Readers' Letters: Trade deal with mercurial Trump isn't worth a dime

The reported trade deal between the UK and US seems a positive step in transatlantic relations but if Keir Starmer thinks he can now relax a little and just let it all happen, he is seriously deluded.

Such a “deal” is neither watertight nor oven-ready, and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. One wrong word from a UK politician or spokesperson, one criticism of this quixotic and unpredictable president or perceived slight on the USA, and we’re back to square one.

This is not the arena of global diplomacy, it’s the law of the playground. You called me a name, it’s my ball so you’re not playing.

Keir Starmer and Donald Trump - pictured in February - announced a 'breakthrough' trade deal between the UK and US this week. Picture: Carl Court - Pool/Getty Images

The world may be walking on eggshells around Trump, afraid to say what he really is, all lining up to “kiss his ass”, but any leader who thinks they’re onside with him is clearly unfit for high office.

Starmer is in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks the so-called “special relationship” will endure.

D Mitchell, Edinburgh

World first

The election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV is an inspired one, quite literally, as the choice of the Holy Spirit. Who could have done it better?

Hailing from Chicago, as the first American Pope, he was immediately congratulated by President Donald Trump, though they are completely contrasting characters. While the President is unashamedly pursuing an “America first” policy, steadily withdrawing from world responsibilities, the new Pope, having served as a missionary in Peru, promises to be a global Pontiff of a global church.

I wonder what Pope Leo would make of Trump's costly axing of USAID, which is having dire consequences in the Third World, often lethally. This, among other things, would almost certainly be on the agenda of a meeting between them, sought already by the President.

Here's hoping that meeting is arranged for sooner rather than later, whether in the Oval Office or the Vatican, and hopefully President Trump will be faced with more than he can handle.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Confusing vow

We welcome the Programme for Government’s focus on increasing capacity and reducing waiting times in the NHS; but many Scots will have been left confused about what the Scottish Government’s strategy is to achieve these goals.

The public – including those with arthritis – have had little reason to have confidence in new plans for Scotland’s NHS coming out of Holyrood. Multiple commitments made over the years have simply not been met. On Tuesday the First Minister made another bold pledge on NHS appointments in his Programme for Government, but many people are already scratching their heads over what it means.

John Swinney announced 20,000 additional orthopaedic, ophthalmology and general surgery appointments this week. This sounds great – except that the First Minister had announced an extra 30,000 as part of the NHS Operational Improvement Plan published in January.

Are the 20,000 appointments newly announced in addition to those promised in January? Or did the First Minister quietly downgrade January’s target? The public has a right to know.

Lauren Bennie, Head of Scotland, Versus Arthritis, Glasgow

Stay glacial

John Swinney thinks that terrifying Scots with the threat of Nigel Farage as prime minister will attract enough of them to ensure an SNP victory in May 2026. Reform has no more realistic policies than the SNP has for Scotland, and it remains clear that the real threat to Scots is the possibility of continued SNP misrule. It’s a bit late for Swinney to promise to improve the NHS, child poverty in Scotland, the failure to narrow the attainment gap, the appalling number of drug-related deaths, etc when he has been central to SNP rule for 18 years. Someone should ask him what he has been doing during that time. Arguing about what a “woman” is comes to mind.

As for renewed emphasis on the tired old, washed-up, utterly damaging priority of taking Scotland out of the UK, “shifting the tectonic plates” of Scottish politics, how can the SNP keep pushing that when it would be a financial and economic disaster for Scots? The SNP has no detailed plan that would work, and no reputable financial or economic expert has suggested that the road from Day One of secession would be other than difficult and painful.

Swinney is under attack from Scottish separatists – including cranks in Alba and Salvo – who berate him for not making secession his top and immediate priority. His talk of geeing up support for secession is largely a sop to disillusioned separatists who feel that the SNP leadership has failed their cause. It is also all that he has.

In any case, tectonic plates move glacially, over long periods of time – a lot longer than the next 12 months.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Tunnel vision

Following recent correspondence on places outside the Central Belt being poorly served by public transport, I still remember with puzzlement that Nicola Sturgeon felt the need, from nowhere, more than a year ago, when not a sod was being dug, to say about the A9: “It wasn't until 2022-23 that we realised dualling wasn't going to be finished by 2025.” As around six sections averaging ten miles, taking three years each (at best) are required, this betrayed a poor grasp of her government's infrastructure. What made her remarks doubly memorable was that the nearest dualling is only, at most, 80 miles from where she was reported as living then. Is this not Central Belt tunnel vision beggaring belief!

And this week, her further gender debate stirring to give the maximum offence to over half the population, standing outside Holyrood without attending a debate in the chamber, and her constituency looking materially in a bad way – what are her priorities now?

Roderick Brodie, Dundee

Horses for courses

So John Swinney utterly accepts the Supreme Court ruling on gender yet agrees with Nicolas Sturgeon’s non-acceptance of it? No surprise there, he’s been riding on her coattails for years, but surely riding on two horses at once belongs in a circus?

Andrew Kemp, Rosyth, Fife

High-flying?

Now that Edinburgh Airport is to spend on increasing volume (“Edinburgh Airport launches 'most ambitious' expansion as traffic soars”, 8 May), I do hope that there will be a wee bit spent on making it less painful for the paying passengers at the various pinch points of our experience. They have been well documented in the past, although nothing was mentioned in the report.

The improved security process is great, but when you get home it is normally painful getting back to the immigration section, and often there too.

The (very) old adage of “never mind the quality, feel the width” springs to mind in this enterprise.

Derek Sharp, Edinburgh

Death with dignity

Murdo Fraser is in the wrong in wanting to reject the principle of assisted dying (Perspective, 7 May). Such a decision should be entirely the prerogative of an individual without interference from anyone else.

When my father was admitted to hospital in his final weeks, he knew his illness would end in delirium and hallucinations and repeatedly expressed the wish to be “given a pill” so he could end his life in dignity on his terms while he was still compos mentis. A friend in Germany recently ended her life, as the German constitution allows, in the presence of a doctor and having had the necessary psychiatric/medical approval. If only we could have that privilege in the UK or in Scotland!

If I ever fall ill or become disabled to the extent that I can no longer enjoy life, I want the legal right to end it in a way of my choosing. No-one should have the right to make me prolong my life against my wishes, as Murdo Fraser proposes.

No-one who does not want to use a process of assisted dying need do so but they should never impose their wishes on me.

Bill Cooper, Kinross

Out of touch

You really could not make this up. The SNP's Stephen Flynn, obviously hoping to become an MSP in 2026, has attacked Labour over job losses in Aberdeen's oil and gas sector.

The SNP has made it very plain that oil and gas ought to remain exactly where it is. Mr Flynn's attack exposes the dearth of ideas within the SNP and its lack of politicians in tune with what the actual public wants, not Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater's wish list.

Will the Scots really give the SNP five more years to finish off what little is left of Scottish industry?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Prawn merchants

So the UK trade deal with India announced this week is “historic” – with special mention that we will be able to get frozen prawns from India!

According to online sources: “In India levels of POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) found in several Indian rivers are well above the WHO permissible limit. The wastewater from many industries in India is discarded in rivers. Tons of hazardous waste is produced by industrial plants.”

I think that I will stick with prawns that are fished in UK waters!

M Blair, Greenock, Inverclyde

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