US Imposition of Steel and Aluminium Import Tariffs

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, I totally agree with my noble friend that we need to promote free and fair trade. Of course, my friends in the other place are having regular meetings with their counterparts in Europe and the US to look at not only the impact of these actions, but how we can work closely together, particularly with the EU, to alleviate their consequences. The Secretary of State told me about an hour ago that he has met French, German, Irish and other counterparts in the EU to talk about how we will move together collectively and multilaterally.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, we should all try to learn lessons from the mistakes of the past. Between the two world wars the human race suffered greatly from protectionism and the escalation of tariffs—actually instigated by the United States with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—and a large amount of output and employment was lost directly as a result. Since the Second World War, the Americans have taken a very different and much more positive attitude towards the growth of international trade but Trump has reversed the initiative started by President Kennedy, continued through the Uruguay and Doha rounds, which has led to such great prosperity throughout the world. In these circumstances, a tone of some robustness and decisiveness is called for. Of course we hope the United States will not proceed with these threats but does the Minister agree that if they do implement them, there is only one possible response: we must retaliate in a rapid, commensurate and effective way? Under no circumstances can we adopt a policy of unilateral disarmament in this area.

[Baroness Manzoor]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that protectionism in any area is not something that we think we should be working towards. We have developed a very robust tone and it is right that we have. I have said this is regrettable and disappointing, and we have made our views known. In fact, the Prime Minister also made her views known through the G20. We will continue to ensure that British interests are at the fore of our discussions so that we get the best possible deal for our businesses. It would be easy to retaliate but I do not think that in the long run tit for tat would work for our industry or our companies. We must work robustly but fairly and try to promote the free trade that we all seek. That is the best way forward. I reassure the noble Lord that the fact that we are very close to the US does not mean that we are not having the difficult discussions that we need to have.