Starmer urged to join EU and Canada in fighting Trump with retaliatory tariffs – UK politics live
PM hopes to reach economic deal with US but growing numbers call for unified retaliation to US tariffsGood morning. Keir Starmer is taking his last PMQs before the Easter recess at noon, but the big event today will come at 9pm tonight (UK time) when President Trump announces sweeping global tariffs, upending the free trade consensus seen as the basis for a century or more of western prosperity. Here is our latest global story on this, and here is our overnight UK story, by Pippa Crerar, Heather Stewart and Richard Partington.Bridget Phillipson was doing interview duty on behalf of the government this morning. As education secretary, she is not involved in trade policy and her message was much the same as Jonathan Reynolds’ when he was in the same broadcast studios yesterday. She said that the UK was “well-placed as a nation” to reach an economic deal with the US (which might lead to tariffs on the UK being reduced) and that talks were still underway.Despite weeks of refusing to criticise Donald Trump’s damaging behaviour, it’s now increasingly apparent that the government will not secure a carve out for the UK ahead of Trump’s global tariff war.Trump has shown himself to be an unreliable partner on the economy. No one, not even the US’s oldest allies, are safe from the economic harm reaped by this White House.Starmer has organised his military coalition of “willing” nations to defend Ukraine against Putin in the event of a peace deal. My conversations with senior government officials, business leaders and economists reveal a hunger for Starmer - or Canada’s Carney, or any elected leader of a sizeable democratic nation – to organise an “economic coalition of the willing”, to champion free trade against Trump and his tariffs.The concept, half of which I have explained before, is to counter Trump’s bullying trade tactics – tomorrow’s announcement by him of tariffs on all imports to America - by threatening collectively to impose tariffs on America’s exports double or treble whatever his tariff rates turn out to be. Continue reading...
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PM hopes to reach economic deal with US but growing numbers call for unified retaliation to US tariffs
Good morning. Keir Starmer is taking his last PMQs before the Easter recess at noon, but the big event today will come at 9pm tonight (UK time) when President Trump announces sweeping global tariffs, upending the free trade consensus seen as the basis for a century or more of western prosperity. Here is our latest global story on this, and here is our overnight UK story, by Pippa Crerar, Heather Stewart and Richard Partington.
Bridget Phillipson was doing interview duty on behalf of the government this morning. As education secretary, she is not involved in trade policy and her message was much the same as Jonathan Reynolds’ when he was in the same broadcast studios yesterday. She said that the UK was “well-placed as a nation” to reach an economic deal with the US (which might lead to tariffs on the UK being reduced) and that talks were still underway.
Despite weeks of refusing to criticise Donald Trump’s damaging behaviour, it’s now increasingly apparent that the government will not secure a carve out for the UK ahead of Trump’s global tariff war.
Trump has shown himself to be an unreliable partner on the economy. No one, not even the US’s oldest allies, are safe from the economic harm reaped by this White House.
Starmer has organised his military coalition of “willing” nations to defend Ukraine against Putin in the event of a peace deal. My conversations with senior government officials, business leaders and economists reveal a hunger for Starmer - or Canada’s Carney, or any elected leader of a sizeable democratic nation – to organise an “economic coalition of the willing”, to champion free trade against Trump and his tariffs.
The concept, half of which I have explained before, is to counter Trump’s bullying trade tactics – tomorrow’s announcement by him of tariffs on all imports to America - by threatening collectively to impose tariffs on America’s exports double or treble whatever his tariff rates turn out to be. Continue reading...
