Theresa May raises 'deep concern' with Donald Trump over his tariff plans after her deputy warned US against a trade war
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- 05 Mar 2021
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Theresa May has raised her 'deep concern' with Donald Trump over his plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium in a phone call this afternoon.
It comes after her de facto deputy David Lidington rebuked the US president for threatening a trade war with the European Union.
Earlier this week Donald Trump made a surprise announcement that he intends to impose a 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminium in an attempt to protect US industry.
The EU hit back threatening to target US imports such as Harley-Davidson motorbikes, Levi’s jeans and Kentucky bourbon whiskey.
But Mr Trump has said the US "will simply apply a TAX" on cars made in Europe if the EU retaliates against trade penalties he is seeking on imports of steel and aluminium.
The president has responded on Twitter: "If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the US. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!"
A Downing Street spokesperson said, “The Prime Minister raised our deep concern at the President’s forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminium tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties’ interests.”
Earlier today Theresa May's de facto deputy rebuked United States president Donald Trump for threatening a trade war with the European Union.
Cabinet Office minister David Lidington told BBC One's Sunday Politics programme: "I just think that the United States is not taking an advisable course in threatening a trade war.
"Trade wars don't do anybody any good."
Mr Lidington suggested the American authorities could overrule any tariffs, as they did in the case of aircraft manufacturer Bombardier when Mr Trump's administration threatened huge duties on its C-wing planes.
The minister said: "We'll have to see what happens, I mean there was a lot of concerns recently about something comparable with regards aviation and the aircraft that were being produced in part by Bombardier in Belfast in Northern Ireland, and the American authorities at the end of the day struck that down, they said no that is not the way that we should be going."
And he warned Mr Trump that Britain's experience showed his plan would not work.
"We tried in Britain in the 60s and 70s protecting our car industry from competition," Mr Lidington said.
"It actually didn't work, it protected inefficiencies, we lost all our export markets because our competitors who were more competitive went out and gobbled those up from us, and the car industry had to go through a very, very painful restructuring to get to the success story it is now."
