If the UK sides with President Trump’s trade plan, there will be “consequential challenges”, Jack Chambers has warned.
EU finance ministers met in Brussels on Monday. For the first time since Brexit, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer took part in some of the meeting.
Finance ministers are waiting to see what Donald Trump does when he becomes US president in January. On the campaign tail, he promised that he would impose trade tariffs on countries around the world including the UK and the European Union.
He has also branded the EU a “mini China“, a comment understood to be a criticism of European trade.
EU ministers today hinted that they would like the UK to take a ‘common approach’ to the European Union if Trump follows through with his threat. It is understood the European Commission is preparing possible retaliatory tariffs against the US.
Speaking in Brussels, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she wanted to build a closer relations with the EU. But she has previously also talked about tightening British ties with the US.
So what happens if the UK is forced to make a choice, and chooses to back Trump instead of the EU over trade tariffs?
“The British economy in between any particular interface of trade between the EU and the US will obviously have, could have, consequential challenges”, warned Ireland’s Finance Minister, Jack Chambers.
The UK wants to avoid making that choice and is pitching itself as an ‘open economy’.
“Obviously we have to wait to see…what the exact policy will be from president-elect Trump when he enters office”, Jack Chambers said.
Rachel Reeves was in Brussels as part of the Labour government’s “Brexit reset”.
EU ministers wonder what exactly that reset might entail.
But speaking after the meeting on the podium alongside Rachel Reeves, Paschal Donohoe, in his capacity as President of the Eurogroup, said it was too soon to get into details about possible new Brexit negotiations.
“Today was not a negotaition, that negotiation will follow”, he said.
“I did not come here today to start a negotiation or to lay down a set of demands”, said Rachel Reeves. “Those conversations about the reset and those negotiations will begin in the new year”.