EU to strike back at ‘illegal’ tariffs

potential way of breaking the deadlock over future customs arrangements ahead of a crunch summit of EU leaders later this month. But it was dismissed as “fantastical” by antiBrexit campaigners. AN EVERTON fan has been jailed for eight weeks after attacking opposition players while holding his toddler in his arms sucking a dummy.

Michael Fitzpatrick, 30, was seen holding his three-year-old son in one arm, dummy in mouth, and using his other to grapple or punch at opposition players during a Europa League tie between Everton and Lyon last October.

The 30-year-old from Prescot, Merseyside, later said he felt “ashamed” by his behaviour. EAMONN HOLMES asked the Queen for his biggest interview yet as he picked up an OBE for services to broadcasting.

The TV host said he was “just trying to get the big names” when he told the Queen he had spoken to almost every member of her family but her.

Speaking at Buckingham Palace after collecting his honour, the 58-year-old broadcasting stalwart said his request was laughed off.

He said: “She talked about breakfast television and asked THE European Union is set to strike back against Donald Trump’s “illegal” and “dangerous” steel tariffs.

Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU trade commissioner, announced the EU would be seeking to implement a number of retaliatory tariffs on American products by June 20.

The move comes after Mr Trump’s decision to impose a 25% duty on European steel and a 10% duty on European aluminium.

Ms Malmstrom accused Mr Trump of “playing a dangerous game” as she confirmed the EU would be taking “proportionate and measured” action against the US.

She said: “This is further weakening the transatlantic relations and it also increases the risk of severe turbulences in the markets globally.”

Ms Malmstrom said a final decision on what products would be hit with tariffs had not yet been made, but added that they would be from an already published list which includes the likes of Levi’s jeans, bourbon whiskey, cranberries and peanut butter. She said: “We are not seeking to me how long I had been doing it and I said ‘too long’.

“I told her that I have interviewed almost every member of her family except her. I said, ‘so you have got to put that right for me’.

“She laughed — I think that meant no.” He joked that he escalate any situation but we need to respond and we’ll do so in a measured manner, but not responding would be the same as accepting these tariffs which we consider are illegal.”

The commissioner refused to say Mr Trump had started a trade war, but said he had created a “very worrying situation”.

She said: “It could escalate and also the economic recovery that we have seen lately, notably in the European Union but globally, risks to be diminished by this.”

Mr Trump originally imposed the tariffs in March, saying a reliance on imported metals threatened national security.

But he exempted Canada, Mexico and the European Union to buy time for negotiations was “always seeking the interview, just trying to get the big names”.

The oldest person to be honoured was 101-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Mordaunt Cohen, who was made an MBE for services to Second World War education. – a reprieve that expired at midnight on Thursday.

The director of trade body UK Steel, Gareth Stace, said he was “very, very worried” about the potential impact of a “double whammy” on British producers from the Trump administration’s decision.

UK steel producers could be shut out of an American market where they sold around £350 million of exports last year, while also facing increased competition from a “tsunami” of cheap steel diverted away from the US, he said.

Mr Stace said the EU should activate “safeguard measures” to prevent European markets being disrupted by a surge of as much as 25 million tonnes of steel diverted from the US.

Labour’s shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner warned the UK Government to “strongly respond” to the move.

Mr Gardiner said: “The president has said that he believes he could win a trade war, we think that a trade war is in nobody’s interests.

“We believe in a rules-based system, a multilateral system, President Trump doesn’t and we must understand that.”