British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been urged to stand up to United States President Donald Trump if he imposes heavy tariffs on British goods as the latest development in his series of international trade disputes.
Trump has called April 2 "liberation day" as he plans to impose tariffs on goods from overseas in an effort to encourage greater domestic productivity and consumption, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the US recorded a record $1.2 trillion trade deficit in 2024.
He has already announced that aluminum, steel and cars will be subject to 25 percent levies, and there have also been threats to impose blanket tariffs of 25 percent on all countries that put VAT on imports from the US, which includes both the United Kingdom and the whole of the European Union.
The Politico website reports that even those in Trump's inner circle are unclear as to precisely what he has planned, with the president seemingly happy to maintain an air of mystery.
In an interview with Newsmax last week, he said he would "probably be more lenient than reciprocal, because if I was reciprocal, that would be very tough for people," adding there will be "some exceptions", and the
following day he said people would be "pleasantly surprised" by the "somewhat conservative" tariffs.
Relations between the EU and Trump have been poor since his return to the White House, culminating in Trump saying that the 27-member bloc had been "formed in order to screw the US… and they've done a good job of it, but now I'm president".
Throughout the process of Britain leaving the EU and ever since, a transatlantic trade deal has been touted as a potential benefit, but nine years after the Brexit referendum, nothing has materialized.
So far Starmer has avoided criticism of or confrontation with Trump and maintained a more positive outlook about relations with Washington than his European counterparts, but Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that the consequence of a 20-percent increase in tariffs between the US and the rest of the world would be to cut UK economic growth by 1 percent.
Last week, Trump relented when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney returned his tough talking over tariffs, and speaking to the Observer newspaper, former British ambassador to the US Kim Darroch advised Starmer to be prepared to stand firm in a similar way.
"It's understandable that, faced with deeply damaging US tariffs on British cars, steel and aluminum, the government should think about concessions like reducing digital tax," he said. "But they need to be wary of giving Trump wins; tariffs are his all-purpose forcing mechanism and he'll use them again and again if he sees them working.
"And they should note the dramatic turnaround in Canadian politics, where on the back of a robust and defiant response to US tariff threats, Mark Carney's Liberals have gone from 14 points behind the Canadian Conservative party at the end of January to eight points ahead last week."
