The defamation lawsuit, filed by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing and its attorney, Sebastian Rucci, claims nonprofit Comite Civico del Valle (CCV) and the group’s executive director, Jose Luis Olmedo Velez, are attempting to stall the data center project in a bid to force a financial settlement.

Illustration of Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing’s proposed AI data center in Imperial, CA. Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing

NIMBY protesters demonstrate against a proposed data center in Imperial, CA. Facebook/NIMBY, Imperial

The group also hired Jake Tison to allegedly create a brutal online campaign, “publishing over 100 false and defamatory posts and videos across social media platforms” in an effort to make IVCM and Rucci look bad, according to the lawsuit.

Tison’s purported online posts called Rucci a “life-long fraud” and accused him of violating the California Environmental Quality Act, a statute that has become notorious for being leveraged to gum up development projects across the state, court documents obtained by The California Post said.

The suit alleges Tison spread false posts that Rucci had been thrown in jail for fraud. In reality, Rucci did spend a month in jail but for a misdemeanor liquor license violation, not fraud, according to the suit. 

Tison’s alleged online attacks then spiraled into something more violent and dangerous when his followers began to read his posts, according to Rucci and IVCM.

Superior Court of California

Superior Court of California

The lawsuit alleges Tison’s followers commented things like “public executions” and threatened to “burn the data center to the ground.” “Why can’t somebody just get him like Luigi did with the UntiedHealthcare CEO,” another wrote.

CC presents itself as an environmental justice nonprofit, but has “perfected a lucrative greenmail extortion racket: it files CEQA challenges to delay projects, then demands massive “public benefit” settlements that it alone controls,” according to the documents.

“Defendants also engaged in environmental terrorism by intimidating Imperial County Supervisors with threats of “slaughter at the voting booth” and placing their photos on milk cartons to coerce denial of a ministerial lot merger,” according to the documents.

Sebastian Rucci of Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing Sebastian Rucci

Rucci’s lawsuit is the latest salvo in the furious battle to build the state’s largest artificial intelligence data supplier. Google is in line to become the tenant of the data goliath should the project get built, according to written communications reviewed by The Post. A Google spokesperson said the company isn’t involved with the project.

“The ultimate tenant will surface when the environmental terrorists, and their hired-thug propagandists, are forced to scatter like cockroaches after being exposed for their actions,” Rucci said in an interview with The Post. “They are extortionists, not environmentalists.”

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Douglas Carstens, an attorney for CCV, said in a statement: “This lawsuit is meritless and its foundational claims lack a factual basis. The intention of this lawsuit should be questioned by all who value transparency, community voice, and the fundamental right of organizations to engage in good-faith policy advocacy on issues affecting the health, environment, and future of the Imperial Valley. CCV has worked tirelessly to ensure communities are protected from the environmental harms that proposed projects can bring, and those efforts should not be misconstrued.”

NIMBY protesters against a proposed data center. Facebook/NIMBY, Imperial

Rucci said he has the stomach to take on the activists but it’s a drag on time and resources. He said onerous state regulations can easily be hijacked to make building near impossible.

The Imperial county project demonstrates the challenges of building large data centers in California, despite the state being the technology capital of the world. Khara Boender, who lobbies on behalf of data center development for the Data Center Coalition, said developers are increasingly considering moving potential projects out of state because of the tough regulatory environment.

Superior Court of California

Superior Court of California

Rucci’s company, Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, says the $10 billion project will create jobs and generate $28.75 million in annual property tax revenue.

The project has already featured a headspinning amount of drama since it was proposed in 2024: The city of Imperial has sued the county, arguing the project should not have received an exemption from California Environmental Quality Act. Rucci then sued the city earlier this year, in addition to now suing the activists who oppose the project.   

Last month, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors held a meeting to solicit feedback from residents and allow Rucci to try to warm them up. The meeting ended, according to Rucci, with him having to evacuate because tensions involving residents and activists nearly boiled over as protestors chanted “We don’t care! It’s hot air!”

In written comments posted by the county, residents cite a litany of concerns about the project, including the health impacts on nearby neighborhoods, potential utility price hikes and the environmental strain of building a water intensive data center in a desert. Data centers use large amounts of water to cool equipment. 

 
Attorney Alene Taber, representing the city of Imperial, said in an interview that the developer and county have tried to skirt procedures and regulations in an attempt to fast track the project.

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The post Online attacks and Luigi Mangione-inspired death threats in ugly brawl to build California AI megaproject appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Two Palestinians are gathering donations to create a public library in Gaza, after Israel’s war and genocide destroyed nearly all existing libraries, schools, and universities. The two men, Omar Hamad and Ibrahim, are avid readers who have spent years trying to save books as they struggled to survive in Gaza.

On their donation page, Omar wrote about his early love of books, and how as a child he saved, “coin by coin, until at the end of each month I could buy two or three books.”

When he received an evacuation order on October 8th, 2023, Omar packed up what books he could and fled. But each time he was forced to evacuate, his collection dwindled. He nearly lost his entire salvaged library when the hospital he was sheltering in was attacked:

When the soldiers stormed the building, they dragged us out with insults, blows, and humiliation. I said goodbye to my books and left a note among them:

“Whoever finds these books, please take care of them.”

I deliberately left it unsigned — I wanted the books to remain free, without an owner.

Miraculously, the books survived.

Omar kept trying to rescue books as he was repeatedly displaced. Books felt essential to him, and as he wrote in Lit Hub back in June, “My library was like paradise—I would travel and sail through its books to seize wisdom and the self I had forgotten since the first day I was forced to abandon reading.”

Salvaging books from wrecked libraries and schools has led to some agonizing choices, Omar told The Jordan Times, and he’s found it “very difficult to preserve the cultural spirit amidst this destruction.” Omar has been documenting his library on Instagram, in particular his favorite Russian writers like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Svetlana Alexievich, and Mikhail Bulgakov.

The other librarian behind this effort is Ibrahim, who fell in love with books in university, particularly Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and Tamim Al-Barghouti, and Gabriel García Márquez.

Ibrahim’s house was completely destroyed by Israeli forces, but miraculously, his bookshelf survived: “And then I saw it — my small book cabinet, perched at the top of the rubble, its pages breathing through the stones as if refusing to die. In that moment, something inside me returned to life.”

With their new library in Gaza, the two are hoping to preserve as many books as they can, but also build a space for rebuilding collective memory and fostering expression, creativity, and play. Their tenacious defense of books amidst brutality and genocide is not only an attempt to preserve objects, or institutions, or even a culture under assault:

“With your support, you are not rebuilding a place —
you are rebuilding a life that can continue.”

You can donate to help Omar and Ibrahim’s library here.

The post » You can help build the first public library in Gaza since the genocide began. appeared first on Our Story Insight.

The plan for a new 350 Park Ave. represents a remarkable personal commitment by mega-billionaire Griffin, who’s a partner with two major development companies — privately held Rudin and publicly traded Vornado Realty Trust.

The 1,600-foot-tall tower will dwarf Midtown’s current cloudbuster king, the JPMorgan Chase headquarters at 270 Park Ave., by 200 feet. Its 1.7 million square feet of floor space will be anchored by two Griffin-owned companies, Citadel and Citadel Securities, which will occupy 850,000 square feet.

The 1,600-foot-tall tower will dwarf Midtown’s current cloudbuster king, the JPMorgan Chase headquarters at 270 Park Ave., by 200 feet. Foster + Partners

Demolition of three buildings now at the site will start early next year, with the new, $4.5 billion tower to open in 2032. It will front on the full block of Park Avenue between East 51st and 52nd streets and on portions of the side blocks, as well.

The designers, architectural firm Foster + Partners, have something of a monopoly in the neighborhood — they also designed the JPMorgan tower and nearby 425 Park Ave.

The 350 Park Ave. project has been in the planning stages for six years. It was made possible by recent rezoning to allow larger office buildings such as One Vanderbilt in East Midtown, a once-premier district that was dominated by older, smaller and antiquated buildings.

The new tower required $150 million purchases of air rights from St. Patrick’s Cathedral and St. Bart’s Church, as well as city approval of a relatively small size increase for which the developers are to contribute $35 million to the city for pedestrian and public improvements.

The 350 Park Ave. project has been in the planning stages for six years. It will boast a block-long public plaza on the Park Avenue side and wrapping onto the side streets, a fine-dining restaurant. Foster + Partners

The tower will rise with or without additional tenants. Vornado’s executive vice-president earlier told The Post Foster + Partners

The tower will rise with or without additional tenants. Vornado’s executive vice-president earlier told The Post. “The magic formula to get a tower off ground is to have an anchor tenant and equity partners, which we have in the form of ourselves, Rudin and Ken Griffin.”

The supertall tower is to be all-electric, environmentally sensitive and “wellness”-attuned.

It will boast a block-long public plaza on the Park Avenue side and wrapping onto the side streets, a fine-dining restaurant on 52nd Street and a cafe on 51st Street. The Council approved the plans on Thursday.

The plan for a new 350 Park Ave. represents a remarkable personal commitment by mega-billionaire Ken Griffin Citadel

A project spokesman said, “We appreciate the  Council’s thoughtful consideration and we thank Council Member [Keith] Powers and the City Planning Commission for their productive feedback and leadership throughout the approval process.”

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The new midsize four-door pickup will be assembled at the automaker’s Louisville, Ky., plant. Ford is investing nearly $2 billion in the plant, which produces the Escape and Lincoln Corsair, retaining at least 2,200 jobs, it said in a statement.

Chinese carmakers such as BYD have streamlined their supply chain and production system to produce EVs at a fraction of the cost of Western automakers. While these vehicles have yet to enter the US market, Ford CEO Jim Farley said they set a new standard that companies like Ford must match.

Ford plans to start rolling out its new family of affordable electric vehicles in 2027, including a midsize pickup truck with a target starting price of $30,000. The Louisville plant, above. AP

“We have all lived through far too many ‘good college tries’ by Detroit automakers to make affordable vehicles that ends up with idled plants, layoffs and uncertainty. So, this had to be a strong, sustainable and profitable business,” Farley said in a release Monday.

Ford has been developing its affordable EVs through its so-called skunkworks team, filled with talent from EV rivals Tesla and Rivian. The California-based group, led by former Tesla executive Alan Clarke, has set itself so much apart from the larger Ford enterprise that Farley said even his badge could not get him into its building for some time.

EVs sold for an average of about $47,000 in June, J.D. Power data showed. Many Chinese models sell for $10,000 to $25,000.

Affordability is a top concern among EV shoppers, auto executives have said, and the global competition for delivering cheaper electric models is heating up.

EV startup Slate, backed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is aiming for a starting price in the mid-$20,000s for its electric pickup. Tesla has teased a cheaper model, with production ramping up later this year. Rivian and Lucid are also planning to roll out lower-priced models for their lineups, although price points are in the $40,000s to $50,000s.

Since rolling out plans earlier this decade to push hard into EVs, Ford has pulled back as the losses piled up. It has scaled back many of its EV goals, canceled an electric three-row SUV, and axed a program to develop a more advanced electrical architecture for future models.

Affordability is a top concern among EV shoppers, auto executives have said, and the global competition for delivering cheaper electric models is heating up. Ford CEo Jim Farley, above. Courtesy of Ford

Ford last year announced it would start building its midsize truck from the skunkworks team in 2027.

The automaker earlier this year estimated losing up to $5.5 billion on its EV and software division. It lost nearly $10 billion combined on those operations from 2023 to 2024.

Cutting costs on battery-powered models has been one of the primary goals of Farley, who has said he expects this new family of EVs to be profitable within one year.

Ford sells three EVs in the US: the Mustang Mach-E SUV, E-Transit van, and F-150 Lightning pickup. Sales of those vehicles fell 12% in the first half from the year-ago period. Meanwhile, interest in hybrids has surged, with sales up 27% over the same window. Ford recently pushed back production of its next-generation F-150 Lightning and E-Transit to 2028.

Ford sells three EVs in the US: the Mustang Mach-E SUV (above), E-Transit van, and F-150 Lightning pickup. Sales of those vehicles fell 12% in the first half from the year-ago period Getty Images

The elimination of a $7,500 consumer tax credit, loosening regulations on emissions and reduced funding for charging infrastructure are expected to further dampen demand.

All this makes it more important for automakers to pick their lanes, Farley has said.

“The pure EV market in the US seems to us very clear: small vehicles used for commuting and around town,” Farley told analysts on an earnings call last month.

By contrast, crosstown rival General Motors has electrified vehicles across its entire lineup, from the hulking Hummer to the smaller Equinox SUV. GM spent more time upfront building a ground-up platform as a base for its EV models.

The elimination of a $7,500 consumer tax credit, loosening regulations on emissions and reduced funding for charging infrastructure are expected to further dampen demand. AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, Ford has reconfigured many of its popular gasoline-powered vehicles with batteries to get to market sooner, delaying the development and launch of a unified EV platform, details of which it unveiled on Monday.

While being out front has exposed Ford to more EV demand fluctuations over the past two years, it has also learned more about the market, Farley has said.

Ford is using lithium-iron-phosphate, or LFP batteries, for the forthcoming family of EVs. The batteries are produced in Marshall, Mich., using technology from Chinese EV-battery maker CATL that has helped to bring down the sticker price of electric cars.

The post Ford to build EV pickup with a starting price of $30K appeared first on Our Story Insight.

“Every time I get up I remember how tall I really am,” Laubach, a 22-year-old from Pennsylvania, told NYNext.

At age 18, Laubach went into end-stage heart failure. For two weeks, she lingered on life support while doctors scrambled to find a donor. She ultimately had a successful heart transplant, but not before a spinal stroke left her paralyzed from the waist down. 

Three years after a spinal stroke left her paralyzed, Caroline Laubach now walks weekly with the help of an exoskeleton from Wandercraft called Eve. Emmy Park

She thought she would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, then she met Wandercraft’s Atalante. During a therapy session in November 2024, she strapped on the exoskeleton for the first time. It was life-changing.

“To look at somebody from eye-level and have a connection with them in that way,” she said. “It’s a different dynamic.”

In December 2023, Wandercraft debuted its flagship U.S. space — a street-level showroom and clinic called Walk In New York. Emmy Park

Founded in 2012, the French robotics and AI company Wandercraft launched its first model of Atalante in 2019. The device received FDA clearance for stroke rehabilitation two years later.

In December 2023, Wandercraft opened a headquarters and showroom in New York. It’s betting that its exoskeletons can help redefine mobility for people with spinal cord injuries, strokes and other conditions affecting gait and balance.

“We are not just a technology [confined to] cool video demonstrations in the lab,” Matthieu Masselin, CEO and co-founder of Wandercraft, told NYNext. “We are working with real people, real patients.”

“I was born completely healthy — as far as we knew,” Caroline Laubach (left) told NYNext’s Lydia Moynihan (right). At 18, Laubach went into end-stage heart failure and spent two weeks on life support awaiting a transplant. During that time, she suffered a spinal stroke that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Emmy Park

Laubach can control Eve with a handheld joystick, using buttons to walk forward, turn, squat and even bend side to side — all without assistance. Emmy Park

Unlike other exoskeletons that require crutches, both Atalante and Wandercraft’s newer model, Eve, are fully self-balancing. The former is designed specifically for physical therapy and requires the assistance of a clinician. The latter, now in clinical trials at the Bronx VA and Kessler Rehabilitation Center in New Jersey, can be fully controlled by the user and is built for personal use in home and real-world environments.

Wandercraft’s exoskeletons are powered by multiple motors — two at the ankles, one at each knee and several at the hips — plus a suite of sensors that constantly track weight distribution. As the user shifts or moves, the system processes inputs in real time to maintain balance and posture.

While Atalante (right) is used in rehab centers under therapist supervision, Eve (left) is untethered, joystick-controlled and intended for everyday use outside the clinic. Emmy Park

Masselin, who co-founded Wandercraft in 2012, left Paris and moved to New York about three years ago to help bring the company’s vision to life in the U.S. Emmy Park

From weight and height to balance and stride, every patient moves differently.

To ensure safety, Wandercraft has spent more than a decade refining its control algorithms and AI systems with collaborators like Nvidia and AWS. It’s tested its hardware with more than 2,000 patients in hospitals and rehab centers.

French paraplegic tennis player Kevin Piette wore a Wandercraft exoskeleton while carrying the Olympic torch through Paris ahead of the 2024 Games. Courtesy of Wandercraft

One prominent patient is French paraplegic tennis player Kevin Piette, who donned a Wandercraft exoskeleton to carry the Olympic torch towards Paris ahead of the 2024 Games. 

“Emotionally, psychologically, physiologically … [we’re seeing] the benefits on so many aspects of [the patients’] lives,” Masselin said.

Thanks to improved engineering and streamlined production, Wandercraft’s exoskeletons are steadily becoming cheaper to produce — and a new partnership with the Renault Group, Masselin said, will drive costs down even further. Emmy Park

Wandercraft devices are currently used in more than 100 institutions across Europe and America, and access is expanding. 

The company recently received Medicare coding for Atalante, meaning qualifying patients will be reimbursed. When Eve hits the market,potentially as soon as next year, it will be eligible for reimbursement up to $93,000.

As part of its partnership with the Renault Group, Wandercraft has co-developed CALVIN-40 — a humanoid robot that can support manufacturing workflows. Courtesy of Wandercraft

Masselin said that future iterations of the exoskeletons will be equipped for less even terrain and consistent surfaces like stairs and sand. Emmy Park

To help scale, Wandercraft partnered with the Renault Group in June to streamline manufacturing and reduce costs. As part of the partnership, Wandercraft is also developing a new line of humanoid robots that can slot into the manufacturing process. 

To Masselin, who relocated from Paris three years ago to lead US expansion, the future of the technology lies in its adaptation to broader environments — stairs, outdoor terrain, even beaches — and in building devices that respond to how people actually live.

This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC’s power players (and those who aspire to be).

Laubach, for her part, hopes to be among the first to take Eve home once FDA clearance is granted.

“I hope we see a lot more exoskeletons out on the street,” she told NYNext, “for people like me — and people very different from me.”

Send NYNext a tip: nynextlydia@nypost.com

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President Trump announced on Thursday that the United States intended to sign a trade deal with Britain that would bring the two nations closer and roll back some of the punishing tariffs he issued on that country’s products.

Both sides consider a trade pact deeply beneficial, and a deal has been under discussion since Mr. Trump’s first term. But the announcement on Thursday was scant on details, reflecting the haste of the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate with more than a dozen nations and rework the global trading system in a matter of months.

The agreement, which Mr. Trump said would be the first of many, would include Britain’s dropping its tariffs on U.S. beef, ethanol, sports equipment and other products, and buying $10 billion of Boeing airplanes. The United States in return said it would pare back tariffs that Mr. Trump has put on cars and steel, though it will leave a 10 percent levy in place for all British exports.

Neither government has said when they expect the agreement to be finalized. A document released by the Trump administration on Thursday evening listed half a dozen general priorities, and said the countries would immediately begin negotiations “to develop and formalize” them.

The British government said it was still pushing to bring down the 10 percent tariff on most other goods. American officials said they would push Britain to reconsider a tax on technology companies. Officials from both governments will need to meet in the coming months to hammer out more specific language, leaving open the potential for disagreements.

Nevertheless, the leaders of both nations hailed their cooperation in joint announcements on Thursday that invoked the deep relationship between their countries. Speaking from the Oval Office, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain on speakerphone, Mr. Trump called it a “great deal for both countries.” Mr. Starmer noted that it was the 80th anniversary of the Allies’ victory in Europe in World War II.

“There are no two countries that are closer than our two countries,” Mr. Starmer said. “And now we take this into new and important territory by adding trade and the economy to the closeness of our relationship.”

Both British and American businesses, including U.S. cattle ranchers and dairy farmers, also praised the arrangement, though some lamented that tariffs between the two countries would remain higher than they were when Mr. Trump came into office.

The announcement comes as the United States races to finalize agreements with more than a dozen other countries eager to avoid Mr. Trump’s high tariffs. U.S. officials have been negotiating with India, Israel, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, among other trading partners, for agreements that would drop tariffs between the countries.

Trump officials are also headed to Geneva this weekend to discuss trade issues with Chinese officials, amid an intense standoff that has shut off U.S. trade with China and is threatening to put many companies out of business.

Amid the festering disputes with many countries, closer ties with Britain appeared to be low-hanging fruit for the Trump administration. British officials have eyed an agreement with the United States since leaving the European Union in 2020 as a way to offset reduced trade with Europe, and Mr. Trump has pushed for a deal with Britain since his first term.

Mr. Trump, who is fixated on trade deficits, has also praised the country for having relatively balanced trade with the United States. Last month, the president imposed the same 10 percent global tariff on Britain that he put on other countries, but not the higher “reciprocal” tariffs that were applied to many countries that ship the United States more products.

Officials said Thursday that their plans would leave the 10 percent tariff on British exports in place but roll back others that Mr. Trump has put on cars and steel. In return, Britain would offer billions of dollars of market access for American beef and other exports.

One of the most contentious issues for Britain in recent months has been the hefty tariffs Mr. Trump applied to automotive imports, which threatened British companies like Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin.

Under the terms of the new arrangement, Britain will be allowed to send 100,000 vehicles to the United States under a tariff of 10 percent. The British government said that any cars shipped beyond that level would face a 27.5 percent tariff, and that U.S. tariffs on British steel would fall to zero. Britain sent 92,000 vehicles to the United States in 2024, according to data from Oxford Economics.

U.S. firms in turn will gain more ability to sell to the British government, and streamlined customs procedures when selling into Britain, according to a White House fact sheet. In addition, the governments said they will cooperate on issues of economic security, like enacting global technology controls and setting up a secure supply chain for important products like steel and pharmaceuticals.

U.S. officials hope the announcement will send a message to other American trading partners that if they agree to open up their markets, they too could see some of the tariffs Mr. Trump has applied rolled back.

Mr. Trump’s defenders have praised his deal-making ability and said that the global tariffs he has issued have given him extraordinary leverage over other countries. Critics have painted the president as increasingly desperate to solve a crisis of his own making, as tariffs begin to push up U.S. prices and dampen the economy.

Wall Street welcomed the news on Thursday, seeing it as a sign that the Trump administration might move to mend ties with other trade partners. The S&P 500 ended the day 0.6 percent higher after paring back some gains from earlier on Thursday.

Rob Haworth, a senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bank Asset Management, said the market was “cheering progress on this deal.” But he added, “this is clearly a market on edge, and I think we’re not out of the woods yet.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents ranchers, praised the Trump administration for expanding U.S. access to the British market.

“With this trade deal, President Trump has delivered a tremendous win for American family farmers and ranchers,” said Buck Wehrbein, a Nebraska cattleman who heads the group.

Other analysts were less impressed. Paul Ashworth, the chief North America economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a note that “the ‘full and comprehensive’ trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K. announced in a rush today by President Donald Trump and PM Keir Starmer is no such thing.”

“This rush to demonstrate progress on ‘deals’ reveals a rising desperation within the administration to roll back tariffs before they hit G.D.P. growth and inflation,” Mr. Ashworth added.

Britain is the United States’ 11th-largest trading partner in goods, representing 2.9 percent of total U.S. trade in the first quarter of the year. The United States sent $80 billion of machinery, airplanes, natural gas, crude oil and other products to Britain in 2024, while it bought $68 billion of cars, pharmaceuticals and other goods in return.

The United States is Britain’s largest single trading partner, though most of that trade relationship is in services, which are not affected by tariffs.

The Trump administration notified Congress of its intent to negotiate a trade deal with Britain back in 2018. But the talks never got much traction in Mr. Trump’s first term because of British resistance to America’s chemically treated beef and chicken, as well as fears that the United States would push for American companies to gain deeper access to Britain’s National Health Service.

During the Biden administration, British officials continued to advocate a trade deal but did not make much progress because of Democrats’ skepticism.

In late February, at a party at the British ambassador’s residence in Washington, Mr. Starmer, who was visiting, told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick of Britain’s interest in focusing on trade, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. Mr. Lutnick, who oversees a portfolio that includes U.S. trade policy, connected with his counterpart in the U.K. government, Jonathan Reynolds. British officials made clear to the Trump team they wanted to be the first country to make a deal.

Mr. Trump’s special envoy to Britain, the former producer of his show “The Apprentice,” Mark Burnett, was involved in the early discussions and was a proponent of trying to secure an early deal with the country.

With Mr. Lutnick focusing on the big picture and Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, working through the details and execution, the governments hammered out a framework. Mr. Trump also engaged directly with Mr. Starmer, including putting in an 11th hour call to push for more in the agreement, the British prime minister said Thursday.

Mr. Trump liked the idea of Britain being his first partner, given the country’s special relationship with the United States, and he thought the agreement would send a good signal to the world, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking. Britain is also not a major source of automobiles or steel for the United States, which helped persuade American officials to drop the tariffs on those products.

The announcement also provides Mr. Starmer a much-needed political victory, appearing to vindicate his strategy of cultivating a relationship with Mr. Trump.

But some analysts have noted that the agreement left many tariffs in place and skipped over more contentious issues, like opening Britain’s health care market to U.S. companies, or the digital service tax that Britain has imposed on American tech firms. They suggested that trade talks with other governments that are less closely allied with the United States could be tougher to finalize.

“If we’re 40 days out from Liberation Day, and the first deal and the only deal is with a country where we run a bilateral trade surplus that was not seen as a problem coming into Liberation Day, I take it as a kind of bearish signal about how difficult the next deals are going to be,” said Josh Lipsky, the chairman of international economics at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. He referred to Mr. Trump’s term for April 2, when the president rolled out his tariff plan. He later paused most of the tariffs for 90 days.

Other industry executives expressed nervousness about the precedent that rolling back tariffs on foreign steel, aluminum and cars might set for other negotiations, or complained about the concessions being unfair for U.S. industry.

Matt Blunt, the president of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, said his group was “very disappointed” that the administration had prioritized Britain over Canada and Mexico, which remain subject to 25 percent automotive tariffs and buy far more from U.S. factories.

It would now be cheaper, Mr. Blunt said, to import a car from Britain than one from Mexico or Canada that might source half its parts from the United States.

Mark Landler, Eshe Nelson and Danielle Kaye contributed reporting.

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