Displaying weakness

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The Labour government apparently believe that they are ready for Trump, having gamed a number of different scenarios. That sounds a bit complacent to me: the one thing that is absolutely predictable about Trump is his utter unpredictability. The probability that the UK government can have foreseen all possibilities is remote. It seems increasingly as though the team Trump is assembling around him do indeed have some sort of coherent – albeit deeply unpleasant – programme, but whether they will be able to keep him to it is likely to remain unclear for some time to come. I find myself wondering who exactly the ‘useful idiot’ in all this is. Are his team Trump’s useful idiots, or is he theirs? Him not being the idiot might seem unlikely, but it might still be the better scenario.

Whether he will go ahead with his scheme to impose 10% tariffs on all goods entering the US is yet to be seen. He really does seem to believe that the countries and companies sending those goods will pay the tariff with no impact on the prices paid by American consumers. It’s the stuff of make believe. It is certainly likely to disrupt trade relations and is likely to be counter to World Trade Organisation rules. That latter won’t worry him, not least because he knows that WTO rules and processes mean that it will be years before the WTO can co-ordinate its response, and he will no longer be president by then (assuming that he doesn’t also somehow manage to abolish the two-term limit on presidents – or even abolish elections – in the meantime). There are only two countries or trading blocs big enough and powerful enough to take meaningful retaliatory action, and they are China and the EU.

The UK’s response so far – trying to persuade Trump to exempt the UK from an otherwise universal tariff – assumes that the so-called special relationship is something more than an outdated form of words. But such special pleading is not only not helpful to rebuilding relationships with the EU, it also looks like weakness. Trump might well like to see weakness and supplication before him, but the idea that he will respond otherwise than by taking advantage of any weakness is completely at odds with his nature and history. Starmer’s obsession with not challenging any of the consequences of Brexit, and his willingness to bend the knee to Trump look likely only to compound those consequences.