Trump's tariffs would lower our food standards but we may just have to stomach it

As if the dire predictions for Trump’s second term weren’t scary enough, the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) has now warned that The Donald’s 20 per cent tariff plan could reduce the UK economy by 0.9 per cent by the end of his administration.

- JAMES MOORE

As well as pointing to estimates from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which suggests that tariffs of just 10 per cent could cut UK economic growth by 0.7 percentage points – cutting it in half in 2025 – it also fears higher inflation and interest rates. That the US would suffer as well as the UK would come as scant consolation.

It is true that those numbers are nowhere near as nasty as Brexit, which lopped 4 per cent off the top of UK plc, but they still represent the loss of billions of pounds. They also will hit tax revenues and the money available to fund public services. Jobs would inevitably be axed and businesses would flop. A savage blow.

But wait, says the CEBR, there is a solution: strike a trade deal with the US. Do that and the problem goes away (mostly). The entire global economy would take a severe hit from a global trade war and the UK would not be immune from the aftershocks, even with such a deal. Nonetheless, it points out that Trump pursued a deal much more “proactively” during his first term as president than Biden.