Keir Starmer appears to have been celebrating today because USA has said that it will only charge a 10% tariff on exports from this country to the States. It does, however, look as though he might be celebrating too soon.
One of our biggest exports to the USA is cars. Minis and Jaguar Land Rovers make up the majority of those exports. And, it has to be noted that the USA had already announced that there would be a 25% tariff on all cars imported into the US from all countries, including the UK. There has been no hint in the current announcements that the previous announcement on cars has been cancelled, to be replaced by the figures now proposed. It is, therefore, quite possible that the export of cars from the UK to the US will be subject to a tariff of at least 25%. If so, Starmer is celebrating too soon.
As with much that is going on with regards to tariffs, the precise facts are not clear in this case, and I need to emphasise that. However, those thinking that we have won some form of Brexit advantage may be celebrating too soon.
But, if they were wise, they would not celebrate at all, because it is only by aligning with the EU that we now have any chance of restoring constructive trade relationships with the rest of the world.
Will Starmer do that?
Do pigs fly?
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Do pigs fly?
A wing of em just went past the office window – doing a barrel roll and winking.
Just kidding. The UK is weak, Mango knows it so will kick sand in Starmers faces as per bullies the world over.
Special relationship? USA – UK – indeed: USA lays down the law and the UK goes “yes massa”. Tariffs on Uk cars? – yes or we supply whatever colonies UK still has – Gibraltar? The Channel islands? IoM? Who knows. They would all be good, unsinkable aircraft carriers. Mad? Trump 2nd term looked mad this time last year.
Thank you and well said, Mike.
Starmer, whose connections with the US war machine, go back two decades, if not more, has often emphasised that Britain controls both ends of the Mediterranean. It’s also why the RAF flies two or three surveillance sorties daily from Cyprus over Palestine and even the Levant.
Starmer and Lammy have been warned about aiding and abetting Israel, but do not care. They see sucking up to the US and Israel as more important.
Hard lesson, the UK supplicating to King Don does not work.
Will this have any impact on no Steer Keir? No. He will pursue a very one sided trade deal with King Don because a deal is better then no deal.
Just shows how far the UK is prepared to be shafted in a very one sided special relationship.
We do not need a trade deal with a fascist state.
Jacobin had a rather good article ref: what exactly is Mango’s America. The argument was: turbo-charged normal.
https://jacobin.com/2025/03/trump-fascism-antidemocratic-american-history
Extract: Trump’s reactionary politics are all-American — and the path to defeating him runs through reform of America’s antidemocratic institutions.
The article is well argued. Obvs one can put the label fascism on Mango-America but as the article argues, this is rather to miss the point. I thought the article was useful and offered a bit more nuance.
The trouble is, I think he is a classic fascist
And we don’t need a trade deal that includes the NHS.
My understanding from what I’ve seen from US media, and going back a week or so to OSINT stuff on the auto industry, is that they stay as they are one tariff area that Trump really believes will work. In short, that he can force US car makers to make ALL of their cars in the US, and that US car are better than any other – by definition. He’s spoken about this often and specifically, whereas he’s often woolly on other stuff. So this isn’t just about making cars in the US it’s about US brand cars, of likes made by Ford and GM, and stuff European brands.
Linking this back to one of your earlier blogs today, what I think is going to be interesting as whether Rolls Royce and Bentley will be particularly hit – after all what’s a 25% increase to the uber rich. But certainly, Mini, and Range Rover – which are popular in the US but have direct US equivalents (e.g. Jeep, RAM, etc). Which only leaves Aston Martin. Not sure about the impact on them. They’re not up there with Rolls and Bentley, but neither are they down with Range Rover as a volume producer. I suspect, therefore, that they might come out of this very badly. And their owner is a Canadian if a remember correctly, so Trump will be even happier hammering them.
Thanks.
And I tend to agree – especially re Aston Martin.
For someone who claims to know ‘the art of the deal’, i think he only understands ‘the art of bullying someone into a corner’.
I can understand the logic of relocating manufacturing ie job creation for local citizens, but trying to price competitors out of the market (export prices will clearly need to be raised to compensate for the initial loss), doesn’t work for me. If the homegrown products are so good, why are your citizens buying imported products in the first place?
Tour question is key.
US cars really aren’t very good, acceding to US people is the answer. Unless you want a giant ute I guess.
I thought Mini and Range Rover were German owned. As for a Jeep being equivalent, well in size perhaps, but the modern Jeep is acknowledged as the most unreliable vehicle made in the US.
It is where they are made, not who owns them, that creates the tariff charge.
Starmer knew the car 25percent was there even as he was crowing about his 10percent for kow-towing. Ño UK govt will stop the special relationship grovel. It’s how the establishment defines the UK. We are the fifty first state.
Pathetic, isn’t it?
Yes it is Richard, utterly pathetic from Starmer and his government of gutless creeps and fools.
Yes it is Richard, utterly pathetic from Starmer and his government of gutless creeps and fools.
About to watch QT. Wonder how this will play out with the public?
Jonathan Reynolds’ statement about tariffs on the Gov.UK website says this:
“Yesterday evening, the United States announced a 10% reciprocal tariff on UK exports and have today imposed a 25% global tariff on cars. This follows the application of tariffs of 25% on US imports of steel, aluminium and derivative products that was announced on 12 March.
No country was able to secure an exemption from these announcements …..”
The Government seems to be saying the 25% does apply to UK cars. So why are the mainstream media giving the impression today that it’s 10% on everything and we’re doing just fine in comparison with the rest of the World?
I have no idea….
Basic stupidity or corruption in the MSM?
In the BBC’s defence (for once) they have been going with 25% all day, I believe.
“…more than 25,000 jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry ‘could be at risk’ with a 25% tariff coming into effect on Thursday…”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czd35l8995eo
Thanks
Compare Stymied to the Democrat Senator from New Jersey and I know who I’d want in my corner.
Starmer is just a great big wet lettuce of a leader, and only becomes an iceberg one when it comes sticking the boot into disabled people.
Tosser.
I believe all cars get a 25% tariff…. and yes, it is a major export to the US.
Clearly, 10% (for other stuff) is better than 20%…. but at what price has it come?
I would suggest serious concessions to Big Tech – and no doubt they will be back for more having been successful this time.
But, perhaps more importantly, we are diminished in the eyes of our allies in mainland Europe and Canada. Having done quite well with respect to Ukraine, I fear that this has all been lost for nothing..
Agreed
The Falkland Islands, 3000 people and about a million penguins, got a 42% tariff.
What are we going to do, send a gunboat?
🙂
Look on the bright side! For a short period there will be a massive new industry – Importing goods from the EU and elsewhere, relabelling them, and exporting them to the US. If Musk has sacked anyone capable of spotting this, it may last a while. Maybe even longer if we offer a billionaire a cut of the profits.
That is fraud
“The precise facts are not clear…” Brought back what might be a telling memory. For my sins, 20 or so years ago, I had to attempt costing some handmade crafts from Rybinsk in Russia for sale in UK Oxfam shops. It proved impossible to do this by ‘desk research’ with any precision – the stumbling block being that until we talked with the customs officer responsible for collecting any export duty/bribe, it was impossible to predict what that cost might be. I’ll never forget one of my Russian colleagues telling me “Geof, you must understand, in Russia power is personal.”
This website seems to be associated in some way with the Economist. The presenter evidences his theory with excerpts from Bessant and Miran’s speeches. I wondered what you think?
‘Why Trump’s tariff chaos actually makes sense (big picture)’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ts5wJ6OfzA
As far as I understood, the Trump people see this as a deliberate period of chaos to demonstrate the seriousness of using tariffs as leverage … with a view to dividing the world into vassals, neutrals and enemies. Appallingly, the example of an existing vassal is the UK.
The ultimate aim is to create a new economic world order … it’s a MAGA master plan for a new global order, in which the dollar is weakened but remains the world’s reserve currency. Effectively ‘the Mar a Largo accord’ would be like Bretton Woods but without the link to gold…. and that would require ‘vassal’ currencies to be pegged to the dollar and would appreciate their currency whenever the dollar becomes too strong.
It’s bizarre, but plausible
It won’t work
[…] Minis and Jaguar Land Rovers make up the majority of those exports. … But certainly, Mini, and Range Rover ? which are popular in the US but …View full source […]
I believe cars will be subject to the 25% tariff, yes. I certainly wouldn’t call that A Win.
Starmer may be thinking that his smarming up to Trump has got the UK a less dreadful rate of tariffs. Presumably the dithering about tit for tat tariffs on U.S. goods and services is because our Knight of the Long Knives is begging Trump for a trade deal. Or because he’s been sitting on the fence for so long that the fence posts up his arse have penetrated the area of his brain responsible for decision making. (Actually, those fence posts might also explain his startled expression)
What we don’t yet know, of course, is what any trade deal may involve, or the full extent of the capitulation the UK will have to make to achieve said deal. In the House today, for example, MPs were asking Ministers from DCMS to give assurances that creators’ copyright would be protected in the forthcoming Bill on AI. No proper answer. I’m betting that further parts of the NHS will be bartered away, as our confidential NHS data is already in the tainted, bloodstained hands of Palantir. And let’s face it, do we honestly want a trade deal with Trump’s America?
By far the worst of it, though, is this. In making the UK teacher’s pet, and “only” setting a tariff of 10%, Trump has very successfully alienated the UK from the EU in terms of a response. Teacher’s pets are usually despised by both sides. Teacher Trump doesn’t give a shit about the UK itself, but driving a further wedge between us and the EU will severely weaken our response to Russia vis a vis Ukraine. It isolates even more than we were before.
On a personal note, my thanks to @PSR for reminding me of the splendid word “tosser”. I’d completely forgotten how effective it is, especially when a spit is incorporated in the sibilants.
🙂
Absolutely right Hannah. The UK government’s abject grovelling to Trump is both sickening and bad for the UK. Listening to Today this morning the BBC’s seasoned correspondents were saying that the effect of these tariffs is pushing countries towards forming a free trade system that cuts out the US entirely. So free trade agreements between the EU and Canada as an example, and Cambodia and Vietnam who will be very severely hit by these tariffs getting closer to China despite their difficult history with their giant neighbour. In other words, exactly what Richard has been saying will, or needs to happen.
So then I listened to another labour creep, James Murray, wittering on the Today program this morning about how eager the government was to get a trade deal with the US, mustn’t be too hasty, blah, blah.
No mention that we’ve lost far more in trade and investment from Brexit than we would ever gain from a “deal” with Trump. As you say, Trump cares nothing for the UK, and would screw us into the ground for whatever dubious gains we’d get. And who the hell wants a deal with the US now anyway?
How the hell have we ended up with such utterly awful politicians here? Utterly depressing.
luckily, he seems to have forgotten that he’d put a 25% tariff on scotch whisky imports during his last admin. some relief!
On an unrelated subject…
“If we want a politics that cares, neoliberalism has to go”
My experience, my thoughts, my opinions on this issue mirror yours. Thank you for a brilliant video.
We need a roadmap, a way out the neoliberal rut we’re in, don’t we? Fresh ideas, new disciplines, clear aims and consequences spelt out, a plan, a ‘new economics’.
And it needs a name if new ideas are going to have the traction that brings about change.
Time to gather wise heads for for some serious head scratching? Time is short!
Best regards
John
Thanks
The head will be scratched
Even if more hair falls out…
Richard, you get a very good name check in an article John Carlisle is about to publish. The article is blistering. It makes it crystal clear that neoliberalism is holding us all in thrall; increasing inequality, destroying public services, crippling our morale and ruining the lives of millions of us.
It has to go.
Send me a link when it is out