuclear supply chains, and the aim of getting new reactors online by the mid-2030s.
Still, “the centrepiece” of the visit, business-wise, is a “technology partnership” involving greater cooperation with Silicon Valley on AI and quantum computing, said James Landale on BBC News, which the sacked US ambassador, Lord Mandelson, called his “personal pride and joy”.
The numbers are certainly big, said The Daily Telegraph. Microsoft plans to invest a record £22 billion on infrastructure, including Britain’s most powerful AI supercomputer; Google has made a further £5 billion investment; Nvidia is pumping £11 billion into the UK AI ecosystem; and OpenAI plans to open a “Stargate” AI hub in Newcastle.
Tariff deal shelved
It’s glitzy stuff and “a nice vote of confidence in the UK”, said Patrick Hosking in The Times. But are these “gigantic warehouses stuffed with chips” really “the saviours of capitalism”? Siting data centres within our own borders in theory gives us more security over AI. But “don’t expect them to generate myriad high-skill, high-paid jobs”: the average data centre employs 54 people.
Therein lies the rub, said Andy Haldane in the FT. Successful industrial strategies need to focus on more than a set of “superstar” sectors. “The bulk of UK jobs are in the everyday economy” – and on that score this visit hasn’t delivered. Hopes of slashing tariffs on UK steel, from 25% to zero, have been quietly shelved.
