Late last night and just before I went to bed, Donald Trump was announcing the list of tariffs he was going to impose across the world. The UK is going to be hit by a 10% tariff which is better than a 20% tariff which would meant the loss of thousands of jobs but worse than no tariffs at all. The UK seems to have emerged from this bloodletting with one of the lowest of tariffs but the 25% on imported cars seems to be universal and which will hit Jaguar/LandRover. My initial reaction was also shared by Beth Rigby, the respected Sky News political analyst whose reaction was 'It could have been worse' But even a 10% tariff will hit the UK hard and will result in some job losses without a doubt but the UK is continuing to try to negotiate a better deal given that our trade with the USA is approximately equal in both directions and therefore any tariff is unfair. The EU for whom Trump seems to have a particular hatred is to be faced with a 20% tariff and they are certainly going to retaliate with reciprocal tariffs of their own. The reaction of the rest of the world will unfold throughout the day but 'Liberation Day' for America spells out a terrible downturn in world trade from which we all suffer, and stock markets will no doubt fall throughout the day as the news is digested. In the days when we used to have 'GATT' (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) trade negotiations were long and complex and took months to emerge and were certainly not announced unilaterally by a world superpower. In time, the USA may be able to ramp up is manufacturing capacity, but this cannot be done overnight, and Americans will be hit in the short term. The big political question is whether this short-term hit will be enough to stop Trump in his tracks but it all rather depends on how well the Democrats get their act together and any reverses in the electoral battle grounds. The next month or so will prove crucial in the American political scene and, of course, what happens in the USA is bound to have an effect on the UK economy which is hardly in a healthy state.
Thursday is my shopping day and I have a 'sitter' to care for Meg whilst this gets done. Fortunately, these days, Meg is still pretty sleepy in the mornings which makes my dashing out to do the shopping a little easier to bear but I still try and do it as fast as I can. It is always a relief to get home and see that all remains well. After I had the shopping put away, my son (recently retired) called round and said he would help me to put our dining room back to rights after the redecoration. We re-hung the curtain pole and restored the dining room table to its rightful position as well as re-commissioning two audio systems that we have in the room. One worked fine, the other which was a Sony system inherited from my son and daughter-in-law, we got working but frustratingly the remote seemed to work for a second or so and then fail. It is always possible that it got damaged in the flood damage but as I can get the system to play ClassicFM that is good enough for me in the meantime. There are several boxes of china and bric-a-brac yet to unpack but the glassware I want to keep needs to be washed and then out back in its rightful place but anything else I will put in some boxes for the carers to have first refusal and then the rest will go to charity shop. Then I started the business of trying to return some of the NHS equipment we have accumulated. After a couple of phone calls, I have a collection day of next Wednesday so the equipment is neatly stacked up in the hallway awaiting collection. I also have several other pieces of gear including a wheelchair very similar to the one supplied by the NHS which I am pretty sure I bid for on eBay about a year ago and this needs to go to a good home but the wheelchair service will not accept donations so I may have to find another quick and reasonable way to sell this. The trouble is I do not have the time to advertise, pack up, post off and so on but just want to see the back of the stuff. The wheelchair is pretty good, though, and might just be worth hanging onto in case I need it myself in a year or so's time.
With all the comings and goings of today, I have not had a chance to catch up on world news but, as expected, there is a certain amount of controlled fury. China, facing a 34% tax, said it would 'resolutely' hit back and 'take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests'.'China urges the United States to immediately cancel its unilateral tariff measures and properly resolve differences with its trading partners through equal dialogue,' said the commerce ministry. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the tariffs would have 'dire consequences' for millions of people around the world. The whole point is that world trade is a delicate ecosystem of rules, regulations and trading relationships which Trump is trying to re-write unilaterally. It must be said as well that the Americans do not care what the rest of the world thinks as they do not travel and interact as we in Europe would do, for example. There is an interesting geopolitical theory emerging that perhaps China, the EU, the UK and Canada ought to 'gang up' on the US to indicate what a rogue nation the USA has become. I even head the European representative of Republicans Abroad on the BBC2 Politics programme arguing that the US was 'subsidising' the rest of the world, they were effectively paying for the NHS for us! This argument was so ridiculous that even the Tory on the panel could not helping to laugh out loud at the absurdity of the suggestion.
© Mike Hart [2025]