The panel is made up of the chairs of all the House of Commons committees and its subject matter ranges from domestic to foreign affairs and back again within minutes. Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Treasury Select Committee and long-time Parliamentary accounts-hawk, was first up. She swooped in to see what sort of international response is planned to the biggest story in town.
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Trump and Putin thrive on victimhood - it's time Starmer set some boundaries
Read MoreStarmer said he spent last weekend holed up at Chequers, ringing around allies and “exchanging notes” about how they are responding to the tariffs.
Carney steered Canada through the 2008-09 financial crisis and helped the UK deal with the fallout from Brexit as the Governor of the Bank of England. If he is returned as Canadian prime minister at the end of the month, Starmer can rely on a sensible ally to help decide whether to pacify Trump as a means of putting the brakes on a global recession, or to try to bring together an economic international coalition of the willing.
Since 2009, the decline of those institutions has sped up; nowadays G7 and G20 meetings rarely come to a unified conclusion. Even during the Covid pandemic there was no joined-up international plan.
The key question is whether behind the scenes diplomacy can secure “sweetheart deals” or carve-outs for individual nations with the US. In which case, why sign up to a co-ordinated response? Worldwide politicians are recalibrating whether it’s every nation for itself and whether bilateral trade deals are the new normal.
The UK, which alongside Israel, are being talked up as Trump’s two favourites, can hardly set itself up as a co-ordinating hub of the aggrieved with tariffs of “only” 10 per cent and 25 per cent on the export of cars, when other nations have suffered tariffs of nearly 50 per cent. Even with a warming relationship with the European Union, the UK can’t lead on tariffs, as Starmer has sought to do so on European defence leadership. A sped-up Free Trade Agreement between the US and UK may raise eyebrows in Brussels too.
With Trump showing no sign of backing down, Starmer said he is keeping all “options on the table and do the preparatory work for retaliation, if necessary,” adding, “but I think that trying to negotiate an arrangement which mitigates the tariffs is better.”
If he can’t get that easing, Starmer may have to join a coalition of the aggrieved after all. But it seems unlikely he’ll be the one to lead it.
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