The US president has not just slagged off Canada’s Justin Trudeau and France’s Emmanuel Macron. He has even slapped tariffs on a sycophant, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
Donald Trump today described Trudeau as “two-faced” after the Canadian prime minister joked about his lengthy media appearances at the Nato summit. That’s after yesterday lambasting Macron for making a “very, very nasty statement” because the French president had said Nato was “brain dead”, criticising America’s waning commitment to the Alliance.
One might say that this is nothing for the UK to worry about. After all, Boris Johnson is the US president’s friend. So long as he sucks up to him, he’ll be all right.
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But this misses the point that Trump is happy to bully his erstwhile friends. In October he imposed steel tariffs on his previous buddy, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan – despite Turkey being a Nato ally. Only this week Trump has done the same to Brazil’s president, who shares many of his right-wing views.
Trump will throw his might around – with friend or foe – if he can get away with it. The only way to stop him is to stand up to him.
As part of the EU, we have the strength to stand up to bullies all around the world. If Johnson gets his way and drags us out of the 28-nation bloc, we won’t.
Trump says he will do a beautiful trade deal with us. But it will be beautiful for him, and ugly for us. If Johnson doesn’t agree to push up the prices the NHS pays for US-made drugs and open up our market to chlorine-washed chicken, he probably won’t get a deal at all.
And what about our Prime Minister’s pledge to tax internet giants like Facebook and Google? The US president has already threatened to put 100% tariffs on French champagne, handbags and cheese, after Macron imposed a similar tax. Do we really think that, if we go solo, Johnson will be able to stand up to the bullying?
What’s more, outside the EU we’ll be in a weak position even if Trump is booted out in next year’s presidential elections. The US economy is seven times bigger than ours. The US is a formidable trade negotiator and will throw around its weight whoever is in charge.
