Trump is making a list – by Catherine McBride - an economist who specialises in trade and was a member of the UK’s Trade and Agriculture Commission.

Trump’s new tariffs are a very clever geostrategic manoeuvre, and the UK government should rejoice that it finds itself on the ‘10% list’. But some of our major exports—cars and aluminium aircraft parts—are on the 25% tariff list. The UK government should start negotiating a full trade agreement with the US and avoid alignment with the EU at all costs.

Post Segments

• Trade bargaining chips

• The naughty list

• Geopolitical issues

• Innovation comes from production

• The UK is in the same boat as the US

• These tariffs will not cause inflation without an increase in the money supply.

• Microeconomics, consumer goods and trade

• Cars are different

• The importance of onshoring

• Universal tariffs are just consumption taxes

• The UK’s best (and only) response

The world of economics is twittering about trade – a subject that most of them have never looked at carefully or don’t understand. The Old Guard are sure Trump’s new tariff rates will drive the world back to the 1930s style depression, and the Young Turks are using AI to reengineer the maths behind the tariff rates while also ignoring all of the countries given a 10% tariff rate that don’t fit their model.

Both groups claim the tariffs are illegitimate, but neither has looked at actual trade figures or even read the publications that explain the change in the US’s attitude to trade. Before commenting, they should read the publications from the USTR regarding global trade barriers and from the White House explaining the increased tariffs.

The big picture is that the US – the world’s Apex consumer – can’t negotiate trade deals if its trading partners already benefit from liberal access to the US market. Why would their trading partners bother? The mercantilists, who believe imports are bad for their economy (I don’t, by the way), can presently sell into the US’s massive consumer market without buying anything in return.

But a trade agreement would force them to open their market to US goods – the mercantilists don’t want that. The worst ones, China, don’t even want their own citizens buying the goods they are making for export to the US.

For the full article in pdf please click here:

Trump is making a list - by Catherine McBride.pdf

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