Donald Trump has declared that he can use tariffs in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way”, as the UK and the EU said they are seeking urgent clarity on the US trade deals they struck last summer.
Trump threatened to ramp up his global tariff war on Monday, after a supreme court ruling last week that he had overstepped his legal authority to impose his “liberation day” measures last year.
Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said he does not expect Trump’s new 15% global tariff – announced on Saturday – to affect the “majority” of a UK-US economic deal that was agreed last year.
However, it is still not clear if the new tariffs, collected from Tuesday, will be at the 10% rate on most goods agreed last May, or the 15% rate.
Asked whether retaliatory tariffs were an option, he said: “No one wants to see a trade war. No one wants to see a situation that’s escalated. But as I say, nothing is off the table at this stage.
“As you’d expect, discussions are still ongoing, and it is an evolving situation … While we understand the uncertainty this creates, businesses and the British public can be assured that we’re focused on protecting them and for national interest.”
Trump posted on his Truth Social Network on Monday: “The court has also approved all other Tariffs, of which there are many, and they can all be used in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty, than the Tariffs as initially used.
“Our incompetent supreme court did a great job for the wrong people, and for that they should be ashamed of themselves (but not the Great Three!).” The decision was approved 6-3.
The top US trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, said at the weekend that deals already agreed “remain in place”.
However, confusion reigns among businesses in the UK and the EU.
The new president of the British Chambers of Commerce, Andy Haldane, told the BBC he believed that the 15% tariffs did apply from Tuesday unless the government heard otherwise.
“We are 10% [tariff rate with the US]. If he [Trump] follows through tomorrow, that will be 15%, and that will mean the UK sits towards the bottom of the league table in terms of who’s been made worst off by the measures of the weekend,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Peter Leibinger, the president of the German Federation of Industries (BDI), called on the EU to “quickly approach the US and provide clarity on tariffs and trade rules”.
The EU struck a deal in July agreeing 15% blanket tariffs that were inclusive of previous levies.
Greer said on Sunday that the new 15% tariffs would not apply to countries with which it already had a deal, including the UK, the EU, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Lesotho.
“We want them to understand these deals are going to be good deals,” Greer told CBS. “We’re going to stand by them. We expect our partners to stand by them.”
On Monday the EU said “additional clarity” was the “absolute minimum that was required in order for us, as the EU, to make a clear-eyed assessment and decide on next steps. We are very clear what needs to happen here. The US needs to tell us precisely what is going on,” said the EU trade spokesperson Olof Gill.
“Our intention is to continue implementing the aspects of the agreement we made with the US.”
The EU trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, will attend a virtual meeting of the G7 trade ministers on Monday and will also meet EU ambassadors in Brussels to discuss the next moves, Gill added.
The European parliament is poised to pause the process of ratification of the trade deal with Trump later this afternoon, the lead negotiator of the conservative group of MEPs has said.
The parliament has already paused the deal once, over Trump’s threat to Greenland, but unfroze it earlier this month, and a vote of all MEPs is expected in March to formally ratify the agreement.
The US dollar slumped 0.4% against a basket of other currencies on Monday after the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency said it would deactivate all tariff codes associated with International Emergency Economic Powers Act-related orders as of Tuesday at midnight (5am UK time).
The CBP told shippers on Monday morning that it would stop collecting tariffs under the emergency powers act as of 12.01am (Eastern US time) on Tuesday.
Customs authorities in the US gave no new information about possible refunds for importers.
That is despite the supreme court’s decision making more than $175bn (£130bn) in previous US Treasury revenue subject to potential refunds, based on an estimate by Penn Wharton Budget Model economists.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
