To the surprise of no-one who has been watching what Donald Trump has been doing since he won the US Presidential election last November, but to the immense surprise of the world's car makers, who appear not to have noticed what he is up to, he imposed 25% tariffs on all cars imported into the USA yesterday, plus a similar tariff on all car parts imported into that country for use in its home-based car manufacturing industry.
The impact is going to be dramatic.
One US car manufacturer apparently told the New York Times that they thought that US car production might fall by 20% as a consequence of what Trump is doing, because so many of the components used in US car manufacture are imported.
One-half of all cars sold in the USA are imported and will therefore be subject to this tariff.
The UK exports a considerable number of cars to the US each year, with around 130,000 cars a year being shipped from the UK to the USA.
In return, just 18,000 cars are imported from the USA into the UK each year. As I understand it, most of the Teslas bought in this country do, in fact, come from Germany. They are not, as a result, made in the USA.
It is pointless to pretend that this tariff will not have a significant impact on world trade or on wider economic issues, because it will.
Trump has now made it clear that he is engaged in a trade war with the rest of the world, and members of his administration have made it just as clear that they hate Europe, in particular, which is what appears to be motivating this action.
The first, the most obvious implication of this tariff will, however, be seen in the USA. That is a country that runs on cars. If the price of cars increases dramatically, as it clearly will in most cases, or cars cease to be as readily available, the impact upon the US way of life will be significant, even if there might be some beneficial environmental consequences of that.
There will be massive resentment about this in the USA.
There will also be enormous resentment about the inflationary impact of this price increase that is going to be seen in that country.
If the Federal Reserve is then stupid enough to react to this deliberately stoked inflation by increasing interest rates, which will of course have no impact in curing the problem that Trump is deliberately creating, then the ramifications of that increased US domestic inflation will be felt around the world. I do not rule out such a consequence: monetary economists are really capable of acting in such a stupid fashion.
They are also the domestic implications of this issue to consider in Europe, Mexico, Japan and Korea, in particular, which are the major exporters of cars to the USA. It is pointless to pretend that this will not have a knock-on effect, because it very clearly will. Demand for cars from these places is, inevitably, going to fall, although the precise market reaction will be hard to predict, precisely because demand for US cars might be price inelastic, meaning that the increase in price may not have a dramatic consequence for the overall level of physical demand, but this cannot be known as yet.
What we can be sure of is that some of the assumptions made by the Office for Budget Responsibility prior to Rachel Reeves' Spring Statement are now blown apart. The likelihood is that much of her so-called fiscal headroom has now disappeared, although I would stress that fiscal headrooms are always works of fiction that are created by Chancellors to have real-world harmful consequences.
So, what should we do?
Firstly, we should, as Mark Carney has said in Canada, make clear that our relationship with the USA has changed forever. To pretend that there is a special relationship between the UK and the USA is now so absurd that Starmer should stop the pretence. We have to face the reality that the US is a hostile state, and treat it as such. A total change in our world view is required, with massive ramifications.
Second, we cannot give in to US demands on things like digital taxation.
Nor can we give in to demands that we should not retaliate against tariffs because we have a VAT, because the two things are utterly unrelated to each other.
Thirdly, we do have to consider tariff retaliation. If the USA is to cause deliberate harm in the world, then it must appreciate that the price of doing so is something that it must bear, and that we will not. I took part in a discussion on Nicky Campbell's show on BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday on this issue, and had to suffer the thoughts of someone from the Institute of Economic Affairs on this issue, who quoted pure competition theory as if the real world did not exist. I never got the chance to point out that his fantasy economics was as real as Minecraft. I would have done if that had beenpossible. And, as I did say, in the real world, we have to stand up to bullies, which is what we are seeing.
Any decision that is made on tariffs is not about economics. It is about opposing the impact of fascism, which is what Trump is trying to impose upon the world.
Fascism is imposed by thugs and bullies. It is only by unified action in response to those thugs and bullies that we can hope to defeat them. The UK must stand alongside the EU on this issue if we are to have any chance of beating the curse that is Trump. There may be a price to pay, but that is what economic warfare demands. In the grand scheme of things, beating the tyranny of Trump is more important than just about anything else right now, because if he really succeeds, other governments will fall to similar types of tyranny, with the risk that Reform could create such a situation in the UK.
Fascism advances quickly. We know that. There is no point pretending otherwise. Trump is using a shock-and-awe tactic. Labourer's pussyfooting in response is just about the worst possible reaction, most especially now it is apparent that it has absolutely no impact on Trump at all.
It really is time that Starmer, Lammy, Reeves and their colleagues stopped telling the media that they are in serious negotiations with the USA when we all know that is complete nonsense, because no such negotiation has any impact on what is being decided in the White House.
Fascism is not beaten by people who pretend that normality is still well and thriving in the world, and that the existing rules are still in operation. It is beaten by people who understand the threat that they face. It is time that Labour did so.
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On the up side, yesterday’s polling from Gallup shows Trump underwater across EVERY policy area. In addition, he’s even underwater in Texas – of all places, a State he won easily. And further, yesterday Trump pulled his nomination for Ambassador to the UN as she currently sitting in Congress and they’re worried they’ll lose the seat. This is in a district of NY where she won by over 20 points.
So, fascism isn’t so popular amongst the general public as the fascists/authoritarians would have us believe.
All on Rachel Maddow (see Underwater on Everything). https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Thanks
Following on from Ivan’s comments
Trump’s regime which he loves to publicly boast has an overwhelming mandate is actually a House built on sand.
For British readers, the GOP’s electoral mandate is more analogous to 1992 or October 1974. It’s not the mandates that Blair or Thatcher had. And for all his bombast, Trump knows that.
The Republican’s majority in the House was just 3. And there are two by-elections in Florida to replace his National Security Adviser (Waltz) and his original nominee for Attorney General (Gaetz). Both of them were supposedly safe Republican districts.
But the polling for Waltz’s seat was a lot tighter than expected and that was before the careless talk about bombing the Houthis entered the public domain!
And that is also a driving force in the change of mind over appointing Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador. To lose one district is unfortunate, to lose two smacks of carelessness.
Stefanik is an ambitious politician who wanted to move up in the House or else move out to something bigger. I can imagine she will not be amused.
The mandate from 2024 is too weak to withstand internal tensions. And at some point, Musk with his business interests in China will have to confront the fact that he’s in an administration stuffed with anti-China hawks.
When the EU impose tariffs on imports on goods from outside of the EU, are they being hostile facists? Or is that different? If so, how?
It isn’t trade war.
It takes a fascist not to notice.
EU never played outside of the WTO rules and their tariffs are below WTO average. What is your point?
As the New York Times says Trump has not yet worked out what to do with car parts made in the US, shipped to Canada/Mexico before being returned to the US as part of completed vehicles.
The chances of the US making all car parts in the US in double quick time? Zero. Guess where the aluminium comes from? Canada.
King Don is proposing to charge Chinese built container ships $1.5mn each time they dock in a US port. The cost of renting shipping containers is likely to rocket. Bumping up US inflation.
The take away for the UK? The US is not to be trusted, establish different trade lines, form alliances with other countries.
Do not ,as the UK proposes to do, kneel to King Don expecting an emption from tariffs. This just makes the UK weak and open to more bullying.
I doubt if the UK is going to say to King Don remove your troops, planes, bombs and bugger off.
Truth though is stranger than fiction
Minecraft features Creepers who sneak up on you and explode
So my children tell me
Sounds a bit like the Trumpy Tariffs
The UK doesn’t have the right to insist that the USA changes its government which is clearly the outcome desired here. Nor should it conspire with other countries to attempt this in my view.
If you don’t like American products and services then you and like minded thinkers are more than welcome to voluntarily stop buying them rather than calling for your views to be imposed on everyone else here and calling for consideration of retaliatory tariffs which only make British consumers worse off.
So, we should not have opposed fascism in 1939?
It’s not just about not buying American goods as a choice. There are tens of millions of progressively-minded, law-respecting citizens of the US who are currently being subjected to increasingly fascist policies for which they didn’t vote. There must be consequential actions we can take in the UK and Europe to express solidarity with them, even at some risk to our own economic prosperity. The Canadians were left entirely exposed by Britain’s lack of moral support when threatened by Trump, who’s unbelievably being offered not only an audience with the king, but the mind-boggling prospect of American membership of the Commonwealth! The poison ideology of Trump’s administration will continue to embolden the far right here. Starmer must stop sitting on the fence. We must stand up to it. Why, even today, the Smithsonian Institution is being ordered to change its interpretations of history, to effectively erase the role of women and people of colour. Richard is correct. This is a moral challenge as much, as if not more, than an economic one.
I go out for a few hours and miss that on the Smithsonian
Of course race is a human construct
So much wrong there
Correct, the UK doesn’t have the right to insist the US changes it’s government. No country does. That has never stopped the US. I suggest, before you defend them, you look into how much the US pulls the strings in this country, impacting our legislation, consumer rights, environmental protections. Forget the EU, we need a US Exit. US corporations extract £800billion a year from us and pay little tax. The fact they are now acting hostile towards us shows our relationship as worthless.
Much to agree with
If tariffs equate to fascism, how then do you seen the EU, who have tariffs of about 20% on *everything* imported into the EU?
The US and Trump have a point – as much as you might hate to admit it. Only 6 countries in the entire world charge lower import tariffa on US goods than the US charges on theirs.
Oh, for heaven’s sake grow up and appreciate the politics of what Trump is doing.
Are you really as stupid as your comment implies?
WB,
Most global trade occurrs tariff-free. How?
Trade deals.
You act as a trustworthy partner in agreeing to trade with another country/economic bloc.
Trump is being a very special kind of childlike fascist by tearing up trade deals he bloomin well thought up 6 years ago!!
The reason the EU and the USA don’t have a trade deal is that the USA even then, before the madness of Trump, made demands deemed unacceptable in the EU.
“If tariffs equate to fascism, how then do you seen the EU, who have tariffs of about 20% on *everything* imported into the EU?”
Why does the Right spout easily demolished lies when it is cornered?
Even without googling I know that the EU has free trade deals with dozens of countries. Ergo, it is not charging 20% tariffs on everything.
Have you read Angus Hanton’s ‘Vassal state’ or watched his recent interview on Novara? If so you will realise that the UK is already effectively part of the US both militarily and economically/financially. And more than that, the political/cultural elite who set the agenda in all matters of state totally follow the outlook set by the USA. Hence the unconditional support (and indeed, participation) in everything that is happening in Gaza. As such, expecting even a cigarette paper’s difference in stance between Starmer (who clearly considers his mission in all things to defend the status quo) and Trump is just wishful thinking. On the contrary, if forced to take sides for or against the US (assuming it did become fascistic) I think there is a much higher chance that our political class would push to become the 51st state than go in the opposite direction and attempt any break of the link.
I do not agree we have lost our autonomy to act
We may have chosen to forego it for a while, but we have not lost it.
So, we are not a Vassal State.
Thank you, both.
Richard’s distinction is correct.
Loosening these bonds will take some effort as the US machine has proxies, paid, and sympathisers, unpaid*, who will take down politicians who want out. It happened with Corbyn. It wasn’t just zionists, but neo-cons and useful idiots behind his demise.** That network exists in Europe, too.
*An elite that sees the UK as ancient Greece and the US as ancient Rome. One, a former chief spook, became head of a Cambridge college. This person even went after Theresa May over Brexit. No one messes with this person or this person’s family, one of whom was involved with li(e)bor.
**I’m surprised Polly Toynbee, Peter Stefanovic, Supertanskii and Carol Vorderman have a nerve to go out in public.
Before the WW2, the War Office and Admiralty war gamed a confrontation with the US. When dad joined the RAF in December 1964***, some of the veterans of WW2 were still suspicious of the US. It’s not Trump. It’s the US.
***As we prepare to leave in the next couple of years, dad is putting photos of his service for hand over to the archives. Some will also go to the families of former comrades. As we do that, we wondered what happened to that country they arrived in in May 1964, six months short of their 20th birthdays.
Thanks
There are others, ex services, with different views. My sons often laugh about the person they call their late ‘favourite racist, neo-fascist ex Wing Commander great-uncle’. The joke is mixed with a tone of horror.
Don’t impose retaliatory tariffs! Some think we should let Trump and his band of thieves, bullies and fascist creeps steam roller the world instead.
The UK should do what Canada has done; don’t entertain/visit Trump, stop buying US goods and services, impose tariffs in response and never give in to bullies. Something Starmer is slow to learn.
Elbows up!
Those are tariffs
The “Ultra-Processed Life” is part and parcel of the neoliberal/fascist approach. https://oftwominds.com/blog.html
Agreed
“Starmer, Lammy, Reeves and their colleagues stopped telling the media that they are in serious negotiations with the USA ”
I’ll assume that Starmer & Lammy & Freebie-Reeves are not insane. The UK is in some respects an arm (military & financial) of the USA. I’m guessing that their calculation is that they can’t upset dad too much. Begging the question: why doe Britannia have a US dad – who is abusive – why did we not dump him years ago? & the delusions re the USA & UK ran from Churchill in 1900 (he was half american – like the blonde imbecile) through people like Macmillan through to B.Liar and all the others. Indeed, the only one that showed some backbone was……..Wilson (the Americans were desperate to get the UK sucked into Vietnam). Vassal State – required reading.
Personally?: I’d expel all US companies, all including the financial parasites (Goldamns (sic), Morgan Stanley, etc etc & McKinsey – they have over decades poisoned the UK.
I’m glad Trump has arrived on the scene – he exposes the nature of the UK – USA relationship (ditto USA – EU). Timne we saw it for what it was.
Thank you and well said, Mike.
Just before or soon after Trump’s first term began, Henry Kissinger said that Trump was one of these characters that appears from time to time in history and, due to particular views and / or character, exposes and / or kicks away the rotting edifice.
Adding. If you want to see what Yankee facism looks like – it looks like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNNmCJOjmt4&t=68s
straight out of the Nazi playbook of “disappear them”. Fascists little helpers – US police – with their faces covered “just following orders”.
Give it time & they will be playing the Horst Wessel @ US football games.
Christ on a bike – we are discussing modalities when we should be discussing how to cut ourselves off from the cancer that is the USA.
I fear you are right
Yes, I know. I wrote impose them appropriately in return. I thought I made that clear.
” To pretend that there is a special relationship between the UK and the USA is now so absurd that Starmer should stop the pretence.”
Starmer shows no sign of doing that – in fact just the opposite.
One of his biographers quotes him as saying ‘I am a problem solver’ – rather than an ideologue – ‘there is no such thing as ‘Starmerism’.
And Andy Beckett in today’s Guardian seems to take a very fanciful view of Starmer as begin ‘both more left and more right’ than previous Labour governments.
But his prioritisation of relations with the US – despite or maybe even because of – Trump , seems to be his motivating ideology – no less absolute than Blair’s self destructive Iraq/Bush episode.
This is another face of the ‘your money is safe with Labour’ / ‘your nuclear weapons/US special relationship is safe with Labour’ – which has haunted Labour for a hundred years.
In the space of a week Starmer has gone from being ‘a bridge between Europe and the US’ to – forbidding Rayner to even utter the word ‘Europe’ in response to Vance and co’s quoted ‘loathing’ of Europe. She just kept on doubling down on how ‘close’ we are to the US, and of course we should still share intelligence – even if they pass it to Putin….
But then we are already a vassal state to the US – they own us, they run our intelligence services. Will any government even contemplate what you are asking Richard, on resisting Trump and his tariffs, and making some kind of common cause with Europe against encroaching fascism – I don’t think so.
The King’s invitation for a state visit should be rescinded. It is not only inappropriate, but in fact highly embarrassing given Trump’s threatening behaviour towards Canada, a Commonwealth state of which the King is titular head of state.
Rescinding the invitation would send Trump the clearest message possible.
Agreed
It would be nice to think that the reappearance of his health issues in the news has been engineered to create a pretext to cancel the visit.
All I have ever known about the U.S. is that its dollar diplomacy – the ‘iron fist in the velvet glove ‘ – cannot possibly mean that it loses out to anyone.
It makes other countries hold dollar deposits in order to trade; World Bank loans are issued in dollars; oil is traded in dollars. It cynically exploits those countries who tie the value of their money to the U.S. dollar (South America?). In many ways, the rest of the world is made to prop up its economy which has more military spending than any other which helps/did help maintain dollar value whilst having huge deficits that would sink other countries in the eyes of the market.
The only time the U.S. loses out to anyone is when it goes to war and gets a good hiding (Vietnam) or loses interest + a good hiding (Afghanistan).
I am frankly tired of the whining, moaning bullshit emanating from Trump and his motley crew.
It is America’s rich that have destroyed America; their fervent anti-communists and increasingly so-called Christians have or are doing their bit too.
Americas enemies are within its borders and now in Government. I think that the realisation of this will grow but only because of the hubris that can come with power, which is a shame.
And they now resent the worlds for the favaours it has done the US
It is quite staggering
You think imposing tariffs is bad for the consumer, yet you think we should impose tariffs on US goods to ‘retaliate’.
That seems a pretty inconsistent logic.
And as others have pointed out the US is only doing what the EU and most other countries are already doing. Are they facists?
This is politics – I stress. Not economics
It appears to me that most of the cars we sell to the US are not basic economy family cars, but rather predominantly luxury vehicles. These cars are bought by people in the US who are extremely well-off, and are consequently prepared to pay a premium for the high-quality vehicles that we build here in the UK. This is the wealthy cohort who will be least impacted by Trump’s tariffs, and his reckless government policies. This group may even benefit considerably from the massive tax cuts demanded by Trump’s ultra-rich paymasters.
For this reason I think British car makers should not panic, and Keir Starmer has no legitimate reason to remove taxes on the predatory US Tech companies. On the contrary, I think that the most appropriate and impactful response by the UK would be to dramatically increase the current tax on Tech companies from the paltry 2% to 20 or 25%! This would directly hit the Tech giants who supported Trump into office. A bold move, standing up to the bully, would win global respect for our government. It would also be well received by the general public in the UK, and possibly prevent the incompetent accountant from scrambling to scavenge yet more money from the most vulnerable in this country.
The UK should implement this tax immediately, without further dithering in the hope that a ‘special relationship’ carve-out might protect us from Trump’s latest tax tantrum. He does not have a benevolent attitude towards the UK; in reality he is a greedy, selfish, megalomaniacal narcissist who has zero soft spot for the Brits! He will have a lot more respect for this show of strength. We should not back down, if or when, Trump decides to reverse his tarifs; we cannot trust that such a decision will be anything more than temporary. A significant tax levied on the Tech companies will mitigate the harm that their parasitic practices and damaging content inflict on businesses and the general population in the UK.
Remember, Trump is responding to the tariffs already imposed by the EU and others. Why don’t they say, ‘righty oh, we’ll get rid of the tariffs and other, non tariff barriers to trade, that we currently employ against US products’ and the problem would be solved. Or are the EU immune from criticism?
Are you another far-right idiot who thinks VAT is a tariff? I suggest you educate yourself before commenting here.
I don’t understand this VAT is a tariff thing. Where did it come from? Everything is subjected to VAT regardless of its provenance. I’m Austrian Slovenian originally and was studying in Slovenia just when they were entering the EU. They had sales tax before this and in that period sales tax was replaced with VAT. As far as I remember there were more sales tax rates than VAT rates but in reality it was very similar. Once the change was made the differences were negligible.
Precisely
154 countries have a VAT the last time I looked
Only the US finds it incomprehensible
Why do some people have a difficulty understanding VAT?
The USA has state and local sales taxes. Basically the same thing.
https://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/sales-tax-by-state
Actually, sales taxes and VAT are really very different.
This was posted a few days ago on NC:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03/the-dark-enlightenment-the-tech-oligarch-ideology-driving-doges-destruction.html
I wonder how much of what Trump does, is misdirection, designed to cover the tracks of Musk, Thiel Etc. If the above is to be believed, then needing to be a popular leader, will be a thing of the past.
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
Primo Levi
Spot on – Hanna Arendt outlined how the German civil service “the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” ….As a society we have still not leanrt those lessons.
I can recommend “The Zone of Interest” – I was shaking my head at the ordinaryness of it all. You can see the beginnings of something similar in the USA with respect to non-US citizens entering the country. Slippery slope stuff.
Arendt was right about this
It could happen anywhere
It would be more than helpful if we were readily able to identify US products when shopping so that we could, if so choosing, boycott them, but that doesn’t seem to be an option, and once you start factoring in this bit manufactured here, that bit assembled there, then all brought together as a product of….
Trump’s trade and economic illiteracy is going to be a nightmare.
Don’t drink US booze
Don’t forget many UK sounding booze makers are owned by US Co.s Sharp’s Doom bar is a popular beer made by Coors. I believe a famous Chocolate manufacturer is owned by an US “spiced cheese” company.
Trump’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on imported cars and parts is not just an act of economic nationalism—it is a declaration of ideological war on multilateral cooperation, rational economics, and the rule of international law. It is also a warning shot of how fascism now comes wearing the mask of “economic patriotism.”
What we are witnessing is not ordinary trade policy. It’s the economic front of an authoritarian project that uses disruption, shock, and division as political weapons. And the timid, rules-based responses from European governments—particularly the UK’s Labour leadership—are dangerously inadequate.
We need to abandon the idea that governments are helpless actors bound by market moods or diplomatic platitudes. The state has real power—and a duty—to act in the public interest, assert economic sovereignty, and defend democratic norms. Now is the moment to exercise that power.
Here’s what a courageous UK response should look like:
Drop the fantasy of a “special relationship” – Starmer must stop pretending that there is any goodwill left in US-UK relations. The US is acting as a hostile state. Our foreign and trade policy must now reflect that.
Stand with Europe and retaliate – Trump’s tariff is not economics, it’s aggression. Retaliatory tariffs, targeted sanctions, and coordinated resistance from the EU and UK are essential. The idea that we should “stay quiet” because we run a VAT is economic nonsense. This is not about tax—it’s about power.
Rebuild the domestic economy on bold principles – The UK should invest publicly, tax wealth fairly, and restore industrial capacity through a Green New Deal, not depend on crumbling global supply chains.
Prioritise democratic economic planning over market dogma – The kind of fantasy economics promoted by think tanks like the IEA must be called out for what it is: a cover for corporate dominance. We must rebuild economic sovereignty through deliberate state action.
Name the threat for what it is – Trump is not just a political anomaly. He represents a global authoritarian trend. Treating this as a minor trade spat is naïve and dangerous. As Murphy has said before: fascism moves fast. We must not meet it with politeness or PR.
The time for hand-wringing is over. A Courageous State would act—confidently, publicly, and without apology. If Labour is serious about standing up for democracy, sovereignty, and the public good, it must shed its fear and start leading.
Thanks
Apologies for delay
I should have added, in reply to Mike, that European regulators have shied from taking too tough action against US firms, unlike the US.
Attacking US software and digital tech companies would be one of the best ways to hit back. Increase consumer protection, right to repair, and privacy law. Pull out of patent agreements so domestic third-party companies can jailbreak and repair American products without the fear of being fined or jailed. Will the UK do this? No. We are a vassal state. America owns our companies, our assets, and likely* our politicians. Our military is just an extension of theirs. We are the 51st state, and like it or not, we will go down with their ship.
*certainly in the case of Farage.
And very soon if they have their way full data on all of us. We already have Palentir ie Peter Thiel accessing all out NHS data From the Health Service Journal – “US technology supplier Palantir has called on the UK government to adopt a “common operating system” linking healthcare data with other sources such as the Department for Work and Pensions.”
We are but pawns in Starmer and co’s game – I would suggest that Starmer, from his time as head of the CPS, is an American asset.
When this was all being floated, the CEO of the owner of Jack Daniels was saying that Ontario pulling their products was far more damaging than retaliatory tariffs.
There are about 500 million affluent (comparatively) consumers in Europe. If they boycotted products by Proctor and Gamble, Kraft, Esso, Texaco etc., it would have far more effect than tariffs and less damaging for them.
That’s what we should do Richard,but I doubt this spineless special relationship obsessed government will do it. It’s time to break free of the obsession with the US that some of our politicians have. Europe is our home, and has been for decades and will be in the future. We trade far more, and did more so before Brexit with the EU than the anyway. So Starmer, you supine apparatchik, get us back into the EU as soon as possible, and stop the pretence of negotiation with Trump’s grotesque regime. And cancel the state visit now.
Almost everything to agree with, including Richard’s comments.
So, I was thinking about the effects of auto tariffs. Richard said that about 50% of US autos are imported. Furthermore about 60% of auto parts used in “US built cars” are also imported. Say, 75% of car price will be increased by 25%. Then factor in that the US CPI weighting for new and used autos is about 7.5% (I assume used autos will correspondingly increase in price). Taking all this together suggests that official US CPI will increase by 1.4% as a result of auto tariffs alone. Even if it is a bit less, this is very substantial.
The Fed will then act in an entirely predictable, though wholly irrational, way and raise interest rates. This will push up the dollar and make other imports to the US cheaper. So, although, car prices may become relatively more expensive, there will probably be even more imported goods of other types, which is not what Trump intends (assuming even he knows what he intends).
Of course Trump plans even more general tariffs. These will cause more US inflation and consequently further US rises in interest rates. After a while a new equilibrium may be reached in which US consumer prices have increased (but not wages). The dollar is more expensive (it has plenty of headroom, it was $2 to the pound less than 20 years ago) counteracting US tariffs and militating against US exports.
Of course there will be “disruption” in the mean time (and, to be clear, I am not saying we should not follow the Canadians and implement counter tariffs). I guess the point is that Trump cannot implement his simplistic nostrums and expect them to work as he thinks. There are just too many feedback loops that will frustrate him.
Apart from Jack Daniels ( which I can’t afford, anyway) what other USA products should we- not boycott- but avoid buying? It might be quite a long list, I’m afraid.
It is
I will be trying to do so now
But I am working on an Apple machine….
I’m using an Acer laptop, which seems to be made in several places, but they’re a Taiwanese company. My phone is a Samsung, which is apparently made in Vietnam (I thought it was made in South Korea).
It may not be as bad as you think, Richard? Just googled it, and this is what it says:
“AI Overview
Apple Mac laptops, including MacBooks and iMacs, are primarily manufactured in China. However, some models, like the Mac Pro, are assembled in the USA. “
Interesting..
Yes, boycott as many US products as possible. MATA – make America think again.
In case you haven’t seen, I thought you might be interested
The people concerned are not Quakers but a group called Youth Demand who hired a room to talk about non-violent protests over Gaza and against the fossil fuel lobby.
https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house
Staggering
That is utterly appalling, and has all the hallmarks of dictatorship. How the hell can holding a meeting in a building to discuss 2 political issues be an arrestable offence ?
When is a government headed by a human rights lawyer going to repeal the anti democratic legislation passed by the disgusting neo fascists from the last Tory government?
Yes, I think Mark Carney has demonstrated the correct response. Clear and unequivocal. Starmer please take note https://youtu.be/H400vTXisgs?si=fPujvICy-UKVKrhY
I saw another clip of Carney today – might have been part of the same event – where he came out with a great zinger: “I take note of what President Trump said; I don’t take direction from him.” Bullseye! We need a few more like him.
🙂
[…] will it be the Midwest person, dependent on their utility vehicle that is now going to cost a lot more, who will lead the backlash against the madness of King […]
Meanwhile, for news about the rise of fascism in the UK:
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/03/28/30-met-police-smash-down-quaker-meeting-house-doors-to-raid-anti-genocide-gathering/#respond
Posted already here this mrnin*…
Apologies, l’m still working my way through those 70+ comments.