Britain has rejected Donald Trump’s claim of “out of line” UK-US trade flows as he started hitting several countries with hefty tariffs.Trump has said he “might” hit Britain with tariffs as he warned the US will impose levies on imports from the European Union “pretty soon”.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Could Donald Trump start a trade war with the UK?
00:02Trump made a radical foreign policy decision over the weekend,
00:05putting tariffs on goods from China, Mexico and Canada,
00:08and has now hinted he could do the same with the UK.
00:11A tariff is basically a tax on goods from another country.
00:14So a company, for example, would have to pay a 25% tax
00:17to import Canadian maple syrup into the US.
00:20If there was an American alternative,
00:21that might drive people to buy that instead.
00:23But if there isn't an American alternative,
00:24like for many Chinese manufactured products,
00:26then many economists fear that the products
00:28would just get more expensive for the consumer.
00:30So what could this mean for the UK?
00:32Trump says that the UK is, in his words, out of line.
00:35But that's something that can be worked out,
00:37and that Keir Starmer has been very nice.
00:39But if discussions were to turn sour,
00:41that could make it much harder for UK businesses
00:43to get their products into the US.
00:45It could also lead the UK to do
00:47what Canada and Mexico have done,
00:48and impose tariffs on US goods in retaliation.
00:51Again, potentially leading to higher prices at the tills
00:54in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.