If ever there was a time to be a member of the E.U. reforming it from the inside, now is it.
Instead, we are still trying to grapple with the mountain of legislation which will have to replace the European stuff very shortly, at the same time as trying to make mutually beneficial trade agreements with a president who has just slapped 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, is threatening to do the same with automobiles, has expressed his utter disdain for the World Trade Organisation and effectively turned his back on the 'Special Relationship' between the U.K. and the U.S.
What is Britain's response to this? To threaten to impose a 25% import tax on Southern Comfort, peanut butter and Levi jeans. He must be shaking in his boots.
It is said that he is trying to teach China a lesson, but all that will happen is he will force everyone to dump cheap steel all over the world, thereby not only destroying what is left of our steel industry, but also his own.
I don't know what long-term vision he has in starting a world-wide trade war, but I am hoping that by pissing-off his core voters and supporters by putting them out of work at the same time as driving domestic prices through the roof, there will be no long-term anything for him.
Let's hope that this is the deal which gets him unceremoniously removed from office before he does any more stupid damage.
While we are still in the EU Customs Union there can be no special relationship with the US in any case.
ReplyDeleteNot as far as customs go - that's the whole point. He has made it clear that the U.K. will get no better treatment after it has left the E.U. Customs Union, even after he supported our leaving the E.U. in the first place. We will be truly on our own. Is that what you voted for?
DeleteWe night be able to negotiate if we were not connected to the EU but as such we will not be able to. He should read some of Churchill's history. Trade tariffs never benefit anyone.
DeleteAnd reflect that it was Churchill who set up the special relationship, having brought the USA out of the isolationist/protectionist position (with a little help from Japan) that Trump is now adopting. The man is a dangerous fool.
DeleteWhat would happen to our car industry if Trump escalates the trade war? Mini cars are owned by BMW and made in Oxford. All these E.U. manufacturing deals are going to create the most god-awful and expensive mess once we finally leave. The 'yes' or 'no' vote of a couple of years ago was ill-informed enough at the time, but the world scene has altered so drastically in the meantime that I bet a vote with whatever alternative arrangements available to us would result in a massive rejection from most people who originally voted to leave. We have diminished beyond redemption in the eyes of the rest of the world now and there is no getting back the respect in the foreseeable future. Trump knows this and will be exploiting it for all it is worth.
DeleteHis sort of business deals will always exploit the weak and vulnerable. He is hard-wired for that. There is strength in numbers.
DeleteHe is not going to help anybody anywhere, even his intentions were good. He needs to listen.
DeleteHe has probably lost himself a hefty slug of support he had with his trade wars than anything else he has done so far.
DeleteRachel has already said it, but if the UK had split from the EU a bit earlier, we would now be in an extremely good position. The EU would be slapped with tarifs, and the 'special relationship' would be romping away. Too bloody late Theresa.
ReplyDeleteHow would the E.U. being slapped with tariffs help us? Do you think Germany is going to move Rolls Royce and Mini to there? Would that help us?
DeleteThe best thing for the EU at the moment is to not start playing his game.
DeleteI agree. I don't want to pay 25% more for peanut butter.
Delete... with palm oil in it ...
DeleteAt present the UK doesn't have an independent trade agreement with the US; it has to abide by EU trade rules. If we were already apart from the EU, we would be free to trade with the US as we wished, and they would certainly NOT impose tariffs on us.
DeleteThat would depend on how Trump felt during the negotiations.
DeleteCanada is supposed to have a special relationship with the USA and that means nothing to this administration. We are now a security risk to the US, NAFTA is now on hold. I don't know how you negotiate in good faith with them. If reason doesn't prevail many, many people will be hurt. Our tariffs on US goods will be near 16.6 billion
ReplyDeleteWe only send 14% of our steel to the US, but it is of a sort they do not make themselves.
DeleteGeneral consensus here on why we are a national security threat- Melania crossed our biggly porous border.
ReplyDeleteAnd Canada handles Cuban oil production.
DeleteI prefer the Melania theory...
DeleteHis enemies are his enemies and his friends are his enemies. So, we're still all the same, and that's a relief. I've quit thinking there is a solution.
ReplyDeleteWith enemies like that, who needs friends?
DeleteOver half the country tried desperately to warn the rest of it (and the world) that Trump was a dangerous, ignorant fool and that his presidency would be a disaster. Well, here we are. I don't even care anymore...let it all continue to go to shit. We're all suffering now thanks to his idiot supporters and I just hope they're the ones who bear the brunt of the consequences of his policies.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that many thousands of his supporters are from the Rust Belt. That's how stupid he is. You never know though. They maybe even more stupid than we thought, and support the steel tariffs.
DeleteIn 1904 when Churchill defected from the Tory Party because he was against the introduction of trade tariffs to protect the Empire, the Tory voters left the party in droves and they lost the next election.
DeleteI think when our country behaves in this utterly stupid and dogmatic way it'll be easy meat for every mad dictator and overblown president of whatever country. Those who wanted us out of a secure system will be able then to moan and groan about how nasty and mean everyone is to us. Jesus wept.
ReplyDeleteTom I am too busy grappling with my UK trip dates - just make sure they don't fuck it up before I get there. Also I fancy coming to do a wee cabaret show in Bath, you reckon it would go off? At the pub, nice change from folk music? ;-)
ReplyDelete