The Brief

Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, told the Financial Times that Britain has stayed closely aligned with EU rules and still blocks some American goods from its market. He said UK tariffs also remain high in some sectors and argued that Britain has not fully used the freedom Brexit gave it. Agriculture is the main dispute: Greer said British farm goods already have broad access to the US market, while American producers face much tighter restrictions in Britain. The 2025 UK-US trade deal lowered tariffs on cars and steel, while most British exports still face a 10 per cent US tariff. British steel faces a 25 per cent tariff, compared with 50 per cent for most other exporters. Britain also opened quotas for US beef and ethanol, while securing a three-year tariff exemption covering drugs and medical technology in return for higher NHS spending on medicines. At the same time, Britain is close to an EU food deal that would reduce checks on UK agrifood exports but require continued compliance with EU rules that restrict products such as chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef.

The problem is that Greer is asking Britain to cut tariffs, while the main agricultural barrier he complains about is caused by product standards. Cutting tariffs would therefore not solve that barrier. Greer also says British agricultural exporters already have broad access to the US market, which leaves Washington with more leverage over existing access than Britain has over the standards issue. His claim that British tariffs are high is also not supported by a specific figure in the source.

supported by a specific figure in the source. Britain’s pharmaceutical concession also comes at a cost. The NHS is spending more on medicines to secure a three-year exemption covering drug and medical-technology levies. The exemption has a clear end date, while the source gives no equivalent end date for the higher spending. British steelmakers also currently pay half the tariff faced by most foreign competitors, but that relative advantage exists only while Washington keeps the wider rate at 50 per cent.

Washington’s next move is therefore more likely to involve taking back an existing concession than offering Britain a new one. The three-year drug and medical-technology exemption looks particularly exposed when it comes up for renewal. This view would be wrong if the US and UK instead agree a wider deal covering British industrial exports before that exemption expires.

Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s chief economist, argued for an immediate rise in Bank Rate after inflation strengthened following the Iran war. He was one of three Monetary Policy Committee members who backed an increase in July, but the majority chose to wait. Markets currently put only a little over a 15 per cent chance on a September rise, compared with more than 70 per cent for November.

Pill’s timing argument clashes with market expectations. He says a rise must be communicated effectively, but acting in September would still come as a significant surprise. That makes a September move harder to present as a limited adjustment rather than the start of a broader tightening cycle. Waiting until November would let the Bank act when markets are already largely prepared for it.

Borrowers may still feel the effect before the Bank actually raises rates. Expectations of a November increase are already reflected in financial markets and can feed into mortgage and corporate borrowing costs. This means part of the tightening can happen before the MPC formally changes Bank Rate.

The Bank is therefore more likely to strengthen its inflation warning in September and leave any increase until November. That would allow policymakers to prepare markets before acting. This view would be wrong if Bank Rate rises in September, or if November passes without a rise and without more policymakers moving towards Pill’s position.

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for about $13bn, making it the largest outright acquisition in Nvidia’s history. Hugging Face rejected a $500mn Nvidia investment less than a year earlier at a $7bn valuation, partly to avoid dependence on a single dominant investor. The platform hosts around 3mn AI models, 1mn applications and 500,000 datasets, and is used by more than 18mn developers and 200,000 companies. Nvidia says Hugging Face will remain open to rival hardware, cloud providers and accelerators after the deal, and expects the acquisition to close by 2027 subject to competition approval.

The price is not the main risk. Nvidia is paying roughly 85 per cent more than Hugging Face’s valuation less than a year ago, but the $13bn purchase price is tiny relative to Nvidia’s $5.4tn market value. The bigger risk is behavioural: once the platform is owned by the industry’s dominant chipmaker, developers and rival hardware groups may no longer treat it as a neutral meeting point. If that changes where important models are launched and distributed, Nvidia could damage the network it is paying to acquire.

OpenAI and Anthropic are both developing their own processors, while Nvidia’s hardware rivals must now decide how much they want to rely on a platform controlled by their biggest competitor. That creates a new strategic choice for both groups: continue using Hugging Face as before, or shift important releases elsewhere to avoid strengthening Nvidia’s position. The commercial value of the deal therefore depends not just on ownership of the platform, but on whether the wider AI ecosystem keeps behaving as though ownership has not changed.

The key test may come before regulators rule on the transaction. Expect at least one major hardware rival or open-model developer to prioritise another platform for an important release before the planned 2027 closing. That would be an early sign that Nvidia’s ownership is weakening Hugging Face’s reach. This view would be wrong if major rival hardware companies and open-model developers are still using Hugging Face normally when the acquisition completes.