“Because of the nature of this sort of sliding scale of tariffs, there are opportunities that weren’t there before,” analyst Alice Enders tells TVBEurope
Last night, United States President Donald Trump announced his intention to introduce a 10 per cent tariff on all UK imports, and 20 per cent on goods from Europe.
The decision has been described as the biggest change to global trade in 100 years.
The introduction of tariffs could be the latest blow to the global media and entertainment industry, which is still in the process of recovering from the Hollywood strikes of two years ago.
Analyst Alice Enders has been studying what she describes as a “paradigm shift” in United States policy since Trump took office in January. “It all has to do with the idea of closing the US current account deficit on goods; tariffs do not apply to services,” she tells TVBEurope.
The biggest impact of the tariffs will be on UK manufacturers who make products that are not available in the United States. So, for example, if NBC chose to buy cameras, microphones, switchers etc, from a UK or European technology vendor, those goods would be included in the tariffs.
“Let’s say NBC is looking at a camera that’s made here in the UK, and another that’s made in the EU. Now, all of a sudden, the UK has a 10 per cent advantage over the EU,” explains Enders. “Because of the nature of this sort of sliding scale of tariffs, there are opportunities that weren’t there before.”
Enders says she does not expect the UK to retaliate and introduce tariffs on goods from the United States because “we have such a dense commercial and economic relationship with the US, there’s no point in retaliating. It doesn’t make any sense.
“Even the EU, which was considering retaliation on steel and aluminium, has held back. There’s no consensus in the EU to retaliate because that will only increase the tariff.”