Trump tariffs live: Starmer vows to protect UK businesses from ‘storm’ US tariffs will bring

Trade unions, who were previously divided over Brexit and still provide more than half of Labour’s campaign funding, are now at the forefront of a new push for much closer ties with the EU.

Armed with a survey by pollster Peter McLeod – who has carried out research for Labour and the unions – the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has joined with business groups and others to urge Sir Keir to rethink his Brexit red lines.

While the prime minister has insisted he will resist what he calls “a false choice” between the EU and US, the TUC’s public demands are being reflected in private by many in Labour as well.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to make the UK economy less exposed to global shocks.

Sir Keir has said that his immediate priority is “to keep calm and fight for the best deal”. He added: “Nobody wins from a trade war. The economic consequences, here and across the globe, could be profound.

“We already have a balanced trading relationship with our American allies and work continues on a new economic prosperity deal. Nonetheless, all options remain on the table”.

Sir Keir promised to make the case for “free and open trade” and also take action at home to “turbocharge plans that will improve our domestic competitiveness, so we’re less exposed to these kinds of global shocks”.

If you are just joining our coverage of Trump’s tariffs in the UK, here’s a recap of what the prime minister has said overnight.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm” of president Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Mr Trump has imposed a “baseline” 10 per cent tariff on the UK, as well as a 25 per cent tariff on cars and car parts.

This has already caused disruption in the UK car industry, with Jaguar Land Rover announcing yesterday that they would pause shipments to the US in April as they assess the impact of tariffs.

Tesla CEO and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, has taken public swipes at Donald Trump’s adviser on trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, who helped shape the president’s reciprocal tariff policy that tanked markets across the world.

Mr Musk is typically vocal in his support and defense of the president, but has been quiet since Mr Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement that killed $2.5 trillion from the US stock market — a loss of value that cost the Tesla CEO more than $30bn, according to CNBC.

A user on X posted a video from CNN in which Mr Navarro defends the tariffs, noting positively that he went to Harvard. Mr Musk took issue with that, calling it a “bad thing.”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington and discuss US tariffs imposed by Donald Trump among other issues, the Israeli leader’s office said on Saturday.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement the prime minister, who is visiting Hungary, would depart for Washington on Sunday.

Four Israeli officials and a White House official said previously that Netanyahu was due to meet with Mr Trump tomorrow.

The impromptu in-person visit could be the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal with Mr Trump to remove tariffs.

But if the UK’s 10 per cent import tariffs to the American market compared to the EU’s 20 per cent, is the best economic justification for Brexit that can be made, then supporters of leaving the EU are clutching at straws.

The first and most obvious point is that Brexit has not spared the UK from having tariffs imposed on it by the one world leader who was the biggest cheerleader outside Britain for the UK leaving the EU.

Prime minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to step in to help “shelter” the country’s businesses from the fallout from Donald Trump’s new tariff policies, mooting state intervention for the worst-affected industries.

“We stand ready to use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm,” Sir Keir wrote in the Telegraph newspaper.

“Some people may feel uncomfortable about this – the idea the state should intervene directly to shape the market has often been derided.

“But we simply cannot cling on to old sentiments when the world is turning this fast.

While Sir Keir said the government’s priority remains to try and secure a trade deal with the US which could include tariff exemptions, he said he will do “everything necessary” to protect the national interest.

Britain was spared the most punitive treatment in Mr Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday when it was hit with the lowest import duty rate of 10 per cent , but a global trade war will hurt its open economy.

Almost no countries were spared from president Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs; even small, uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean were included in the exhaustive list. But one country was notably missing: Russia.

One of the United States’ largest adversaries was omitted from the list of countries slapped with even the 10 percent baseline tariff – a move that raised some eyebrows given Trump’s previously friendly relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump has imposed the steepest American tariffs on imports in over a century, levying rates as high as 50 per cent on some countries in a move described by the EU as a “major blow” to the world economy.

The US president shocked global market on Wednesday as he announced minimum tariffs of at least 10 per cent on almost all exporters to the US, with much higher duties for countries that enjoy the largest trade surpluses.

Southeast Asian nations and some of the world’s weakest economies were hardest hit, compounding the effects of the Trump administration’s cuts to the USAID programme in many of those countries.

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