As soon as President Trump proposes and imposes some reciprocal tariffs the UK and EU establishment explodes with rage. They are right that tariffs are taxes on consumers in the country that imposes the tax, with some of the burden shifted to the exporters where consumers cut back or succeed in getting some producer offset to the price hike. So knowing this why do they impose some high tariffs themselves?
They have also failed to confess that they impose plenty of non tariff barriers on trade making imports too dear or banning some of them altogether. The single market is a Customs Union, not a free trade area. It aims to stop foreign competitors by rules and tariffs.
Take beef. The UK still imposes a 12% tariff and £1.47 per kg on beef from outside Europe, but we allow free access for Irish beef. No wonder they clean up on imports, avoiding US competition thanks to tariffs and EU/UK bans on some US production. In many cases our tariffs and regulations are a bigger barrier to imports than US restrictions on our exports to them.
Hitching ourselves to the EU more will be back to our EU experience. It meant dearer food and more imports from the EU. They took most of our fish, banned our beef for a long tine, kept us short of milk quota and gave grants to rip out our orchards.
April 19, 2025
You really do need to take advice from an economist. The EU single market is a free trade area. That is why there are no barriers to trade between members of it. And that is why, after and because of Brexit, there are huge and costly barriers to trade between the UK and the EU
Reply It is a customs union, erecting tariff and non tariff barriers against non members but also imposing large tax and regulatory costs on members. The Emissions trading/carbon tax is particularly damaging, as are some of the digital regulations. We export much more to non EU and that will continue to grow given their no growth anti trade policies.
April 19, 2025
Oh dear. Again, please talk to an economist. The scale of regulatory costs imposed internally is totally irrelevant to designation as a free trade area
Reply Very jumpy about my more accurate description of the EU anti enterprise high tax policies.
April 19, 2025
Scalloon is a member of the EU propaganda team. Remember the Dutch man van Leewin i think it’s him.
April 19, 2025
Good shout, Ian. I forgot (mercifully) about him / her.
April 19, 2025
Scallion deals in sermantics, the EU is a brake on inovation, outrageously undemocratic, and a blood clot in the aorta of free trade. Don’t confuse it with Europe which in parts is a delightful place to be.
April 19, 2025
It would make more sense to distinguish between imports/exports of goods vs. services. Putting all goods and services in the same bucket does not help, and obviously DJT does the same.
April 19, 2025
It’s all about profit and loss Hefner. Does not matter how you make your profits goods or services.
Fundamentally the EU for the U.K. is all LOSS, the rest of the world is where we make our profits. Get it?
April 20, 2025
Almost half of our exports go to the EU, Lynn. It is our most importnat source of growth – by far
Reply More lies. 43% of our exports go to EU, a percentage that has been declining both in and out of the EU. This is not our biggest source of growth. Services exports to non EU is by far and away of our buggest source of growth from trade. selling to home consumers remains tge most important part of our economy. Why do Remain get fixated by goods exports to the EU where we have long been in major deficit which they ignore?
April 19, 2025
Well there are a lot of very deluded, lefty economists around especially the ones most politician like to trust – one would have to choose carefully to get a sensible one.
To reply:- exactly!
April 19, 2025
And you need to take your own advice.
The SM is only FREE to those that are members and allow the EU to set external tariffs for them.
April 19, 2025
Actually that is not true. When the U.K. was a member there were plenty of ‘tools’ to stop our trading freely. We were not even allowed to provide our own milk!
April 20, 2025
Citation, please ?
April 19, 2025
Scallion.
Please do your homework again !.
April 19, 2025
Goodness, even the BBC knows better than Scallion:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36083664
“Free trade area, single market, customs union – what’s the difference?”
“The EU is therefore not just a free trade area – it is a single market.”
“If we left both the single market and the customs union we could negotiate a free trade deal with the EU. A free trade area is one where there are no tariffs or taxes or quotas on goods and/or services from one country entering another.”
And that was from nearly eight years ago, August 2017, which is why it ends up with:
“The EU also has free trade arrangements with many other countries around the world; so it is not against negotiating one with the UK in principle, but compared with staying in the single market or the customs union this would be the “hardest” form of Brexit. It would also almost certainly mean border controls including between Ireland and Northern Ireland.”
April 19, 2025
Which links to the whole of the UK being reduced to a condominium like Northern Ireland:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2025/04/18/no-to-a-further-brexit-sell-out/#comment-1509634
“And here we have the same kind of false argument as we heard about the Irish land border … ”
At least we would then be reunited in one vassal state, Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
April 19, 2025
From December 2017:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2017/12/06/comments-to-this-site/#comment-905832
“… an important article in the Irish Times by Oxford Professor Kevin O’Rourke, in which he contends that
“free-trade areas always and necessarily involve border checks”,”
“Getting rid of border controls on trade thus depended on both the European customs union, and the European single market. Norway is a member of the single market but not the customs union, with the result that there are border controls between it and Sweden. The UK and Ireland were members of a customs union before 1993, but not a single market, and the result again was border controls. And unless both Northern Ireland and the Republic retain equivalent regulations regarding both customs duties, and what can be legally bought and sold on their territories, the result will inevitably be border controls.”
April 19, 2025
80% of UK GDP is Services, 85% of UK businesses do no trade with the EU, the EU is only 15% of World GDP.
April 19, 2025
+1 and shrinking! But they do have Ursula ‘the self-proclaimed Leader of the Free World’ 🤣
And Mertz says Germany will ‘again take its place as Leader’ this time with no energy.
This is such serious self-delusion that it’s verging on certifiable.
April 19, 2025
Trump realises that American industry now needs protection if it is not to be replaced by China. There are huge security implications too.
Free trade is fine when you have something to trade that nobody else can offer. It was great for Britain during the Industrial Revolution. We could force China to take opium. We got porcelain and tea in exchange. We then set up rivals in England and other parts of the Empire.
Perhaps the globalists, who only look at the bottom line, have realised that they will not be welcome in China where their activities will be severely curtailed?
April 19, 2025
Nobody can compete with the highly subsidised Chinese companies, rather like trying to compete with the highly advantaged German companies of the EU.
You can allow Apple for instance, to manufacture iPhones at Chinese prices and sell them at Western prices. If Apple want to continue manufacturing in China, there is no objection. I wonder how much a unit will sell for in China?
April 20, 2025
Apple iPhone 16E: 4,400 CNY (Chinese yuan or renmimbi = £0.103 xe.com, so about £440, apple.com.cn). In the UK from £599. (Apple.co.uk)
April 19, 2025
We impose tariffs on finished coffee products and bananas neither which we produce. Sirkier desperately wants us back under the umbrella of EU protectionism. Yesterday there was a good article in the Telegraph on how the EU was failing because of excessive regulation. It is trying to impose its model on the rest of the world, Trump has upset this and it leaves the EU bureaucracy running around like headless chickens
The EU quashes innovation and individuality by excess regulation which is why we have no Amazon or Microsoft.
Already they are trying to extinguish AI.
Trump has done an excellent job of flushing out the protectionist mobs of China and the EU like him or loathe him
April 19, 2025
There are only two arguments to spport the EU. One is that it is within itself a free trade area. But this comes at the expense of it also being a customs union, a protector of inefficient producers or which its citizens pay through high costs. The other is that it is a model of one-world government that would replace nation states and therefore democracy. Neither argument withstands critical analysis based on reality. The EU is superfluous to requirements; its is an obstacle to freedom and to the industrial and economic development, not only of its own members but of all developing countries with which it deals; it is anti-democratic. The EU should be broken up and replaced by something similar to the The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership which encourages trade and development while maintaining national democratic sovereignty, something the EU is simply incapable of doing.
April 19, 2025
Peter,
+1
And a very polite contrast and counter to Scallion’s post.
April 19, 2025
@PG. +1.
April 19, 2025
Good comment, well done.
April 19, 2025
The EU’s customs regime is a great deal less protectionist than almost anywhere else on the planet. The EU levies zero tariffs on developing country produce, for example. If you are worried about inefficient producers sheltered by protectionist rules, look at China, Japan and the USA – far worse than the EU
April 19, 2025
The EU has decimated the fishing grounds of both the U.K. and Africa. China (BRICS is the clue) is a ‘developing nation’ yet the EU intends imposing huge tariffs on Chinese electric cars.
You are not fooling anyone on this blog. You may as well go back to the European Movement – if it still exists.
April 20, 2025
europeanmovement.co.uk , it appears to be striving … with Mike Galsworthy as chair, replacing Lord Adonis in 2023. Something that cannot be said of freenations …
April 19, 2025
+1
April 19, 2025
But it is NOT ‘within itself a free trade area.’
The AU (African Union) is another of the big blocs intended as stepping stones towards One World (unelected) Government. I can see why the handful of WEF supporters are enthusiastic because they can’t get elected. Why would anybody else want One World Government? Where will all the asylum seekers go when the only government turn against them?
April 21, 2025
@Lynn Atkinson – agreed
April 19, 2025
Good morning.
Because it is a ‘hidden tax’ unlike say, VAT. And as a ‘hidden tax’ it is quite nice as we pay more, as per our kind hosts example without knowing and thereby complaining.
The EU Customs Union is a barrier to TRUE FREE TRADE, lower prices for consumers and better products. It is in place mainly to protect French farmers and some continental manufacturing. This results in poorer choice for the consumer and higher prices.
But as I said some time on here, tariffs are not necessarily a bad thing. Tariff’s, if used wisely and for specific and limited periods can actually be used to grow an internal market (eg microprocessor design and manufacture) before exposing it to global competitive forcing to to offer better products and a more competitive price.
President Trump is using tariffs in a different way because he understands that the current global system does not work in the USA’s favour, it work in favour for large business, hedge funds, and wealthy people who can invest in the stock market. For ordinary folk who just want a job, a home and a family with something put by for when they get older Globalism has been a disaster.
For example. A large global clothing company with a ‘Swoosh’ for a logo registered in the USA but with factories in South East Asia, can produce products at a far lower cost due to poorer wages and regulations etc than the USA, but sells to customers in its home market with large profits. These large profits push up share prices and so enriches wealthy investors. President Trumps want to re-balance this and bring either the manufacturing home, creating jobs and lowering the deficit or, make USA citizens pay a fairer price and so pay of the deficit that way. Win-win. The fact that people cannot see what he is trying to do astounds me !
April 19, 2025
A very fair summary Mark. The blob want rid of Trump because he’s upset the applecart. The EU is particularly vulnerable due to its Spanish practices to other non EU countries. 2TK wants us to align with Brussels to protect himself from his anti enterprise and anti competitive practices.
April 21, 2025
@Ian wragg +1 – the World needs Trump even if for no other reasons it shows that power going to the unelected unaccountable bureaucrats is World destruction by stealth
April 19, 2025
They understand. Many ordinary folk, know something is wrong, but listen to the msm. They might wise up. We have the online harms bill, so no fears about child safety.
April 19, 2025
That depends on who considers to be the ‘children’ ? 😉
April 19, 2025
The problem Trump will have in bringing manufacturing jobs back to the USA is who will do them. The likes of the Cato institute (hardly a left wing organisation) have found that, while 80% of Americans state that they want more manufacturing in the USA, the people they want to do those jobs is “someone else, not me”.
If Americans won’t do those jobs, who will? Immigrants?
April 20, 2025
Depends on who you ask and whether living on State handouts is better or not.
April 20, 2025
According to the Cato institute’s findings, the standard answer was “I’d rather keep doing my current job than work in manufacturing”.
Do you really see millions of Americans wanting to spend 8 hours a day at sewing machines attaching swooshes to the sides of trainers?
April 21, 2025
Peter
Depends whether or not their current job in an effectively useless government subsidised job ceases to exist.
It seems DOGE is unearthing many millions..people and dollars…that are a waste.
PS
you have an odd idea of modern manufacturing techniques.
April 21, 2025
@Peter Parsons – to me that seems a strange view of the USA and its people. As a generalisation of the whole country they all have longer working hours and personally pay their way, in life the Country and the World with out the entitlement that is assumed in the UK.
As it is that time of the year(Easter) what was the time away from work granted for this weekend, or today even? The answer is none.
As I suggested last time you peddled this view, why did Rolls Royce invest $1billion in just one of its US plants that now produces/manufactures more RR Products than anywhere else in the World if it wasn’t for the workforce the manufacturing and engineering experience? Rolls Royce invests to produce, that’s their roll. No they are not immigrants doing the work, they are locals.
You could argue in the same context the UK, its Government its Parliament that has made the UK a no go area for all manufacturing – it is policy, a HoC creed and a Law.
The Cato institute appears to express personal opinions of the egos of only those involved, it has set out to manipulate minds to be in tune with the academics who are its members – conclusion they have never worked in real jobs but feel they can express an opinion. That the point it is an opinion that they are permitted to have in a ‘free country’
April 19, 2025
The arrival of Donald Trump could be a breath of fresh air if our apparent desire to do a FreeTrade deal removes all the tariffs and none tariff barriers.
I am well aware that there are the cost impositions of Nett Zero, Taxation on employment, and the insane refusal to use our own fuel that make the cost of everything so grotesquely high here in the UK. Check out the cost of Fish and Chips over the counter or a pint in your local to get an experience of it. A Trump FT deal will help, but nothing short of a revolution in thinking by the next government will reverse the unnecessary burdons the British people carry daily. Two weeks to the politically trunkated locals, send a message.
April 19, 2025
This might be interesting, if accurate, we’re not so far out of line with the rest of Europe.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_prices_by_city?itemId=4®ion=150
Notwithstanding, I think the days of having a ‘couple of pints in the local on the way home’ are long gone, sadly. No wonder pubs are closing by the gross.
More disturbingly, Rachel is trying to get MORE investment from China in the UK economy! What does it take to get a bit of national security in Downing Street thinking?
April 20, 2025
‘ No wonder pubs are closing by the gross.’
No wonder Wetherspoons is doing so well.
A pint of Hook Norton Old Hooky and a pint of Theakstons Old Peculiar both for less than a fiver. I did have a couple of 50p vouchers, but even so remarkably cheap.
A Tanqueray 10 gin and tonic, plus a Korean chicken wrap under £6.
The above was yesterday’s lunch before I set off for football. The pub is well run and clean with excellent service. Saved visiting crowded venues near the ground or consuming the awful stuff on offer inside the stadium.
April 19, 2025
We left the EU and it’s customs union in 2020. Since then, all sorts of regulations and difficulties have been placed in the way of UK citizens wishing to cross the channel and visit France, Spain, Portugal etc. One used to be able to book a place on Eurostar and/or drive to Folkstone/Dover, jump on a ship and off you went for a meal in a French restaurant in Calais – and return in time for a nightcap back home in the UK.
Not so any more. The appalling Macron has demanded that UK travellers be photographed and fingerprinted as part of the new EES (entry-exit system) Shortly, we will also need to obtain a costly visa (known as Etias) in advance. There are now equally onerous passport expiry regulations, which are widely misunderstood by the travel providers.
All this is ridiculous. But the EU argue that it’s necessary in case non-EU travellers who have gained entry into the UK try to cross into the Schengen area. And due to an outbreak of foot and mouth in Eastern Europe, we can no longer spend a weekend food/wine shopping in France. Attempting to import EU cheese, meat, sausage etc now attracts a £5000 fine
April 19, 2025
SG you diligently highlight what our host is saying. Non tariff barriers are the EUs way of preventing competition
The 90 day maximum travel and the onerous visa/passport regulation are just driving tourists to places like Morocco and Turkey. For the French no price is too much in the quest to make our lives difficult . Ultimately they are the lovers.
April 19, 2025
‘Ultimately they are the lovers’
Don’t fall for that old stereotype. That could be taken from an old TV advert for Cointreau.
April 19, 2025
France used to be easily accessible, but if it now controls and knows who enters and leaves its borders, that is what any responsible country should do. Places without borders are anywhere and nowhere.
April 19, 2025
Let’s break down your points:
“The appalling Macron has demanded that UK travellers be photographed and fingerprinted as part of the new EES (entry-exit system)” – you do know the UK introduced its own EES system in January this year.
“costly visa (known as Etias)” – when this comes in it will cost around £7 and lasts for 2 years. Not what I call costly.
“the EU argue that it’s necessary in case non-EU travellers who have gained entry into the UK try to cross into the Schengen area” – The UK has brought in its own system, and this protects us from the many illegals currently in the Schengen area.
“due to an outbreak of foot and mouth in Eastern Europe, we can no longer spend a weekend food/wine shopping in France” – so you think we should risk an outbreak of foot and mouth so you can bring dairy products into the UK? These types of restrictions would still apply if we were still in the EU.
“One used to be able to book a place on Eurostar and/or drive to Folkstone/Dover, jump on a ship and off you went for a meal in a French restaurant in Calais – and return in time for a nightcap back home in the UK.” – and how many people in the UK ever did this and there’s nothing to stop you doing it now but I would argue you can find better restaurants here in the UK than Calais.
As an ardent Remainer if these are your only complaints for leaving, I feel sorry for you. None of the Armageddon you predicted has come true.
April 19, 2025
@Christine +1 – speaking the truth the left-wing Luddites don’t want to hear has no affect they are deaf to the existence of freedom and other peoples views
April 19, 2025
I had to renew a Canadian ETA last year which was done quickly online and cost C$7 for three years. My trip to Canada was very pleasant and I had no problems entering the country, or leaving it. On arriving back in the UK, the eGates weren’t working and there were long queues. Welcome Home!
I will be going to Italy later this year and will need an ETIAS. I don’t expect it to be any harder than Canada (but we will see). Hopefully, we will be able to re-enter more swiftly too. Much fuss is made about the problems of travellng to Europe but the issues in practice are likely to be more mundane problems like lack of Customs staff, eGate failure, flight cancellations and strikes….
April 19, 2025
@IanT – same here to the USA
April 19, 2025
@Sakara Gold – so the EU like most parts of the World wish to know who is entering their country. If the UK did similar in practice we may be safer on our streets
April 20, 2025
That’s why passports are checked in Calais if you come by car, on-board ferries in ports or at the airports. The idea that the UK is not checking people who arrive by recognised ways of transport is a bit strange.
And moreover that’s also a big stone in the garden of all those numpties who lament ‘15-minute’ cities. People keep on travelling, you know (ons.gov.uk 17/05/2024 ‘Travel trends 2023’ last available).
86.2 million visits abroad by UK residents in 2023, 72.4 m in 2022.
April 21, 2025
Numpties…says hefner
They keep travelling..yes they can now but…
You forget the parallel project that goes alongside the 15 minute local living area that aims to make international travel much more expensive through legal limits and high taxes.
April 19, 2025
Thank God you have something more important to you that poor Ukrainians offering themselves to the Gods of War for the sake of your sense of injustice and the demand that someone teach that tyrant, Putin a lesson.
Priorities, priorities eh ? 😉
April 19, 2025
Despite the outrageous antics of Mr. Varadkar during the Brexit capitulations “The UK still imposes a 12% tariff and £1.47 per kg on beef from outside Europe”! Alone reason enough to charge the political class with treachery and leave Johnson, Sunak et al condemned.
We should be importing beef from the southern hemisphere. At least the Argentinians are not two-faced about their dislike of us.
April 19, 2025
@formula57 – the only question was leave or stay, the UK then stuck two fingers up at the result and continued to fight the people of the UK to ensure we cant prosper, be independent and govern out own Country. There needs to be a clear-out of Parliament and let the people choose their candidates, move to government by the people for the people. Those that fight the people, refuse to work with the people are a disease and a curse on society
April 19, 2025
EU rigidity is one of Donald Trump’s key gripes.
If his response to them on tariffs helps convince any member country to break away into freedom of choice for their own people, that at least would be be an improvement.
Europe was far better before the EU squashed it into a scrambled mixture of homogeneity. Tomato, beef, pea and mushroom are fine flavours of distinction, but a thorough mix up serves only a sloppy distasteful khaki soup, and ‘Uuggghh!’.
Those who voted Leave didn’t want to keep swallowing it, favouring Brexit.
April 19, 2025
They cannot breakaway. Not unless you are Germany, then you can pretty do much what you want.
April 19, 2025
You will really have to leave this obsession with the EU behind – whether for it or against – you have left it and should now start out anew – people are starting to talk.
April 19, 2025
@James4 – if you read and absorb what is being said, we have at no stage left the EU. All EU laws are still enshrined thanks to Kemi without the UK Electorate having a say, we still have to charge EU taxes and fees. This is within in our own borders with our own so-called Parliament. We still charge the USA 400% more in tariffs than they charge us – thanks to the EU. 2TK has now brought in EU Agri rules, with the ECJ in charge not the UK legal system. The there is the new EU enforced energy costs and so on and so on. All these events affect what we do inside our Country and it is Foreign Courts that get to hold us to account. Our Legislators our Courts have no say, what we call our Parliament has no voice they just take orders.
We cant start ‘anew’ all the while the UK Government and Parliament is fighting the People and refusing their basic job we have empowered and paid them to do.
April 19, 2025
The EU was charging 10% on the original price of US cars coming to the EU while the US was charging 2.5% on the price of European cars entering the USA. Obviously this is 4 times as big a tax (10 / 2.5 = 4) but anybody with a tiny bit of maths could not go on and on talking about a 400% tariff, specially when no mention of what and where this is applied to is made.
April 19, 2025
So you agree the EU charge 4 times the tariff on cars the USA charge.
Thanks for your pedantic post hefner
ps
Ian never said there was a 400% tariff.
April 20, 2025
You have to learn how to read properly ‘we still charge the USA 400% more in tariffs than they charge us’.
1/ no mention it was only on cars,
2/ it is not 400% MORE but 10% vs 2.5%, which, assuming US and EU cars arriving in the UK at exactly the same original price of £20k, with the EU tax 4 times the US tax, the final prices would be £22,000 vs £20,500, and the final difference (220-205)/205, is 7.3%.
Are/were you an im/exporter?
April 20, 2025
It is a shame you can’t answer without being rude and or sarcastic hefner.
I stopped reading after your first sentence.
April 19, 2025
The problem is that Trump did not actually propose “reciprocal tariffs” at the Rose garden but numbers produced from a melange of trade deficits plus a misapplied formula divided by two subject to a minimum 10%. This had no relation to actual tariffs. Later, at a black tie dinner, he declared in undiplomatic language, that he expected other countries to “kiss my arse”. Since then the reality of complex cross border supply chains has forced delay in implementation and a general downward revision of proposed tariffs to 10%. The US is now openly protectionist.
The UK should join with others who favour free trade. The trans Pacific agreement offers a starting point to form a free trade group. The PM of Singapore has spoken clearly on the need for a coalition of free traders, taking a balanced position (not taking sides) between the USA and China. He points out that ASEAN plus EU and others such as the UK account for c30% of global trade. Whether that can be realised remains to be seen. In any event, free trade will play second fiddle to sovereign capabilities in the new fragmented world, as the British Steel decision demonstrates.
April 19, 2025
@Oldtimer92 – Trump has taken the Nuclear option because having been there before he knows the EU/UK as with others just want to talk, talk and talk hoping to kick “reciprocal tariffs”, mutual respect between nations into the long grass all the while the existing one side arrangement favours them to the USA’s detriment.
As Sir John has pointed out the EU(and the UK’s as it has made sure it is bound to the EU) non tariff barriers along with their actual tariffs kill trade. If we were just half in accord with Singapore and others there would be no need for these discussions
April 19, 2025
US has a big trade deficit and debt issue it needs to address.
The formuale is rough and ready , not perfect. Start negotiating is the message or not.
Timely preventative action over decades may have eased this. However this is not strength but an admission things have to change. Suggest we help look for balanced trade in all our relationships. We should have “Left” the EU & the ECHR etc, rather than the con of “Brexit”.
Perhaps Labour should do that. Depends really if they want to be re-elected.
A promise and hot air wont cut it and they know.
April 19, 2025
Today is Easter Sunday, a major Christian occasion. In the immortal words of the late, great Irish comedian Dave Allen, may your god go with you.
Reply Another good lie. It is Saturday all day today.
April 19, 2025
You haven’t taken account of what planet SG is living on
April 19, 2025
What !?!?! You mean he/she/it is actually a live and on a planet ? I thought he/she/it was a malfunctioning bot ?🤖
April 19, 2025
Wonderful ! 🙂 {unfortunately, too often I also have to pause & think – “What day is it?” }
Never mind SG. Gold is over £2,500/oz and I can buy petrol for £1.329/ltr at Tesco’s again. So we are both happy I assume? Grab small crumbs of comfort when you can!
Happy Easter Sir John (PS Vince Cable remains deluded – as well as now stone deaf apparently!)
April 19, 2025
The EU’s Customs Union is a protected trading zone, intended to shield producers in the member nations from competition from outside. There is nothing free about it.
They want us back in so that they can control the UK and they have a captured market. Dynamic alignment, which is apparently what Two-Tier is intended to carry out with no mandate and against the wishes of the British people as expressed in the EU Referendum, will have the same effect.
It will incentivise trade with the EU AND prevent us trading freely with other countries which are outside their protected block.
Both Farage and Badenough should commit to scrapping whatever “deal” Two-Tier makes and to actually LEAVE the EU.
April 19, 2025
Donna : “Both Farage and Badenough should commit to scrapping whatever “deal” Two-Tier makes and to actually LEAVE the EU.”
Yes, that’s the advantage of Brexit. An incoming administration can scrap whatever “deal” is made with the EU. It will be difficult though and require further referendums to provide the authority to enact the ncessary legislation and the ability to sack the higher echelons of the Civil Service.
April 19, 2025
No it will not. Treaty Law is pretty low level – they can repeal in a couple of hours – as they have shown.
April 19, 2025
@Donna +1 Agreed
I cant see ‘Badenough’ (or here team) scrapping anything they are the architects and have the collective responsibility of ensuring EU Laws Regulations & Rules are maintained in the UK – they refused to leave.
And Yes, 2TK’s ‘Dynamic alignment’ that has the support of Parliament, without a vote, is to slide us back in without discussion while preventing the UK being Part of the World
April 19, 2025
Personal imports are entirely banned, with a few exceptions, while commercial imports are restricted.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foot-and-mouth-disease-latest-situation
“Traders must check the rules for imports, exports and EU trade of animals and animal products.”
It gets very complicated but the consequences of allowing in foot and mouth could be very severe.
April 19, 2025
Some people still haven’t got ‘Trump’, they condemn him from his seeming over reaction. The left-wing name calling ‘writ large’
Sir John you rightly suggest that the EU’s ‘Customs Union’, not a free trade area. It aims to stop foreign competitors by rules and tariffs. They have imposed plenty of non-tariff barriers on trade and as the UK failed to leave this corrupt union it also carries on with barriers to trade.
Trump last time around engaged in talks with these inequalities of the USA feeding the World to their own detriment. The EU as with other Bureaucratic entities saw talks as a delaying tactic – talks about talks and do nothing, we will soon find the long grass. So is it with any surprise he wants action, he wants reciprocal mutual respect arrangements.
Think about even with these tariffs Trump has imposed, the EU and the pretend non-EU UK have maintained a 400% uplift on what the US charges for over a generation. There is nothing reciprocal or mutual about it, it is weaponising trade by the EU/UK. That’s without talking about the added ‘non-tariff barriers’
April 19, 2025
+1
April 19, 2025
That might sound like I am a ‘Trump’/USA apologist – I have no feelings either way. All I would say the World works best with ‘free-trade’ but so many political empires talk it then fight it – they weaponise trade to manipulate their personal self esteem.
The word ‘free’ is misused in this context and that distorts the intention. Mutual and reciprocal is what should be in place. Selling to another domain free of contributing to that domain is just stealing. Its like people wanting government bailouts when in reality what they are asking is for the government to steal(Tax) from their families, friend and neighbours then give them the money – governments don’t have money (or at least UK ones) just an option to take it from the people
April 19, 2025
If there is to be a trade agreement UK-USA, will the 25% tariff on cars be cancelled, will the 10% tariff on the rest of trade disappear? Will the export of UK financial services be facilitated?
What would be the price that UK would have to pay? Cancelling the present smallish (2%) digital service tax on US GAFA? Changing the Online Safety Act? Renouncing the Emissions Trading System? And the future Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism?
And would the USA actually continue to guarantee the security of the UK?
Sir John should tell us his position on these various questions.
Reply I have set out clearly my opposition to the digital tax,my wish to offer a mutual tariff free deal and to modify the On line regulation.I completely oppose carbon taxes as they de industrialise the UK. I want these changes anyway, regardless of US position.
April 19, 2025
@hefner – and the UK’s 400% uplift on what the USA’s charges the UK that were in place before this latest round?
April 19, 2025
See my comment above. Only someone who does not understand figures would talk about a ‘400% uplift’ when the reality is 10% on the price of US cars coming to the EU and 2.5% on that of EU cars going to the US.
I guess even the DM or the Sun cannot have explained that so badly that it was not understandable.
Are you a Dogberry ? (‘Much ado about nothing’ Act IV, sc.2).
April 19, 2025
You can’t help being passive aggressive in your posts can you hefner.
Try and reply in a friendly explanatory way.
We can’t all be as clever as you.
April 19, 2025
Why do you stick only with cars? There is more than cars to trade between the U.K. and our most successful ex-colony.
April 19, 2025
Trumps high tarrifs on China might be interesting.
If China sells less of its stuff in the US then presumably it will need to sell more elsewhere ?
What will the UK and the EU do then ?
Hopefully, the US and China will sort themselves out soon.
April 19, 2025
The UK imposes almost zero tariffs on EVs and renewable products, and an average 4% on other products from China…..The Chinese impose an average of 10%, but on a very limited number of products, the numbers are so small one could argue that we don’t actually export anything to China
April 19, 2025
@Glen Cullen
If tariffs cause China to significantly reduce its exports to the US, I was wondering what pressure it might put on UK businesses if many of those exports find there way into the UK or into other countries which are customers of UK businesses.
Do Trump’s high tariffs on China give him a better negotiating position with the UK ?
April 19, 2025
China will have to learn to sell to itself. The thing is, outside the big cities it is very poor.
April 19, 2025
China is stuffed. There are not enough consumers to replace the USA.
April 19, 2025
I have watched the Ukrainian people being abused and killed – stolen off the streets and out of their homes in front of their desperate families, for nearly 2 years. There is no consideration of the people by their unsackable leaders.
The EU or whatever takes over from it will be no better.
The welfare of the people is of no concern to them. These are psychopaths. Surely the state of Britain and the relentless vicious attacks on the British people by aliens (supported by the state) is obvious to all? Why would they about-turn?
April 19, 2025
LA,
‘These are psycopaths’. It is more probable that they are bought and paid for. ‘I’m alright Jack’. Too bad about everyone else.
April 19, 2025
One could argue that there was a very good reason(s) why the New Labour government of 1997 immediately repealed the Crime of High Treason from the Statute, as the punishment was, even back then, a Capital one. 🪢
😉
April 19, 2025
I don’t believe they repealed ‘High Treason’ which is an attack on the person of the Monarch. But the bureaucracy repealed much of the other treason laws embedded in other legislation do that Parliament was tricked into the Act. This was after Sir Nicholas Lyle has to sit in his own Judgement with the Lords in recess, to quash the 1994 Atkinson/McWhirter Treason Charges.
They remain a marker and the case can be perused under the laws that existed at the time, because of Lyle’s unconstitutional action.
April 19, 2025
EXACTLY – something the remainers have still not understood.
Just because tariffs have been set for some time now, that satisfy the EU mind for protectionism, doesn’t mean they are honest or responsible – or even fair.
It seems quite natural that Trump would get attacked for any action he takes – after all he is attacking the global deep state as much as anything else, and they don’t like that!
If our PM is at all interested in creating a level playing field for trade he should be negotiating a close to a zero tariff rate with the USA, but he seems to be stalling – seems he is more interested in halting trump, just like he and his EU friends are doing with not ending the Ukraine war.
Perhaps the UK and the EU will be forced into complying with better tariffs, but they won’t do it willingly and certainly not on Trump’s initial terms if they can help it.
April 19, 2025
@Bryan Harris +1
Cant be said enough, but the zealots on the left are all about protection and denial.
April 19, 2025
Watched you on GB News this morning discussing tariffs ….I agree that no one will tackle the real issue of energy costs and net-zero
April 19, 2025
An email I have circulated this morning, headed “ARE WE TO BE REUNITED IN VASSALGE?”:
“According to the European Movement, as quoted in the Independent [1], in the event of the UK securing a free trade deal with the US:
“If the UK decides as part of a deal to allow in products not accepted for EU market, that makes a food safety/SPS/veterinary deal with EU more difficult – EU would need to know those products could not enter its territory. That would be almost impossible to do.”
Is this not the same specious argument that was used to justify separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK as a condominium, with sovereignty shared between London and Brussels, the province turned into a vassal statelet, subject to unaccountable EU rule in 300 areas of law covering not only what could be imported but also what could be produced and apparently even what changing rooms people could use, and with the erection of strong defences against non-compliant goods entering from Great Britain, with local officials operating the checks with EU officials standing behind them to make sure they are doing it right [2], under the supervision of the EU Commission and the EU court?
So by the same token how could the EU be sure that non-compliant goods could not enter its territory from Great Britain unless the present arrangements for Northern Ireland were replicated across the whole UK? Which some might welcome, if we were all to be reunited in the vassal state of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
But why should we want to go down that path to servitude, what would we gain from it? When the same eurofanatic Independent newspaper ran a full front page spread covered with “The damning statistics that reveal the true cost of Brexit, five years on” [3] the most “damning” they could find was at the level of 1% of GDP [4].
Which pales into insignificance compared to the 22% lost since 2008 when the trend growth rate switched from 2.7% a year to only 1.1% a year.”
April 19, 2025
However it works out, President trump has sent a serious wake-up call to world leaders, especially China.
China have been ripping off the US, UK and EU for years.
If only we had such a clear-sighted leader here in the UK.
April 19, 2025
China has benefited from favourable WTO Status.
April 19, 2025
China, arguably, funds and controls the WTO
April 19, 2025
I think tariffs have a place in free trade. Levelling up the costs a country imposes on its own producers seems reasonable and fair to me. Why should a producer in a third world country paying its employees a pittance and having no health and safety or other compliance rules gain competitive advantage.
Ah NS but then your cost of living will increase. Fair enough but maybe with less money sloshing around my taxes would be lower or housing costs would be lower.
There’s only so much money to spend until more is printed for the benefit of the monied classes.
April 19, 2025
253 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday; from the safe country of France …contravening the Illegal Immigration Act 2023 …but who care’s, the police don’t enforce that law !!!
April 19, 2025
glen
The law, as I am sure you have seen, applies only to us natives.
April 19, 2025
My take – the EU is a free trade area for its 27 countries – next: I don’t see anyone exploding with rage over Trumps tariffs instead I see people looking on aghast at the stupidity of it all. Then on the other side I see the Chinese and EU who have no choice but to reply and probably first on the list to feel the heat will be the farmers from those mid-western states who voted him in. We only have to look at the financial markets to know that what is in train is some kind of self inflicted wounding but with so far no visible reason and no strategy behind it leaving only carnage. Lastly: I don’t believe that this can be allowed carry on for another three years and at some stage there will be intervention of some kind.
Reply The EU imposes higher tariffs and other barriers and is threatening the world with the large wide ranging tariff called the carbon border mechanism tax
April 19, 2025
Graham I can see why Trump is a Billionaire and you are not.
April 19, 2025
Trump said the other day the EU has 36 pp of non tariff barriers and China 45 pp. Never once mentioned by the hate mongering MSM.
April 19, 2025
Because the MSM is in the pocket of government which is in the pocket of large corporates and various billionaires. All of whom have taken a bit of a hit on the Stock Market and see their profits from investing in China and other S.E. Asia countries take a potential hit.
April 19, 2025
So DJT said it and you took it at face value? Matthew 5:3 comes to mind.
April 19, 2025
Are you claiming rose and mark are factually wrong hefner?
If you are let’s see some of your facts.
Looking forward to your reply.
April 20, 2025
rose put figures that can be discussed, Mark_B just blablablah so nothing to discuss there.
Sam, factcheck.org 03/04/2025 ‘Trump’s misleading tariff chart’.
April 20, 2025
So still no facts from you hefner.
And still no answer to my simple question.
April 19, 2025
Look it up Hefner – you seem to always do that except when the result proves you wrong.
April 21, 2025
Where should I look it up? Please let me know where to look to get to your truth.
April 21, 2025
Just research it hefner
Prove it wrong.
It seems you can’t
April 22, 2025
rose, Sam, MiB, Lynn: the definition of non-tariff barrier is not quantitative, so whoever said that the EU had a 36% and China a 45% non-tariff barriers was taking those figures from his hat.
That’s not to say that non-tariff restrictions by various countries do not exist. But rose had started this and obviously the … wanted to pin me down.
But, I’m sorry, you are all talking tosh with precise figures, specially those ‘calculated’ by DJT.
Reply WTO does seek an estimated money sum of the damage caused by a non tariff barrier to make it comparable to a tariff
April 23, 2025
Reply to reply: Indeed but I doubt very much that rose’s figures referred to WTO’s such barriers. If it were the case why do all the Sams, MiBs and Lynns simply not give me the reference of the document?