What does "They’ve put pen to paper" exactly refer to in the following news extract? Is it a paraphrase of the preceding "The early parts of the deal have been inked already'?
They’ve had a deal in place for five years. The early parts of the deal have been inked already. They’ve put pen to paper, and this is going to cost the French $65 billion. It’s a huge amount of money, especially relative to the size of the French economy, so that’s why the French are furious.
Best Answer
To "put pen to paper" simply means "to start writing", but the context describes what they are writing. In this context, we see that "parts of the deal have been inked already", which means that parts of the deal have already been "written down in ink", and not in pencil, which can be erased-- so an inked deal cannot be easily changed.
From this, we can see that "put pen to paper" cannot mean "begin writing the deal", because that has already been written. What is further to write? Their signatures. Signing the contract, with a pen in hand, completes a deal and makes a contract official.
For a dictionary-like reference, see: Your Idioms
You'll notice that the second definition of this idiom is explicitly "to sign a contract".