The shadow chief secretary to the treasury has branded Starmer's visit to the EU during potential tariffs from the US as "not smart" and untimely. Richard Fuller warned that tariffs "aren't good for anyone", speaking amid growing fears of tariffs from the US after threats by President Donald Trump. Report by Faragt. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00My advice to the Prime Minister is, you know, get out of the way.
00:02If there's a fight going on between the US and the EU,
00:05the role of the British Prime Minister is to get out of the way.
00:07We want to be friends with both.
00:09Instead, he chooses the very day the United States President says
00:12there's a difference between the UK and the EU.
00:14So Kirstarmer goes to the EU and tries to say,
00:16well, we're just like the EU.
00:17That's not smart.
00:19Well, tariffs end up with higher prices on the high street.
00:22And that's not good for consumers.
00:23That's not good for anyone.
00:24And potentially, if it leads to retaliations left and right,
00:28all countries doing it, that destroys economic growth.
00:30That's what happened in the 1930s and led to the Great Depression.
00:34So yes, we should be worried and concerned about tariffs
00:38and retaliatory tariffs.
00:39There are very few gains to come from escalating a tariff war.
00:44And we've seen overnight with President Trump with Mexico
00:47that the answer there wasn't about tariffs.
00:49It was about something else.
00:51And so perhaps what President Trump would be looking for from Europe
00:53is what he's often said, which is they want the European countries
00:56to pay more for NATO, NATO defence.
00:58And of course, the Conservative Party had a costed plan
01:00to increase their support for NATO.
01:02Labour hasn't done that.
01:03And so Kirstarmer may need to be looking at ways
01:06that he could respond in that way,
01:08should the president start to talk about tariffs on the UK.