US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has launched a world- wide trade war, declaring he will impose a 25 per cent tariff on all steel imports to the US reinforcing his ‘America first’ policy.
Trump also announced a ten per cent tariff on all aluminium imports. Trump tweeted yesterday ‘When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore – we win big. It’s easy!’ He later followed this up with a further tweet, saying the US must ‘protect our country and our workers’.
French economy minister Bruno Le Maire meanwhile responded there would ‘only be losers’ in a trade war between the US and the EU. Le Maire did however also call for a ‘strong, coordinated and united response from the EU’. European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker promised to hit back saying: ‘We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk.’
China also condemned the move, with a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson saying: ‘If all countries followed the example of the United States, it will undoubtedly result in a serious impact on the international trade order.’
Global stock markets fell on the bad news for capitalism, that many of the world’s largest companies will be fighting for their lives and going under. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 500 points in the hours after the news, a drop of 2 per cent. Meanwhile Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 1.1 per cent, while Japan’s Nikkei plummeted by as much as 2.9 per cent.
Some £360 million of Britain’s yearly steel exports to America will be impacted by the tariff, according to an official in the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Department. A British government spokesman said: ‘We have made very clear to the US that we are deeply concerned by any measures that would affect the UK steel and aluminium industries.’
Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian foreign affairs minister, warned: ‘Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers. The Canadian government will continue to make this point directly with the American administration at all levels.’
Unite national officer for steel, Tony Brady, said: ‘US tariffs on UK steel would be devastating for the British steel industry and the thousands of workers who have battled for its survival, alongside their trade unions. Any tariffs imposed on UK steel by President Trump on a scale that is being mooted would be misguided and deprive US manufacturers of some of the most specialist steel in the world.
‘The dumping of cheap Chinese steel into the UK took our world class British steel industry to the precipice because of the British government’s inaction. Government ministers and Theresa May must back Britain’s steelworkers and manufacturing communities by securing assurances from President Trump that they will not be caught up in a global tariff war between the US and countries such as China.’
Community’s General Secretary, Roy Rickhuss, has led calls for International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, to use all leverage necessary to ensure the UK is exempt from any such tariffs. In the face of this exhibition of the anarchy of capitalist production, the workers of the world must unite to defend every job, and stop the trade war developing into a new world war with socialist revolutions to replace the anarchy of capitalist production with a worldwide socialist planned economy.
