Farmer fears further agricultural 'nightmare' as Keir Starmer's UK-US trade deal hangs in the balance: 'No compassion!'

Georgia Pearce
Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:45:13 +0000

A British farmer has expressed his fears of a further "agricultural nightmare" as Sir Keir Starmer's UK-US trade deal with Donald Trump hangs in the balance.

Speaking to GB News, Andrew Ward explained although there are no details yet on how the deal will be changed, he predicted it will be "changed for the worse".

Donald Trump has threatened to rip up his trade deal with Britain after Rachel Reeves attacked his lack of an exit plan for his war in Iran.

The US President suggested he could change the agreement he reached with Sir Keir last year, because of Britain’s lack of support in the Middle East.

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Admitting the deal going from "bad to worse" is a "nightmare" for farmers, Mr Ward told GB News: "We don't know how it's going to be changed, do we? That's one thing to look at.

"But generally it will be changed for the worse, and going from bad to worse is a nightmare."

Highlighting one of the problematic factors of the deal, Mr Ward explained how the importing of ethanol from the US meant "two million tonnes" of British wheat was left with nowhere to go.

He said: "The one thing that is really bad was the ethanol deal, they were allowed to bring into the UK tariff free ethanol. I think it was 1,400 tonnes of ethanol, and the amount of ethanol that they were allowed to bring in then effectively meant that the ethanol we produced in the country, which is produced from wheat, that meant that that market had suddenly gone.

"There's an ethanol plant on the Humberside, and that ethanol plant would use around two million tonnes of wheat. This ethanol came into this country tariff free, which meant that this ethanol plant was shut down.

"Which also then meant needing a home for two million tonnes of wheat, and that's at a time when wheat markets are on the floor. So that's one issue that's really worrying."

Fearing Britain's "high standards" of farming will be "undercut even further" by the deal, Mr Ward hit out at the lack of "compassion" for the country's farmers.

He stated: "When you look at the way beef is reared and cows and cattle are reared in America, they're on massive feedlots, they're not on the green pastures.

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"We have very high welfare standards in this country, and those are going to be undercut even further. And when you start to look at the way the Government treats agriculture, they just have absolutely no thought, no compassion for the way we farm, and also for the amount of food that's produced in this country.

"And we need to obviously look at keeping food produced here rather than import it. But that seems an absolutely inferior thing for the Government at the moment."

The US President has expressed his anger at Sir Keir in his latest attack, complaining Britain failed to assist when he sought backing for strikes on Tehran.

Mr Trump told Sky News: "We gave them a good trade deal. Better than I had to. Which can always be changed."

The deal, named the Economic Prosperity Deal was announced in May last year by Sir Keir and Mr Trump, covering multiple sectors including automotive, aviation and agricultural industries.

For agriculture, the two leaders pencilled the deal would increase the agricultural market access for both nations, allowing 13,000 tonnes of tariff-free US beef into the UK while providing reciprocal access for British beef.

The agreement also removes tariffs on 1.4 billion litres of US ethanol.

However, several components of the arrangement remain incomplete, with full negotiations and implementation still outstanding.