David Lammy says he regrets Trump has embraced protectionism, something not seen in US ‘for nearly a century’ – UK politics live
David Lammy, foreign secretary, says UK is ‘a nation that believes in open trade’ and says government is negotiating with US over economic agreementJim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs chief economist and former Treasury minister, has said Britain and other non-US G7 nations should respond to the Trump tariffs by deepening their own free trade links.In an interview on the Today progamme, he said that it was perfectly feasible for leading nations still committed to free trade to in effect sideline the US, and trade more with each other.But I think our approach should be to slightly stand back and think, what does Britain want, and can it get from the rest of the world, and what can we contribute?And in that regard, it’s important to realise that the rest of the G7, except the US, collectively are the same size as the United States. And I would have thought a very sensible thing to be doing is having a serious conversation with the other members about actually lowering trade barriers between ourselves, especially for cross-border services, which is what the UK has a marginal advantage in, which would be very healthy for all of those countries because it’s the one area of global trade where most countries haven’t done enough in.The US is the biggest economy in the world still, but it’s not anything like as important for global trade as it is in global finance and global security.So if the US wants to do this [impose global tariffs], then it’s perfectly within the bounds of feasibility for other large economies to structure themselves, stop this addiction to the US consumer, and start to consume more themselves, as well as between each other. Continue reading...
David Lammy, foreign secretary, says UK is ‘a nation that believes in open trade’ and says government is negotiating with US over economic agreement
Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs chief economist and former Treasury minister, has said Britain and other non-US G7 nations should respond to the Trump tariffs by deepening their own free trade links.
In an interview on the Today progamme, he said that it was perfectly feasible for leading nations still committed to free trade to in effect sideline the US, and trade more with each other.
But I think our approach should be to slightly stand back and think, what does Britain want, and can it get from the rest of the world, and what can we contribute?
And in that regard, it’s important to realise that the rest of the G7, except the US, collectively are the same size as the United States. And I would have thought a very sensible thing to be doing is having a serious conversation with the other members about actually lowering trade barriers between ourselves, especially for cross-border services, which is what the UK has a marginal advantage in, which would be very healthy for all of those countries because it’s the one area of global trade where most countries haven’t done enough in.
The US is the biggest economy in the world still, but it’s not anything like as important for global trade as it is in global finance and global security.
So if the US wants to do this [impose global tariffs], then it’s perfectly within the bounds of feasibility for other large economies to structure themselves, stop this addiction to the US consumer, and start to consume more themselves, as well as between each other. Continue reading...
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