Donald Trump risks having a “really damaging impact” on the global economy as he pursues tariffs against the US’s nearest neighbours, Yvette Cooper has warned.
The US president has introduced a 25 per cent levy on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, and a 10 per cent trade tax on Chinese goods, which will come into effect on Tuesday.
The penalties have sparked fears of a global trade war that could fuel a fresh spike in the cost of living.
The home secretary, the first senior British government figure to respond to the announcement, said the UK wanted to break down trade barriers, not put them up.
Asked about Mr Trump’s announcement, she told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Tariff increases really right across the world can have a really damaging impact on global growth and trade, so I don’t think it’s what anybody wants to see.”
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has previously said Britain is ready for “all eventualities” if Mr Trump chooses to target the UK with future tariffs. If the US does hit Britain, the UK could retaliate in the form of tariffs targeted at symbolically important US products such as whiskey, blue jeans and motorbikes – hitting brands like Jack Daniel’s, Levi’s and Harley-Davidson – as Britain and the European Union did during trade wars in Mr Trump’s first term in the White House.
Canada and Mexico, the US’s nearest neighbours and largest trading partners, have both vowed to counter the levies with retaliatory tariffs of their own on US goods.
The US tariffs are aimed at forcing the countries into doing more to prevent illegal migration into America, as well as the flow of the drug fentanyl.
Critics of the trade penalties have warned they could also fuel inflation in the US economy, driving up prices.
Ms Cooper also told the BBC that the UK’s focus was “on building trade links and better trading relationships, and removing barriers to trade, with the US, and also with other European countries and with countries right across the world”.
“We want to reduce the barriers to trade, make it easier for businesses,” she added.
The Government’s opponents have called for widely differing approaches to the potential threat that tariffs could also be placed on UK goods.
While the Liberal Democrats have called for the UK to agree a customs union with the EU, Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said Sir Keir Starmer should pursue closer trade ties with the US.
The prime minister should “be diverting his plane” from Belgium – where he will meet EU leaders on Monday – to Washington DC, the senior Tory said.
Ministers have previously said they do not believe the US will impose tariffs on the UK, as America does not have a trade deficit with Britain.
Sir Keir has, meanwhile, insisted the UK does not need to make a choice between closer ties with Europe or with the US.
Meanwhile the chairman of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee David McAllister urged Mr Trump not to pursue a trade war with the bloc.
“We have absolutely no interest in starting any kind of trade conflict,” he told Sky News.
Mr McAllister added: “We are engaging at all levels, trying to convince the Trump administration that in the end, imposing tariffs on the European Union would trigger retaliatory tariffs from our side and this would be, in the end, a total lose lose situation.”