The other Kim! Trump hosts Kardashian
● May accused of being ‘feeble’ as US imposes tariffs on $500m of UK steel
Donald Trump and reality TV star Kim Kardashian West in the Oval Office, where they discussed prison reform. The US president was later accused of starting a trade war by imposing tariffs on European steel and aluminium.
Donald Trump has been accused of sparking a trade war after the US imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminium, hitting British exports worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
America’s allies in Canada, Mexico and the EU will face levies of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium, which will come into effect today when a tariff exemption expires.
A UK government spokesman called the move “deeply disappointing” and said close allies of the US should be “permanently and fully exempted from the American measures on steel and aluminium”.
European Commission president Jean-claude Juncker denounced the move as “protectionism pure and simple” and said the EU would take a formal complaint to the World Trade Organisation as well as announcing retaliatory tariffs on American imports expected to include orange juice, peanut butter and other goods.
UK steel exports to the US are worth half a billion dollars a year. Industry body UK Steel said producers in Britain would be “hit hard”, while the CBI warned the move would “damage prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic”. US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross said the tariffs were necessary to protect the American defence industry and national security.
EU Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom complained that “this is not the way we do business, and certainly not between long-standing partners, friends and allies,” she said.
Mr Trump is due in the UK for his first visit as President in the next six weeks.
Labour spokeswoman on steel Gill Furniss said Theresa May ad been “too feeble to stand up to Trump” and “let our steelworkers down”, while shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner said: “If the government had any doubt as to how ‘special’ our relationship with the US is to President Trump then these tariffs make it clear that even close allies will not be spared from his America First policies.”
Labour MP Stephen Doughty, part of the People’s Vote campaign for a referendum on the terms of the UK’S Brexit deal, said: “The reckless actions of Donald Trump and his irresponsible approach to international politics means now is not the time for the UK to be crashing out of the world’s largest trading bloc or pulling away from our European friends and allies.”