{"id":23617,"date":"2026-04-27T23:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/23617\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T23:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:26:27","slug":"uk-government-pushed-by-industry-to-deploy-trade-bazooka-against-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/23617\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Government Pushed by Industry to Deploy \u2018Trade Bazooka\u2019 Against US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United Kingdom<\/a> may be taking cues from the European Union and gearing up to deploy a \u201ctrade<\/a> bazooka\u201d in retaliation against renewed tariff threats from the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is urging the government and Prime Minister Keir Starmer to consider the tactic\u2014which would involve introducing a slew of measures aimed at blocking U.S. trade and investment\u2014as a means of ensuring British competitiveness in the face of persistent geopolitical shocks.<\/p>\n

More from WWD<\/p>\n

Those include persistent browbeating from its biggest trading partner.<\/p>\n

According to the BCC, U.K. businesses have also been pummeled and \u201cpermanently bruised\u201d by the pandemic, Brexit and the wars in Ukraine and Iran<\/a> (which have invited lasting supply chain chaos). In a newly released report, the group calls for urgent action to help secure critical manufacturing inputs and protect the economy from the maelstrom of external pressures.<\/p>\n

The strategy includes taking a \u201crobust\u201d approach to the EU\u2019s Made in Europe agenda to ensure that U.K. businesses are a part of wider European supply chains and involving more British businesses in the defense sector as a matter of both national and economic security. Perhaps most importantly, though, the BCC recommends that the government \u201cadd a \u2018trade bazooka\u2019 to its arsenal of responses to threats of economic coercion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislative weapon would give ministers the power to pull a number of levers, from implementing new duties to restraining market access, upping scrutiny on American investment and instituting subsidy controls in response to threats from the U.S.<\/p>\n

The EU first devised the so-called bazooka, more formally known as an Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), in 2023 as a means of protecting its own member states from breaches of international trade commitments. European nations discussed using the tool to combat Trump\u2019s tariff threats against EU members that stood against the U.S. taking control of Greenland earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The BCC said it\u2019s crucial that the government take action to protect the U.K.\u2019s standing in the regional economy. As it stands, over 75 percent of the country\u2019s manufacturing exports are made with imports from other countries, putting many sectors in danger of disruption. Imports and exports make up more than 60 percent of the U.K.\u2019s GDP, which means that access is everything.<\/p>\n

The BCC said it\u2019s calling for the formation of an Economic Security Cabinet Committee that would be chaired by Starmer and tasked with coordinating policies across the government on issues like tariffs<\/a> and critical imports.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past decade, British businesses have weathered\u00a0some of\u00a0the toughest economic shocks\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0faced\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0past 100 years. Through sheer resilience and ingenuity, they have kept trading in an increasingly\u00a0unpredictable\u00a0global environment,\u201d BCC director general Shevaun Haviland said. \u201cBut\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0clear that\u00a0this is not enough.\u00a0The U.K.\u2019s\u00a0inadequate\u00a0economic security has become a\u00a0drag on\u00a0growth,\u00a0competitiveness\u00a0and national strength;\u00a0yet\u00a0it\u00a0is\u00a0still\u00a0not given\u00a0the focus and urgency it demands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now live in a world\u00a0where trade\u00a0interests may\u00a0be\u00a0weaponized, and\u00a0where\u00a0failing to secure\u00a0key\u00a0raw materials\u00a0means\u00a0failing to grow,\u201d Haviland added.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s release comes on the heels of Trump\u2019s comments last Thursday to a group of reporters at the Oval Office related to the U.K.\u2019s digital services tax\u2014a point of particular contention in the U.S.-U.K. trade relationship.<\/p>\n

The American Commander in Chief said he\u2019d hit Britain with a \u201cbig tariff\u201d\u2014how big, no one knows\u2014if it declined to roll back the 2 percent tech tax, which applies to the U.K. revenue generated by American firms like Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Apple.<\/p>\n

Best of WWD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom may be taking cues from the European Union and gearing up to deploy a \u201ctrade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[2195,1258,1469,94,10606,10607,5,6],"class_list":["post-23617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-arsenal","tag-british-chambers-of-commerce","tag-european-union","tag-keir-starmer","tag-tariff-threats","tag-trading-partner","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116479261567675082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}