UK could avoid the US tariffs the ‘atrocity’ EU is facing because Starmer has been ‘nice’, Trump suggests – UK politics live | Politics

Moves to overhaul the way schools are inspected in England have been criticised by headteachers and teaching unions as “demoralising” and worse than the system they are aiming to replace, Richard Adams and Peter Walker report.

Good morning. Keir Starmer will tonight become the first British PM to attend a European Council meeting (a dinner, as part of an informal EU summit), and it could not have come at a more difficult time, because it is happening just as Donald Trump is unleashing tariff warfare.

Graeme Wearden is covering the global tariff story on his business live blog.

For the UK, a global tariff war presents a particular challenge. Pre-Brexit, the UK would just been a leading member of the EU camp. In 2016, Brexiters argued that Britain would be better off not aligned to any major trading bloc, and that it would gain most by being able to nimbly duck and weave through the global trading networks. Some Brexiters wanted a straightforward alignment with the US, which now seems to be the official Conservative party position, but most of them were arguing for pick ‘n’ mix unilateralism.

Starmer is about to find out whether this Brexit scenario turns out to be viable, whether, in a trade war between the US and the EU, Britain can avoid the US tariffs that Trump plans to impose on the EU while similtaneously achieving Labour’s goal of improving UK-EU trade by easing some of the trade barriers that have been in place since Brexit. Or whether the UK has to pick a side. Or whether it ends up being crushed in the middle, losing out in both directions.

In comments yesterday, Trump said that he was not ruling out tariffs on the UK, but he implied that he was trying to peel Britain away from the EU, whom he described as “an atrocity”. He was speaking to reporters at Andrews air force base near Washington, as he arrived back from Florida, and he was specifically asked about the UK by Nomia Iqbal, BBC’s North America correspondent. Here is a transcript of the key exchange.

Q: Mr President, which country will be next on tariffs? Would you consider taxing the UK?

DT: Well, we’re going to see what happens. It’ll happen

Q: With the UK?

DT: Might. Let’s see how things work out. It might happen with them.

It will definitely happen with the European Union, I can tell you that, because they’ve really taken advantage of us. We have over $300bn deficit. They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing, and we take everything from them – millions of cars, tremendous amounts of food and farm products.

So the UK is way out of line. And we’ll see.

[At this point Trump appears to correct himself, having said UK when he appears to have meant the EU.]

But European Union is really out of line. UK is out of line, but I’m sure that one, I think that one, can be worked out.

But the European Union it’s an atrocity what they’ve done.

Q: Prime Minister Starmer wants a closer relationship with the EU.

DT: Well, Prime Minister Starmer has been very nice. We’ve had a couple of meetings. We’ve had numerous phone calls. We’re getting along very well. We’ll see whether or not we can balance out our budget.

With the European Union, it’s $350bn deficit, so obviously something’s going to take place there

As is often the case with Trump, he managed to combine the language of a teenager (“very nice”, “getting along very well”) with the menace of a gangster.

At some point we will get some sort of response from Starmer, and from EU leaders, although – in public, at least – it may be very constrained and limited.

Jakub Krupa is covering the Europe-wide aspects of the summit on our Europe live blog

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, gives a speech on school standards.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensison secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

Afternoon: Keir Starmer holds a meeting with the Nato secretary general at Nato HQ in Brussels. They are due to hold press conference at 3.40pm UK time.

3.30pm: The Home Builders Federation and the National Housing Federation give evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about the cladding scandal.

Evening: Starmer has dinner with EU leaders at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels.

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