From Land Rover Defenders to combustion engines, from pharmaceutical chemicals to insurance services – the UK exports billions of kilos value of products to the US every 12 months as our biggest export partner. But that could be about to take a success.
President Trump has slapped tariffs of 25% on its closest trading partners Mexico and Canada, although these are actually delayed for 30 days. But tariffs of 10% on Chinese goods come into place immediately – and after all, China has retaliated. President Trump has also threatened the EU next and has said that while the UK is by some means behaving ‘out of line’, a deal could nevertheless be worked out.
This news is not a shock – Trump is solely being consistent together with his first administration (where he put a tariff on Chinese goods) and with threats he made in his election campaign. But that is proof that he’s perfectly content to be muscular and obnoxious to friends and foes alike.
Canadian President Trudeau reacted immediately together with his own threats, which may be why Trump seems to have temporarily backed down – although Trump loyalists would deny that.
One author in The Times has labelled this the economic equivalent of hovering a finger above the nuclear button. The Wall Street Journal named this Trade War the ‘dumbest in history’.
Economists call this a protectionist approach to trade. The hope is that taxing foreign goods makes them dearer than US-made goods, boosting American industry and reducing reliance on other nations, especially China’s huge manufacturing power. It can also be tackling trade deficits with those countries, where the US imports more goods from them than it exports to them.
But critics say it will simply make every thing dearer for unusual Americans. As foreign goods prices increase, American goods face less competition from abroad, so have less pressure to maintain their prices low. It also doesn’t recognise the complexity of the fashionable world economy where some goods might be made in America but with components shipped in from elsewhere.
While the Canadians responded defiantly, the UK government appears to be scrambling to appease Donald Trump and avoid tariffs on British goods. They are in desperate need of an economic excellent news story, given an absence of business confidence and stuttering growth. Taxes slapped on British export goods to our biggest trade partner, and the resulting sales reduction, wouldn’t help one bit.
In some ways this is solely Trump being Trump: talking and acting tough on the world stage, taking up rivals and worrying old friends.
Rightly or wrongly, that is one other helping of disruption for a world racked with recession, war, and discord. America’s friendship as a trade partner and military ally can apparently not be assumed. There are few certainties left.
Is an increasingly isolated, protectionist America in denial of a basic reality? That the world, greater than ever, is certain along with great complexity. Economically, politically, culturally, militarily.
No nation can strike out by itself. Even the likes of Finland and Sweden – historically neutral – joined NATO last 12 months. The Covid pandemic was a reminder of this too. We’re all intricately interconnected.
The temptation to withdraw is there in other features of world politics. International aid is a great example. What responsibility, the isolationist might ask, does my country have for a rustic on one other continent? Or climate change. Why should we take a success for reducing emissions when other economies overtook our pollution levels a long time ago?
The temptation to withdraw can also be there for us as Christians. Shouldn’t we follow our comfortable familiarity and sit tight until Jesus returns? Well, no, because we’re saved to be a blessing and to point others to Christ – and we will not do this from inside a hermitage. The Gospel compels us not only to mental assent to Christ’s Lordship, but to faith-filled motion. We are certain by like to our neighbours whether or not they want it or not. Christians needs to be those most deeply ingrained within the lives of their communities and neighbourhoods.
There was a captivating spat on X over the weekend between latest US Vice President JD Vance and former Conservative Minister (and my former neighbouring MP) Rory Stewart, debating whether it’s Christian to like and look after our families and immediate neighbours before fascinated with those elsewhere on the earth.
Of course we’ve the deepest affection and responsibility for those closest to us. But I relatively feel that VP Vance was playing the a part of the expert within the law within the parable of the Good Samaritan – searching for to put limits on who he can consider as his neighbour.
But loving your neighbour means greater than having affection for them. It is an attitude, a posture. It means recognising the dignity and price of all people, as awesome beings made in God’s image, before we’re tempted to treat them as a threat, danger or lower than human. It can also be about ensuring so far as possible – whether as a government, church or individual – that our actions don’t cause lively harm to others.
So in a time where world leaders are selecting to isolate and withdraw, let’s do the other.
Tim Farron has been the Member of Parliament for Westmorland and Lonsdale since 2005 and served because the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party from 2015 to 2017. Tim can also be the host of Premier’s ‘A Mucky Business’ podcast, which unpacks the murky world of politics and encourages believers across the UK to interact prayerfully. He is the writer of A Mucky Business: Why Christians should become involved in politics.
