President Trump Signs Technology Prosperity Deal with United Kingdom | Hacker News Reader

President Trump Signs Technology Prosperity Deal with United Kingdom

whitehouse.gov

52 pointsdonutloop56 comments

Nothing binding, just talking about goals:

-The U.K. commits to buying over $80 billion from U.S. tech & defense companies over the next five years. -The U.K. firm GSK (a pharmaceutical company) announced a ~$30 billion investment in AI R&D and infrastructure in the U.S.

-There will be regulatory cooperation to speed up approvals/licensing in nuclear energy.

It appears that the UK and the EU will buy weapons from the US for the Ukraine war (which the US, according to Trump, provoked) while the US is busy getting Venezuela and Greenland.

Once accomplished the US will have complete energy dominance over the UK and the EU.

Canada and Germany reached an deal/found buyer for new Canadian Germany trade route. Canada has a huge reserve of energy that matches well with Europe's needs. Trump's power slowly ticks away aw time passes.

These press releases aren't great sources of news. Anyone got a different link?

"US firms pledge £150bn investment in UK as tech deal signed" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2nllgl3q7o

Had posted this a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45285763

It's all related afaict

It's not stated in the article but what US gets in return? I guess some promises of political/tax policy stability. I am curious if there is anything official though.

I think the idea is that we(the UK) will buy small nuclear reactors from the US, and we'll develop ceramic uranium fuel system.

This is wild if so. They’re basically saying the UK gets what it needs (investment) in return for something the Labour Right has always wanted (Nuclear). This is an insanely good deal from Starmer’s perspective.

Well then Trump will unilaterally abandon it the second he figures that out. Clearly the UK's unfair trade practices have disadvantaged American workers for decades.

> Labour Right has always wanted

I think its more complex than that. The nimbys don't want it, along with significant parts of the eco lobby. (they scuppered the nuclear plan from EDF that would have locked in prices from 2000....)

There’s plenty of groupings that oppose nuclear power, for a variety of reasons. I’m merely arguing that this grouping has been consistent in its enthusiasm for nuclear for decades.

This isnt a left vs right issue. Lots of people on both sides support nuclear. Stop seeing everything through this silly binary lens.

Yes, but specifically the Labour Right are the grouping that are in power right now so their opinion matters. No-one thinks Corbyn is pro-nuclear but the stance of the Blair->Brown->Starmer axis has been extremely consistent. Without the qualification one could argue that the support was inconsistent, but nothing is further from the case. They’ve wanted this for a very long time.

Isn’t there a British company, Rolls Royce SNR, that is building small nuclear reactors?

They haven't actually built one yet. They have been selected as the preferred bidder here in the UK, but that's as far as it has got so far.

https://www.rolls-royce-smr.com/press/rolls-royce-smr-will-b...

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rolls-royce-smr-selected-...

Don't know that this is any better, but here's the gov.uk version:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/us-uk-pact-will-boost-adv...

and the follow up press release from Thursday:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-breaking-150bn-inv...

I'm not sure about this one. However, what I'm almost sure of is that neither the US-Japan Trade Deal nor the US-EU Trade Deal that Trump and WH announced loudly a few months ago were actual deals – they were essentially handshakes and non-binding declarations of intent by both parties, which also happened to have prerequisites that were (and still are) physically not possible.

So, my guess is that this is essentially, once again, a camera-focused announcement.

Just the headline itself makes me think of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and we all know how that turned out.

Thought the exact same. Not even knowing the history of Japan, just from like one frame in the Bill Wurtz video where that name shows up.

Okay but we also know how it started, which was not as a bilateral trade agreement. I don't think imperial japan has eternally tarnished the concept of 'prosperity' in the same way that hitler forever tarnished that style of mustache.

Good. The West would likely benefit from strong international partnerships for advancing AI, nuclear, and quantum tech.

Especially the part about helping the UK become Russia-independent for energy.

Agreed. Its a great first step with hopefully more to come.

Trump killed that strong partnership, this is just a deal with an unreliable partner you don’t want to be dependent on. He will exploit as soon it fits his need. Somehow worse than Russia

> Russia-independent for energy

It's specifically about nuclear fuel. The UK doesn't mine Uranium, but it does do fuel manufacture & imports from several countries. I wasn't able to find what, if any, "Russian" influence there is. Maybe the CEO at the fuel plant likes Russian vodka and now he'll be told to buy Polish instead ?

«The UK does not directly import Russian crude oil, refined products, or gas, having imposed a ban in late 2022 and early 2023 to counter the war in Ukraine. However, fuel derived from Russian oil is still indirectly imported into the UK through a loophole that allows Russian crude to be refined in other countries, like India and Turkey, and then sold to the UK.» (Gemini, but I'd have written the same.)

Gemini thinks our nuclear power plants use "fuel derived from Russian oil" ?

The text is about Nuclear fuel

> The TPD also commits the UK to achieve full independence from Russian nuclear fuel by the end of 2028

This whole "deal" is largely waffle and nonsense, the two countries are going to somehow work together to achieve nuclear fusion with AI, and they're going to create a quantum supply chain, and this is going to unlock breakthroughs in health care...

Stop trying to figure out what would make sense. Donald Trump has no idea what sense would be and Starmer is mostly just glad to avoid Donald deciding Farage should be Prime Minister now or whatever other nonsense he might decide on a whim.

No, UK power stations, trucks, and cars use fuel derived, at least partly, from oil pumped in Russia.

UK power stations?

The fossil fuel ones mostly use natural gas, I dont know why they wouldn't be from north sea oil fields ?

While the North Sea continues to produce a relatively large amount of the world's fossil fuels because most countries produce none or hardly any, in terms of the UK it's not enough.

Even if this wasn't a capitalist country where a million pensioners dying in unheated homes so that one billionaire can charge 10% more to sell their fuel abroad might be justified as "market forces" there simply isn't enough to heat homes and make electricity.

Twenty years ago, if we had the relatively modest need we do today, it would work because the gas production was much greater than today.

But actually twenty years ago we were still burning a lot of coal. We'd stopped burning it in the middle of our biggest cities by then, but a huge percentage of UK electricity was coal fired. Makes CCGT look fucking instant in terms of responsiveness does coal, but that's what we did, very little renewable back then.

If we could magically extract gas only for our own use, and as needed rather than with limited scale, we'd run dry before 2029. We'd get this Xmas, and the next, the one after would be scary as headlines about imminent loss of heat would be on every paper and then it'd be gone by spring and we're screwed.

In reality, we're extracting much more slowly and apparently we're (well, huge foreign companies who pay scarcely any tax) are happy to keep doing that for years.

Is America under Trump/MAGA is really “the West”.

If we’re using the federal government to shut down comedians, I think we have more in common with China/Russia/N. Korea? Especially when you consider illegally using the military to murder boats full of civilians, and banishment (not deportation) to random places.

Since the left has moved so far left, and Trump is closer to historical center, I believe the West is now closer to what it's been from a historical perspective.

I'd agree that the FCC's threat exceeded their authority. But between Kimmel's factually-stated (and sick) assertion, which opens ABC/Disney to defamation claims, and massive public and affiliate backlash, ABC faced concrete distribution risk, hence placing him on indefinite leave (not fired).

Britain jumps into bed with Palantir in £1.5B defense pact

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45313793

The problem with policy announcements from the current Whitehouse is that it requires us to believe that they are making policy and that it'll be enacted lawfully.

I'm british, so this should be unvarnished good news. but I just can't imagine this will survive any time past the first bad fox news headline.

Not everything in the White House is going through Stephen Miller.

This announcement itself has Vance, Sankar, and Kupor's fingerprints all over it.

For tech policy this admin is a basically A16Z and Founders Fund people, but the last admin leaned Sequoia Capital.

This is why you see a lot of crypto (A16Z) this admin and GreenTech (Sequoia) the last admin.

I think the crypto thing is even simpler - it’s self interest. It helps get votes on the right due to distrust in the federal reserve, it helps secure future political funds from a16z and others, and it literally makes Trump and his family rich from the meme coins.

> Not everything in the White House is going through Stephen Miller.

No, but its not based on real law either. Its just whatever the leadership thinks it can get away with.

If you can please the head of the court, then you can do what you want. if you fall out of favour, so do your plans.

> but its not based on real law either. Its just whatever the leadership thinks it can get away with.

I agree. We've ended up adopting the worst aspects of SpAds with none of the checks that come from a PS. DOGE lead to a large portion of the SES (our equivalent of the SCS except they don't make tea, bring biscuits, and act as bagmen for ministers) clamming their mouths.

It may not be binding, without a treaty ratified by Congress, like the Iran nuclear deal under Obama, but which parts are illegal?

If only the non-binding is the issue, I believe the supreme court has in the past few decades ruled treaties ratified by congress aren't binding either despite what the constitution says and that congress can undo them by not implementing them or something.

> I believe the supreme court has in the past few decades ruled treaties ratified by congress aren't binding...

This supreme court doesn't appear to be constrained by past rulings or even constitutional amendments. And 6 of 9 are on team whatever-Trump-wants.

I think the ruling I was thinking of was Medellín v. Texas (2008), but several more throughout past century despite constitution being very clear.

Goldwater v. Carter (1979) let the president unilaterally dissolve a ratified treaty

Trump doesn't do "policy". He is mostly trolling, and sometimes rambling. For anyone that doesn't understand or agree with them, they simply don't like you and it would be great if you weren't around.

What Trump is doing was essentially the position of Thomas Dewey, had he been elected President in 1944, but Roosevelt concealed his health problems. Dewey was very specific that Democrat New Deal agencies and programs would be eliminated.

It is the end of cooperative politics and compromise. Given the cognitive impairment, it is likely the beginning of what economists will be calling an "economic adjustment" (administration preferred language) due to AI and wasteful social programs. When cities like Denver want to take out a $1 billion loan to manage their budget, it doesn't bode well. Denver has few economic prospects, and has about $1 billion in existing debt. Los Angeles recently did the same thing.

My best guess is now he thinks if he "owns a piece" so can then use withholding of the technology to the rest of europe to make "deals"/threats

Anyone care to boil this down?

It's a bunch of individual investments by large tech firms, going both ways. It wouldn't ordinarily require a government intervention, but both governments are in need of a win right now. (Brexit has limited the UK's access to Europe, and the US needs to show that the tariffs give it leverage.)

These are all fine, and some things might even actually happen. (Deals like these tend to diminish as you get closer to money actually changing hands.) International cooperation is good. It's just a little weird that it had to happen between two countries who have been explicitly rejecting international cooperation.

I know a small bit about energy in the UK and one thing I know is this isn’t the first time a Labour government has taken a big swing for nuclear. Indeed, I suspect the exact same guy has been behind it both times. But it’s never happened, and I have to suspect this is because, as great as the technology is, the U.K. just doesn’t really need it and it’s not really commercially viable. Renewables plus batteries are already pretty competitive and are only getting cheaper and more effective with every passing year. Gas is still cheap and can take uo the base load slack. The only way this stops being true is if Putin turns the taps off, but he’s blinked too often on that front.

The UK IIUC has a lot of offshore property they can put wind farms (I don't know what that does to traditional uses of the waters, such as fishing; I'm sure there's a row about it).

In contrast, they have no domestic uranium sources, right? And while an idea like "One or two nuclear plants could provide for 100% of demand" sounds good, that means there's two locations to target to bring the entire grid down, which has strategic consequences.

I'm pretty pro-nuclear and I concur that for the UK, I don't think the risk/reward chart actually pans out the way they want it to.

Renewables in the UK are intermittent, all at once at not at all. We also have a crazy scenario where we have so much wind power at times that it has to be turned off because the grid can't handle the load and battery storage is scarce - we then compensate the owners of the turbines for the income they lose as a consequence.

Gas is very expensive here, we don't buy any from Putin, we import it from the US where it is liquefied, shipped thousands of miles and then un-liquefied for end use.

Our businesses are dying trying to compete with countries that pay multiples less for energy than we do.

More nuclear would give us long-term, uninterrupted supply - especially since small modular reactors can be located where the power is needed without needing the national infrastructure to be upgraded.

Easier said than done

Ah, bloody hell :(

Good to see some Biden-era initiatives are still sneaking through the cracks! Of course, a lot of this is 100% due to the alignment of a large portion of SV-turned-policymakers in both admins across the pond over the past 5 years.

Am I the only one who notices that "Technology Prosperity Deal" would be a really good name for, say, a tech dominion over a distant, formerly powerful country, in any cyberpunk near-future fiction?

Surprising given the disagreement with Starmer on Israel and the UK’s recognition of Palestine. On the one hand, the UK’s conditions for the recognition may never be met. On the other hand, it still looks like Starmer may be rewarding the actions of October 7 and distancing themselves from the US.

> On the one hand, the UK’s conditions for the recognition may never be met.

They just recognized it "UK formally recognises Palestinian state"

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce800enrglzo

Related post here got flagged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45322919

PSA, See flagged post in the "active" tab https://news.ycombinator.com/active

Yes that recognition requires multiple conditions. It isn’t just a plain recognition. I believe the other 10 or so countries who announced the same thing are using the same conditions. But it’s hard to find a confirmation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com