‘Bullies Respond To Strength’: Wilfred Frost Rips Into UK’s ‘Weak’ Response To Trump Tariffs
Wilfred Frost skewered the British government’s lacklustre response to Donald Trump’s global 25% import tax on steel and aluminium this morning.
The UK government has decided not to immediately retaliate to the tax, as Britain is currently negotiating a wider economic agreement with the US to eliminate additional tariffs.
But Sky News’s Frost was hardly impressed, telling Treasury minister James Murray that Britain was clearly not “responding with strength”.
“It’s quite a contrasting response to that of the EU,” Frost began, noting that the EU has slapped retaliatory taxes on US imports.
He suggested the UK had adopted “a purposefully consolatory approach”, adding: “Would some people call it a weak response?”
Murray replied: “We’re in a different position to the EU, as a result of the prime minister’s trip to the US last month.”
Donald Trump announced that the US could strike a tariff-free trade deal with the UK after holding talks with Keir Starmer.
Murray admitted that the US steel tariffs were “disappointing”, especially as the UK is a “champion of free and open trade”, but said the government is looking to set up a deal with the US that’s in the best interests of British business.
But Frost still criticised Britain’s response, telling Murray: “It’s almost even more surprising given the supposed warmth between both sides, given the goal of a free trade deal, and the lack of a significant surplus between the two countries, that these tariffs have been imposed on the UK.
“I guess I come back to the big picture point: bullies respond to strength. We’re not responding with strength.”
Murray said these were “global tariffs” that have “landed in the middle of our negotiations” with the US which have been ongoing since Starmer’s Washington trip.
The minister added: “We think the right response is to continue, pragmatically, cool-headed, without a kneejerk response towards an economic agreement that we are negotiating with the US to secure because that’s in the best interest of the UK.”
