Plaid Cymru urges UK Government to prioritise EU trade over 'fawning' response to Trump tariffs

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader has told those "fawning" over the 10% tariff on UK exports to "get real".

President Donald Trump’s announcement of global tariffs sent stock markets tumbling across the globe on Thursday (April 3).

A Downing Street source told the BBC: "A lower levy than others vindicates our approach".

The Conservatives described the tariff announcement as a "Brexit dividend" and Reform UK said that the UK’s tariff rate was "better than 20 per cent for EU members".

But Plaid's Liz Saville Roberts pointed out that Wales’s largest export to the US - machinery and transport equipment - will continue to be impacted by the US’s 25% tariff on steel and aluminium.

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Brexit

She also said that Brexit has significantly impacted the Welsh economy, and that the EU remains Wales’s largest trading partner, with Welsh exports to the EU valued at £11.2 billion.

In comparison, Welsh exports to the US total £2.9 billion.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Saville Roberts called for the UK Government to accelerate the removal of trade barriers with Europe, arguing it was "economic common sense" in the face of the US's protectionist policies.

A Cambridge Econometrics report last year found that the UK economy was £140bn smaller as a result of Brexit.

Plaid's Westminster leader criticised those "fawning" about a worsening economic picture and told them to "get real".

Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Saville Roberts said: "Some commentators are fawning over a 10% tariff simply because our nearest neighbours have been hit worse.

"Let’s get real here. The 25% tariff on steel and aluminium will hit Wales’s biggest export to the US – machinery and transport equipment.

"And it’s a fact that the EU is Wales’s greatest trading partner with Welsh exports valued at £11.2 billion.

"In the face of an American President with an obsession with international economic revenge, does the Minister recognise that it is economic common sense to accelerate scrapping trade barriers with Europe?"

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'Determined'

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Jonathan Reynolds responded: "I’m grateful for that question, and again she can see no one in this Government is fawning over the relative position we find ourselves in. That is why we’re so determined to find a better way through that.

"She’s right to say - particularly the announcement on steel and aluminium – particularly the potential for what are called derivative tariffs on a product that is not in itself the raw steel and aluminium product, but on the product that is produced from those, is a real danger to us, and that’s why we’re taking that so seriously.

"We have an ambitious commitment to the EU reset – we need a partner on the other side and there’s been some political relative instability in some key European partners, and they’ve got to be in a position to have that conversation.

"But I say again that this is not a choice between the US and the EU – we can tackle this together, we can improve our trading relationships with both partners, and with India and the Gulf, and with other parts of the World and that is the commitment of this Government to do so."