UK-US Trade Deal: Warwick and Leamington MP says it is essential to our local economy

Last week, the Prime Minister and President Trump while at the G7 summit in Canada signed the UK-US trade deal which will bring into force parts of the agreement agreed between the two countries last month.

The deal sought in part to address the massive impacts of the tariffs imposed by President Trump on all countries on a wide range of products.

The UK was therefore not immune to these tariffs and saw a blanket 10 per cent tariff and additional tariffs on the automotive (27.5 per cent) and steel industries.

Representatives of these industries made clear the impact these tariffs would have on businesses they represent.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) is the trade association for the British motor industry and has members including Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Aston Martin – both major local employers.

When the tariffs were announced by President Trump in early April, the SMMT said : “The announced imposition of a ten per cent tariff on all UK products exported to the US, whilst less than other major economies, is another deeply disappointing and potentially damaging measure.

"Our cars were already set to attract a punitive 25 per cent tariff overnight and other automotive products are now set to be impacted immediately.”

Mr Western said these tariffs, if left as announced, “would have been utterly devastating for our local economy.”

He added: “The anxiety that was felt by thousands of employees in our local automotive sector when these tariffs were announced was real.

"People feared they would lose their jobs, and felt the stability they had been able to rely upon ripped from under their feet.

"The impact of this locally would have been immense.

“These employees are in well paid, highly skilled jobs and contribute hugely to our local economy.

“Every day, a decent proportion of these employees will go shopping, grab a coffee in one of our brilliant independent coffee shops.

“Once a week, a few hundred may pick up lunch from one of our cafes or go out to dinner with family or friends in one of the many restaurants across our towns and villages.

"They may mention it to a few colleagues the next week at work.

"Those colleagues take friends and family a few weeks later. It goes on.

“The same people will spend their money in our newsagents, at our hairdressers, at our independent shops, will use local services provided by other local people.

“I’ve already heard from a number of people who work in the service industry that those few weeks when things felt so uncertain with our local car industry, they saw a serious drop in their income because employees of those car companies were tightening their belts, unsure of what the future may hold.

“What may seem like international politics and something that doesn’t touch us here in Warwickshire, does.

"It trickles down and if that impact had been allowed to hit us at full speed, without the buffer of this UK-US deal, we would have been in no doubt of the impact this would have had on us."