Trump’s tariffs prove it – we’re all losers, except the filthy rich

The second Donald Trump presidency was always going to be chaotic.

But few predicted the global meltdown sparked by the President’s dramatic unveiling of blanket tariffs on trade with almost every country in the world.

These tariffs are a shock and awe tactic, and the reaction has been exactly that. Stocks plummeting, markets in crisis, and predictions of a recession in the US rising. Many are saying the Trump administration will oversee the end of the established global trading order – and the death of globalisation.

This could have devastating impacts here – hiking prices in the shops, and putting jobs at risk. I know people in my constituency of Bristol and across the UK are incredibly concerned about how they and their communities will be affected.

Whatever happens next, the UK Government must seize this moment and use it to reshape our own economy – for the good of everyone who lives here. Globalisation has always relied on there being winners and losers – and if we don’t act, the gap between these two groups will only widen.

Sadly, the Prime Minister doesn’t seem to have grasped this. He’s still tinkering around the edges, treading on eggshells for fear of offending Trump, and pretending that sticking to a set of self-imposed fiscal rules that limits what the Government is able to do will protect people’s livelihoods. 

In order for mega-corporations to lower prices for consumers and increase their profits, they have paid the lowest wages possible to workers who have little other choice – like on Ecuador’s banana plantations, where people work 12-hour shifts for starvation wages.

Or they have lowered their safety standards, putting workers at risk of illness or death, as in the awful Rana Plaza building collapse, which killed over 1,000 people in Bangladesh in 2013.

In the UK, there have been plenty of losers too. Sure, we got cheaper goods – but we lost our manufacturing industry, decimating whole communities. Our farmers have suffered terribly under pressure to compete with cheap imports from abroad.

And all of this has made us less resilient to the kinds of global shocks we’ve seen in the last few years, from the pandemic to Ukraine, because we’re so reliant on importing the stuff we use every day – from wheat to fuel – from elsewhere.

Meanwhile, day-to-day life has got harder. The cost of getting by has gone up and up, leaving people choosing between heating their homes and feeding their families. Wages are only just beginning to outpace inflation after years of stagnation, and millions are stuck in insecure work, being exploited by employers who all too often are hoovering up massive profits and storing them in tax havens.

It’s time for this Labour government to stop bowing to the demands of the global economy and allowing its policy to be shaped by the fluctuations of the financial markets – and instead start taking control.

But Starmer’s comments at the liaison committee this week won’t have reassured voters that he’s in the driving seat. Instead of setting out decisive action, he admitted that the UK’s digital services tax and Online Safety Act are on the table in trade talks with the US – in other words, that he’s prepared to roll over and put pleasing Trump ahead of the interests and safety of people here in the UK.

It’s time for the losers in this rigged economy to finally come out on top. First, that means rethinking the Chancellor’s arbitrary fiscal rules.

We’ve already seen the appalling damage these rules are doing to people in this country, after Rachel Reeves announced plans to slash vital support for disabled people – just to make the numbers on the spreadsheet add up. This government must stop pretending its hands are tied, and start making real choices.

Second, the Government must urgently act to protect living standards. That means raising the minimum wage to £15 an hour so it’s actually enough to live on; putting a stop to rip-off rents so that renters aren’t seeing more and more of their pay packet disappear into their landlord’s bank account each month; and bringing utilities like water and energy back into public hands to bring down our bills.

Finally, we need to see a massive programme of investment in this country’s industries. More money for skills and training; more job creation in the industries of the future like renewable energy; and more support for agriculture, to boost British farming and make the food we eat healthier and more affordable.

The alternative is to keep living in Trump’s world – one where the rich and powerful keep winning, and the rest of us are doomed to lose. A world rigged in the interests of oligarchs and billionaires, while ordinary people have to work more for less money.  

Global storms mean difficult times ahead. But now isn’t the time to sit tight and hope we can weather it – it’s time to start steering the ship ourselves.

The economy isn’t just some natural system that we live in and can’t change – it’s the job of politicians to design a country’s economy so that it serves the people who live there. That’s what Keir Starmer needs to start doing – and fast.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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