Blair to Starmer: Don’t hit back at Trump’s tariffs
https://www.politico.eu/article/tony-blair-keir-starmer-dont-hit-back-donald-trump-tariffs-trade-war/
Posted by EdgarNeverPoo
Blair to Starmer: Don’t hit back at Trump’s tariffs
https://www.politico.eu/article/tony-blair-keir-starmer-dont-hit-back-donald-trump-tariffs-trade-war/
Posted by EdgarNeverPoo
27 Comments
For one thing it’s the public who have to pay some of the tariffs in higher prices.
Stopped clocks and all that, we’re in a good position relative to a lot of countries so why risk making it worse.
We don’t need to impose tariffs on American goods. Instead, we can just boycott every piece of shit coming out of America.
We don’t need to impose tariffs on American goods. Instead, we can just boycott every piece of shit coming out of America and only buy non American goods.
I may be wholly wrong, but aside from software I cannot think of any American goods that we can’t live without.
Trump is making his own people pay higher prices for our goods. With the idea that it will make our good less competitive in the American market and encourage Americans to buy American products. (It’s simplistic but there it is.)
However we have lower tariffs than other countries, so our goods can still be more competitive in the USA than some other countries.
Putting tarifs on US imports would make sense if we wanted to encourage more consumption of British competitors. But we probably don’t need to do that because Trump is pissing everyone off right now and, given a choice, many of us would buy British anyway if we can. In cases where we don’t have a choice and need to buy US goods, it is better to pay less than more.
So my take today is, let us enjoy our slight competitive advantage in the USA over other countries for a while. Our exports won’t go up for sure.
Let consumer behaviour dictate what we buy from the US.
Why don’t we play uno and lower tariffs we already impose to other countries affected, so widening the gap these countries play towards a particular market.
Like Trump has done, we encourage companies to manufacture into the UK and grow that way.
I disagree because isolationism and protectionism is why this mess has occurred. We need to work with our international partners to force the US to give up these tarrfis (by killing the effectiveness of the US economy). The US has entered a trade war with everyone.
We need to be smart with what we tarrif so it impacts the rich MAGA supporters. Without them Trump and his band of merry losers is DOA.
I think we should boycott by re engaging in a single customs union with the EU.
Tony Blair might be a local hero down at the local Slug and Lettuce but I’ll never forgive him for what he done to my fence back in 1994.
We don’t need advice from slimy war criminals. Crawl back under your rock Blair.
This is the way. Just stop bringing in American goods. Don’t raise the prices for consumers, just stop them and source alternatives.
This is what I’ve been thinking too. Nonchalantly do nothing. What’s weak would be accepting the offer of chlorinated chicken in order to remove the tariff. 10% won’t impact UK people and we can boycott American products as much as possible. EU have a bigger tariff. This whole tariff thing is ridiculous but from my naive understanding, it feels like Americans are the ones who will suffer? We just need to proactively support British and European products and avoid the shit show aka America.
Halifax to (possibly, we’ll see) Chamberlain: please, the politic of appeasement will come into fruition.
I agree with Blair and Starmer. Hitting back would only lead to an escalation, whicb benefits nobody. The rest of the world is going to make our point for us by escalating their own tariffs, and we will probably manage to get away with being an outlier without harming our relationship with the US population or future US governments.
Leaving the EU means we’re not in a position (even if we wanted to) to align strongly with any one bloc, especially within the west. Consider as well how if these tariffs are a long term thing, the UK then becomes the ideal final place of assembly for European goods prior to export to the United States.
In summary I think we’re not in a position to make enemies with anybody, so we have to try and be friends with everybody.
Best course for UK government to squeeze US “imports” would be to crank up the Digital Services Tax, helps plug the funding gap and doesn’t hit consumers so much. Trump and Vance would be apoplectic though, once Zuckerberg, Bezos et al whisper in their ear about it…
Tony Blair is a tragic figure. He was an outstanding politician and a true Statesman. Very intelligent, and a political powerhouse. But he got carried away after achieving peace in Northern Ireland, peace in Sierra Leone, peace in the balkans all through using calculated military force to back up policy. He believed liberal interventionism could save the world. And I genuinely believe he entered into Iraq with “good” intentions. But despite his undeniable success at home (1997 felt like a revolution- upbeat populace, real change after 18 years of Tory rule) and abroad, he will forever be mired in the shitstorm that was Iraq 2. So when he speaks up, with all of his experience, intelligence and, again, good intentions, he will be dismissed by the British public. Even when he’s right. And, Iraq aside, probably still one of the most 4-D chess politicians in the UK. He’d be an excellent political voice in these turbulent times – IF he wasn’t so toxic.
Bow down and submit. They already got you complicit in genocide. Just submit further. Completely.
I guess if you are a former president’s cock-holster, who was prepared to ‘sex up’ data as justification to join the US in getting its gun off in the Middle East, then ‘appeasement’ sounds like a plan.
Fuck the fuck off, Bliar
You don’t need to boycott everything, just enough to send the message.
May as well keep the friendly / special relationship vibes while we stand back and let them realise agent orange burst his diaper & backtracks on everything, while claiming the brown stuff all down his back is all bidens fault.
MAGA cultists be like “short term pain, long term gain!”, as they sip a bottle of moonshine from their front porch with a beautiful view of the local swamp
The quickest way to hurt America is to sell the US treasury bonds the government holds. We can also stop buying big military items from them. If we want to hurt them as consumers, we’ll have to look at what we consume, the food and drink and tech we buy.
There needs to be national equivalents of social media to break the dependence on US companies and we can all go to Linux 😂 instead of Windows.
I think Starmer will cave and accept to bring in American poulty, beef and soy crop. That’s what this is about mainly
Stop buying stuff like Jack Daniels.‘it’s so easy and impactful
Blair, once again showing he’ll bend over and take it from any old yank.
Don’t hit back, just keep caving into him and make him look good? Seriously?