Brexit Dividend: EU Hit With Double Trump Tariff Level Than Independent Britain

The freedom afforded to the United Kingdom by its Brexit withdrawal from the European Union has been credited with helping the country avoid the worst of the Trump tariff actions.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a slew of tariff measures with the aim of resetting America’s trade relationships with the rest of the world, intending to encourage the return of industry to America after decades of globalisation hollowed out manufacturing hubs and corporations sent jobs and wealth abroad.

Observers quickly noticed that the “Liberation Day” tariff announcements were quite disparate in their scale, with some trading partners, such as Communist China, being slapped with significantly higher import taxes than others, depending, in large part, on the tariffs and other trade barriers they impose on the United States.

Notably, the EU was hit with a 20 per cent tariff while the UK, which left the bloc in 2020 as a result of the Brexit referendum, will face a ten per cent tariff from the Trump administration.

The significant disparity, which could give British companies a competitive edge against their European counterparts in terms of selling their goods in the American market, has been hailed by some as a demonstration of the wisdom of the British people to vote to leave the EU in 2016.

“Obama did say we’d be at the ‘back of the queue’. Now we know which queue. Brexit for the win,” quipped GB News presenter Alex Armstrong.

In addition to the clear benefit of having a tariffs half as expensive as those imposed on the European Union, Brexit has also afforded London the ability to craft its own distinct strategy towards negotiations with Washington.

Britain’s former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost remarked: “Congratulations to Keir Starmer for being ready to take advantage of our status as an independent country and the Brexit freedoms that go with it. Perhaps that EU ‘reset’ can now be quietly junked?”

Rather than taking a hostile approach towards the Trump tariffs, as has been taken by Brussels, Prime Minister Starmer has sought to take a more tactful approach, despite many within his left-wing government being ideologically opposed to the Republican president and have openly criticised him in the past.

While the EU has said that it intends on retaliating by raising its own tariffs on U.S. goods even higher in response to the ‘Liberation Day’ measures, the UK has said that has no such plans, opting instead for a “calm and pragmatic” stance as it seeks to continue negotiations to ink a possible trade deal to escape the Trump tariffs altogether.

This could mean that the now independent UK could also potentially avoid being plunged into an all out trade war between the EU and the U.S. as retaliation from Brussels may spark a spiral of tit for tat measures.

However, the opposition Conservative Party has criticised Starmer and his government for failing to come to a deal with Trump prior to the ten per cent levy being imposed.

Shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith blamed the Labour government for “failing to negotiate with President Trump’s team” before Wednesday, adding: “Sadly, it is British businesses and workers who will pay the price for Labour’s failure.”

“The silver lining is that Brexit – which Labour ministers voted against no less than 48 times – means that we face far lower tariffs than the EU: a Brexit dividend that will have protected thousands of British jobs and businesses.”

Yet, Griffith’s Conservative Party under Boris Johnson had years when they were in power to ink a post-Brexit trade deal with the first Trump administration, but failed to do so before the election of infamously anti-Brexit and anti-British President Joe Biden and the departure of pro-Brexit Trump from the White House.

Although London remains hopeful of coming to a deal, significant roadblocks remain, with the UK so far being unwilling to walk back its draconian censorship laws, which threaten to impose heavy fines on American social media networks. The Trump administration is also likely to seek a reduction on the taxes imposed on American tech firms operating in the UK to the tune of hundreds of millions per year.

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