Trump’s tariff salvo blindsides UK manufacturers

Sunday 24 August 2025 12:28 pm
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Sunday 24 August 2025 12:30 pm

Donald Trump has blindsided UK producers by slapping contemporary tariffs of as much as 25 per cent on greater than 400 classes of British items, from shampoo and youngsters’s highchairs to bikes and diggers.

Conservative shadow commerce secretary Andrew Griffith accused ministers of failing to guard exporters, saying: “In terms of defending UK companies from US tariffs, Starmer is ‘all hat, no cattle’.”

“His ‘tiny tariff’ settlement seems to have extra holes than certainly one of Donald Trump’s golf programs and the commerce secretary doesn’t even know what tariffs apply the place. Downing Avenue must spend much less time on negotiating away Chagos and extra sweating the element on US commerce.”

The transfer, which UK officers say took them without warning, comes simply months after London and Washington hailed a “breakthrough” deal on metal and aluminium.

That settlement was supposed to chop the 25 per cent tariff on UK metals to zero – however implementation has stalled amid US issues over the origins of some British exports.

Producers warn of a ‘very damaging’ impression

Business leaders have described the most recent measures as “very damaging to British business”.

JCB chief government Graeme Macdonald, whose agency exports £2bn value of diggers and equipment to the US, mentioned the sudden adjustments have created chaos in American ports.

“This has blindsided all people … there’s an enormous backlog of imported items in each port now within the US”,he warned, urging ministers to strike a deal shortly.

Bike maker Triumph, which offered over 100,000 bikes final yr, additionally mentioned the tariffs got here as a shock.

Chief government Nick Bloor mentioned the choice was “a shock, particularly given the just lately negotiated commerce agreements”.

Peter Brennan of UK Metal added: “Orders are being cancelled or delayed – typically costing corporations tens of millions of kilos – as a result of this commerce negotiation remains to be ongoing.”

Commerce talks and political stress

The expanded tariff checklist, which incorporates objects as different as tableware, washing machines and even condensed milk in aluminium packaging, adopted lobbying from US metal corporations urging the White Home to prioritise home manufacturing.

Whereas Downing Avenue insists the UK stays the one nation to have averted Trump’s 50 per cent metals tariff, the federal government admitted the timing of the most recent announcement was sudden.

Officers have mentioned they might proceed working with Washington to “give business the safety they want, defend very important jobs, and put extra money in folks’s pockets”.

Trump, in the meantime, on his Reality Social platform, has trumpeted new Congressional Price range Workplace estimates that tariffs will minimize America’s finances deficit by $4trn over the subsequent decade.