Sorry Brexiteers, the Trump bonus was a joke

There was a very short period of time this month, when the Brexiteers thought that, at last, they had found a Brexit benefit that they could crow about. My word they were happy.

It was the fleeting moment when president Trump put 10% tariffs on the UK and 20% tariffs on the EU. During that week, the Brexit mob argued triumphantly that our being out of the EU meant we faced a lower tariff than would have been the case and that this vindicated our decision to leave the bloc once and for all.

But shortly after this, Trump changed his mind and decided to put 10% tariffs on everybody. Joy turned to desolation, as yet another supposed Brexit benefit vanished before their eyes.

The percentage differential was just an attempt by Trump to drive the UK and the EU further apart – but my, how the Brexiters enjoyed themselves. The usual suspects were all over the media, calling for Brexit to be “implemented properly”, for us to do a “deal” with Trump and harden our hearts to the EU.

Michael Gove is editor of the Spectator, and so its headline “Trump’s tariffs are a real Brexit win”, was to be expected. I wonder what this week’s headline will be? Jeremy Hunt (a remain supporter) told the Daily Mail that “Britain should use Brexit freedoms to CUT tariffs and become ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ amid Donald Trump’s trade war”. Seven days later, that line of reasoning looks little more than delusional.

All of this was rather pathetic. I know that Farage thinks he is Trump’s bestie, but even he must admit that a trade deal with Trump is not worth the paper it is printed on. Trump is after all the president who attacked Nafta, a deal he had previously called the best in history, and forced Mexico and Canada to renegotiate it. Then when he got re-elected, he then tore up that new deal, imposed huge tariffs on both countries and threatened to invade Canada.

This eager expectation that we can do a deal with the least trustworthy politician in American history is disturbingly naive: do the Brexit loons think plucky little Britain can trust him, but not the EU?

Meanwhile all those crowing Brexit fans seem to have forgotten that even 10% tariffs will halve British growth this year, but that Brexit has cost us – and is costing us – 10 times more than that in terms of the loss of economic activity. Just regaining some of the access to the EU’s market that we lost because of Brexit would more than make up for Trump’s tariffs.

Then, of course, there is the ongoing international trade war, which is terrible news for everyone, irrespective of how big or small your tariffs are.

No economy is an island. The consequences of a Sino/American trade war will be dire and will permanently damage US power. Tying yourself to America just when its own president has undermined its economic hegemony, and when your trade with America is just not that large, isn’t a Brexit Benefit or any other kind of benefit; it is just terrible timing.

All of this reminds me of the reaction to Liz Truss’s disastrous budget. “This was the best budget I have ever heard a chancellor deliver, by a massive margin,” crowed the Telegraph, only for the markets to crash and the PM to be outlasted by a lettuce.

Trump didn’t even last a week, as the bond markets threatened to implode. Just like Truss, his economic policies turned out to be the perfect embodiment of the nationalistic, post-Brexit era: an untenable disaster, applauded by people with no idea what they’re talking about.