This is a bad sign for hopes that we could get back to 0%. It indicates that 10% is a floor and I don’t think many countries are going to go for that.
From the White House CNN reporter:
Trump’s trade announcement with the UK will be limited in scope, heavy on future commitments & leave the existing 10% universal tariffs in place, a US & UK official tell Phil Mattingly [a fellow CNN reporter]
That’s not good.
An optimist might hope that as some of those ‘future commitments’ are met there is a path to removing the 10% so let’s wait and see. But I just can’t see major US trading partners rolling over on a deal like this. The UK is around 2.5% of US imports so it’s not a big trading relationship.
A separate report from the FT says this deal is initially focused on autos and steel. That matches initial reporting and suggests that this deal is more about those two sets of tariffs than the 10% ‘reciprocal’ tariff policy.
This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.
