Axing Chagos deal to swerve Trump tariffs on steel a ‘hypothetical’ strategy
US import tariffs on UK steel have ‘not come as a surprise’, trade minister Douglas Alexander told the Commons.
A minister has declined to say whether the Government could swerve US tariffs on British steel by throwing the Chagos deal “in the dustbin”.
Douglas Alexander described the suggestion as a “hypothetical negotiating strategy”, which Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis had “ventriloquised” in the House of Commons.
Taking questions about Donald Trump’s plan for 25% tariffs on British steel exports to the US, Mr Alexander told MPs the US president had a “speciality in generating uncertainty”.
Sir Julian, the MP for New Forest East, asked: “If President Trump offered to cancel the tariff on steel imports in return for the UK throwing in the dustbin the appalling Chagos giveaway deal, would the Government agree?”
The minister replied: “Tempting though it is to indulge in the hypothetical negotiating strategy as ventriloquised through (Sir Julian), I think consistent with the approach that we need to take a considered view of what is emerging and still emerging in relation to aluminium, I think the responsible case is to say we should leave those in the good offices of the UK ambassador to the United States (Lord Mandelson) and the Foreign Secretary (David Lammy).”
The UK Government has plans to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and would pay to lease back a UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.
The tariffs are due to begin on March 12.
Conservative MP Martin Vickers had earlier warned that steelworkers in his Brigg and Immingham constituency “already have an uncertain future, and this will just increase their concerns”.
Mr Alexander replied: “Candidly, no, it has not come as a surprise, but it’s also fair to recognise that the new president has a speciality in generating uncertainty.
“It’s part of his style of negotiations to create uncertainty as to what will happen next.”
He added: “There is a window of opportunity not only to engage with the workforce and with the companies to make sure that we better understand exactly what we’re looking for in light of these specific measures, but also critically to engage with the Trump administration directly.”
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice described UK steelmaking as “uncompetitive” and told MPs: “The threat to the UK steel industry is not actually tariffs from the US but the cost of our electricity.”
Mr Alexander said: “There are other factors that need to be recognised and addressed in the steel strategy, for example, again the indisputable fact that we inherited blast furnaces that were increasingly out of date relative to technologies being used elsewhere.
“It is also the case that there had been years of neglect in a number of these plants, where there is significant need for both public and private investment, so I respectfully hear the point (Mr Tice) makes in relation to electricity prices and general power generation prices in the United Kingdom.”
Conservative shadow trade minister Dame Harriett Baldwin, who tabled Tuesday’s urgent question about US steel import tariffs, earlier asked about “what plans the Government has to obtain a big, beautiful free trade agreement with the United States”.
She claimed “years of student politic-style insults hurled at the president by the frontbench opposite have put our relationship in jeopardy – and that’s before the embarrassment of the Chagos Islands shows that we have terrible negotiators running the country.”
Mr Alexander replied that the UK “stands ready to have an engagement” with the Washington administration and said: “On the big, beautiful deal that they contemplated and abjectly failed to secure, I would simply observe that that was one of a whole number of trade deals that they boast about but abjectly failed to deliver.”
