{"id":5834,"date":"2025-04-09T14:34:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T14:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/5834\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T14:34:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T14:34:24","slug":"screwed-economic-expert-warns-of-impact-of-trumps-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/5834\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Screwed’: Economic Expert Warns Of Impact Of Trumps Tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s <\/a>global tariffs<\/a> have \u201cscrewed\u201d the international markets, according to the head of an economic think tank.<\/p>\n

The US president unveiled sweeping levies<\/a> on all foreign goods going into the States last week, on top of a global 25% tax on cars and steel products.<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the UK received one of the lower tariffs, with just a 10% tax on all exports to the States, the stock market is still reeling.<\/p>\n

The FTSE index of the top 100 companies in the UK<\/a> plummeted to a one-year low in value when the stock markets opened on Monday.<\/p>\n

On Times Radio,<\/a> the chief economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS<\/a>) Paul Johnson<\/a> was asked if any potential trade deals with the US and reduced tariffs could settle the markets \u2013 or if they are now too spooked by his unpredictability they are unlikely to calm down.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI rather fear we\u2019re screwed either way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in an unprecedented position in that one person with extraordinary power and as far as one can tell a wholly irrational attitude to economic policy is doing a series of unpredictable things.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Johnson admitted that the impact could be mitigated if the tariffs do look like a prelude to a set of deals.<\/p>\n

However, the president has already suggested he does not want to back down with his tariffs, saying: \u201cSometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief economist also warned that a recession<\/a> could be on the way.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cUsually when stock markets fall like this […] that is usually caused by or presages a recession.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes many people \u201ca lot worse off\u201d, he said, meaning consumers spend less, and it\u2019s an indication that company profits have fallen \u2013 which could lead to lay-offs and redundancies.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless something happens, we\u2019re certainly in for a period of much lower growth than we were expecting and quite possibly a recession, as a result of the actions of one man,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the worrying things here is that it is not obvious what there is in the US Constitution which can hold him back him or stop him, or move him in a different direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to fears \u2013 as expressed by Treasury minister Darren Jones \u2013<\/a> that the era of globalisation era is now over<\/a>, Johnson said it was too soon to say for sure.<\/p>\n

He explained Trump\u2019s tariffs are having such a huge impact \u201cbecause globalisation is so important\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies are dependent on supply chains that stretch all over the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

IFS chief added that if the tariffs stay in place, then countries will move towards being more individually self-sufficient \u2013 meaning the price of goods will go up.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThat is a very very bad thing, because that is another way of saying things will be produced in places that are much more expensive, much less efficient to produce them in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to say it\u2019s the end of globalisation, but I think the impact of the tariffs is an indication to the extent by which globalisation has created the wealth which we all depend on at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s global tariffs have \u201cscrewed\u201d the international markets, according to the head of an economic think tank.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,32,3095,479,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-5834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-ifs","11":"tag-tariffs","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114308504869609889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}