THE BIG STORIES
Trump calls an end to the era of globalisation

📣 The speech was rambling, with a tone that alternated between jocular and bellicose. But the impact was clear, and far worse than expected.

President Donald Trump, clutching a market trader’s board of nations and their tariffs, called an end to the era of globalisation with a set of tariffs which are widely expected to reduce trade, push up inflation in the US, and bring a global slowdown, even recession.

Reaction is summarised later in the email. First, the early lines:

• A universal tariff of 10% on all countries’ exports to the US takes effect from Saturday 5 April. This is the UK’s rate.

• Nations with larger surpluses see higher - sometimes far higher - charges from Wednesday 9 April. The European Union faces 20%, India 26%, Vietnam 46%. Imports from China will, in effect, face tariffs of at least 54%, as the new charges stack on top of older ones. All those countries make vast amounts for the US market.

• Car imports will be subject to 25% rates - not country rates - so that’s bad news for UK vehicle exporters, but (a little) better for EU-based exporters.

See coverage from the BBC, AP, The Guardian, Reuters.

The immediate impact:

• Global stock markets fell heavily. Gold - a safe haven in times of economic trouble - hit a record high. Expectations are that European and US markets will fall heavily when they open later. High-tech manufacturers including Apple, particularly reliant on the Asian nations targeted by high tariffs, were hardest hit. (AFP/Yahoo)

• Industry bodies have warned the tariffs will have “devastating” impact on UK firms already struggling with sluggish growth. (Independent)

• America is the Scotch whisky industry’s biggest export market. Yesterday’s announcements are “a huge blow” to the industry, says one distiller. (BBC)

• The Telegraph rounds up the UK industries hit hardest by tariffs, from whisky to luxury cars. (Telegraph gift link 🎁)

IDEAS
The world takes aim at Trump’s tariffs

🗣️Edward Luce, writing in the Financial Times, agrees the instant effect of Trump’s “liberation day” will be confusion and uncertainty.

He also forsees heavy lobbying: “Washington’s grift potential has shot up. Nations and firms that offer concessions and favours in exchange for lower rates or waivers will be rewarded. Those that respond in kind to Trump will be punished.”

Trump should face electoral consequences for driving up inflation and lowering growth, says Luce, but midterm elections are still 20 months away and voters may be swayed by economic disinformation.

But some damage will be lasting. “The diplomatic cost will be enduring. Countries will look to do the serious deals with each other and bypass America. In that sense Trump’s transactionalism is self-defeating. Falling trust means fewer deals.” (FT)

🗣️ The Wall Street Journal is scathing about Trump’s tariffs. “They are another large step toward a new old era of trade protectionism,” the newspaper’s editorial board writes in a leader. “Assuming the policy sticks - and we hope it doesn’t - the effort amounts to an attempt to remake the U.S. economy and the world trading system.”

It notes a number of “consequences the President is not advertising” including “slower growth, recession, or worse.” It predicts “a bigger Washington swamp” as lobbying booms thanks to companies and countries seeking “exemptions from this or that border tax”. And it forsees damage to US exports, the end of “US economic leadership”, and a big opportunity for China. (WSJ gift link🎁)

🗣️Trump has taken America’s trade policies “back to the 19th century”, says The Economist. “Few expected him to go quite so far,” it says. “For Mr Trump the measures represent an attempt to bring a long era of increasingly free global trade to a definitive end. Such openness has, he argued, allowed other countries to ‘rip off’ America.

“Conveniently ignored by him are the twin facts that globalisation has delivered unprecedented prosperity to America and that the country has been the main architect of the rules underpinning international trade. Now, if Mr Trump gets his way, the economic order that was slowly and steadily built up in the aftermath of the second world war is dead and buried.” (The Economist)

🗣️Donald Trump’s hubris “couldn't be more extreme,” says Jens Münchrath in Handesblatt, the German-language economic title. “If you strip away the US president's self-satisfied rhetoric, what remains is essentially deconstruction and devastation. Trump is willfully destroying the last vestiges of a rules-based trade order,” he writes.

“Rules of international law? Irrelevant. Free trade agreements? Not even worth the paper they're written on. The reliability of the West's former leading power? Passé.

“The trade war of the self-proclaimed ‘Tariff Man,’ which has reached a new dimension with Wednesday's announcements, is, above all, one thing for the USA: self-destructive”. (Handelsblatt €)

🗣️A rare glimpse of silver lining is found by Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph. “We have not seen much in the way of deregulation. Nor have we signed many blockbuster trade deals. And yet for anyone who is still wondering what the benefits were of Brexit, we now have a decisive answer,” he writes. “It has allowed the UK to escape the worst of Donald Trump’s tariff wars — and in the medium term that could pay extraordinary dividends. (Telegraph gift link 🎁)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Patrick Harvie called time on his co-leadership of the Scottish Greens after an extraordinary tenure as co-leader of the Scottish Greens, standing down this summer after a scheduled leadership vote. Party colleague Ross Greer, expected to run for Harvie’s job this summer, said he had been “one of the most conseqential figures of the devolution era”. (BBC)

• Kirsteen Paterson says that “in responding to his decision, the Greens must answer questions about the party’s direction.” Less indy, more left wing? (Holyrood)

• David Bol suggests Harvie stepping down leaves the Greens short of experience ahead of the election. (The Scotsman)

📣 Christina McKelvie’s partner, Keith Brown, paid moving tribute to the late MSP at Holyrood. “I just don’t know what a planet does when its star has been extinguished,” he told colleagues. (The Herald)

📣 An initiative to allow US accountants to work in the UK, and vice versa, has stalled after being pioneered by professional bodies in Scotland and the US. Accounting profession leaders couldn’t reach agreement on issues including how to judge the quality of American audit training. (FT £) (Scottish Financial News)

📣 The University of Dundee has put its former principal’s home and an adjoining cottage on the market for offers over £825,000. It’s a huge property in a prime location, but it’ll need some work. The move comes as part of the University’s attempts to reduce a £35m deficit. (Rightmove) (BBC)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 A man has been charged with 64 offences after an investigation into a funeral director in Hull, in which police removed 35 bodies and a quantity of ashes. (BBC)

📣 More evidence has emerged to suggest a shingles vaccine reduces the risk of developing dementia. Older people who received a shingles vaccine called Zostavax were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the next seven years than those who went without. (Guardian)

• The new report comes only a day after reports that lowering LDL cholestoral also reduces dementia risks, with statins offering further protection. (Guardian)

📣 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been hit by scandal after police arrested two of his close associates on suspicion of accepting money from Qatar to promote a positive image of the Gulf Arab state in Israel. Many Israelis view Qatar as a patron of Hamas. (AP)

📣 The BBC has visited Mandalay, devastated by last Friday’s earthquake, undercover. It found terrible scenes of destruction, and little help for survivors. (BBC)

SPORT

⚽️ Liverpool took a big step towards the English Premier League title last night, with a 1-0 win against Everton. (Guardian)

⚽️ The intrigue around Scottish football league reconstruction may not last long: at least one top-flight club is already minded to vote against a reduced, 10-club top tier. The proposals would fail if any other top-flight club said no. (The Sun)

⚽️ Kevin McKenna offers a powerful indictment of Celtic’s handling of the child abuse scandal at its Boys Club. “No amount of league titles or cups, not even its wider reputation, is worth a single hair on the head of an innocent young lad being harmed. It should make us weep,” he writes. (The Herald)