President Donald Trump has issued a raft of new tariffs (Image: Getty)
Noone can pretend they didn’t see it coming. Even before he was elected last year Donald Trump revealed that “tariff is one of my favourite words”. And last week he backed that up, with his performance in the Rose Garden putting thorns in the side of virtually every country on the planet.
The gravity of President Trump’s imposition of tariffs can be shown by looking briefly at the figures involved in our trade with the US. In 2023 we sold exports worth ￡187billion into America, approaching a quarter of our entire total and significantly more trade than we do with the whole of Asia.
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In return, the UK spent ￡115billion on products from the US, which in turn makes it a ￡300billion business, roughly the entire GDP of Pakistan. While this fiscal crisis – the widest raft of protectionist measures seen in more than 80 years – was not of our making, what happens next is solely down to this government.
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Make no mistake, if they get it wrong then recession seems inevitable, along with major job losses and a hike in taxes at the budget later this year. But here is a paradox as broad as the Atlantic: Sir Keir Starmer and his team have been gifted a huge potential boost to swerve the most drastic effects of these tariffs – despite the vast majority of them campaigning tirelessly against it.
And that possible bonus is Brexit. The significance of those charts held aloft by Trump last week in Washington shouldn’t be ignored for a moment, with the number one place for the “Reciprocal Tariffs” going to China with a hefty 34 per cent.
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But second place was reserved for the European Union at 20 per cent. Indeed, the EU found itself sandwiched between China and Vietnam in third place, which was hit with a whopping 46 per cent tariff. When you pause to think how the US has historically viewed Vietnam and China, that has to have made for some uncomfortable viewing in Brussels and beyond.
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The PM might be equally perplexed.
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The Brexit vote – considering he campaigned with great vigour to Remain and then advocated a second referendum – means the greatest chance he has to turn this into a success is an opportunity he’s fortunate to have. And while his refusal to accept the democratic mandate was not on the same scale as the ludicrously pompous Dominic Grieve – anyone seen him lately – or the monumentally deluded Sam Gyimah, he did want us to do it all over again.
While we should – and always must – retain close cordial ties with our European friends, let there be no more talk of a “new European hub” as was floated by Sir Keir last October. President Trump’s view of the EU is plain, “they rip us off…it’s so pathetic,” as he lumped it in with other countries such as China, India and Korea to hit them with higher tariffs.
Equally the EU’s response was drearily predictable, with EC President Ursula von der Leyen insisting the bloc was “prepared to respond” and talked of “counter measures”. Sir Keir must sniff the direction in which the trade winds are blowing. Because if he doesn’t, these tariffs could snuff out this nation’s economy.