CGTN Europe spoke to Chris Southworth, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce, United Kingdom
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00Well let's talk now to Chris Southworth who's the Secretary General of the
00:02International Chamber of Commerce in the UK.
00:05Good to see Chris, welcome to the program. We have of course
00:08known this threat of tariffs looming for some time.
00:11We have the detail now, what's your reaction?
00:15Well you know this is a watershed moment for the US in terms of their trade
00:18policy. This is the largest sweeping set of tariffs that we've
00:24seen since the 1930s. But we have to remember that the US
00:29is a big superpower economy but in the world of trade it's only 13%
00:34of the global economy. So this does not need to be a systemic
00:38crisis. That depends now on the reaction of
00:42governments to the tariffs announced yesterday by the US.
00:48And what we're calling for now is a de-escalation,
00:52not an overreaction. I think the Prime Minister here in the UK is absolutely
00:55spot on. We need to be cool and calm and
00:57collected in the way we respond, whatever that is. But you know what's
01:02also striking in all of this is the poorest countries have been
01:08hit the hardest by some distance. I was looking at some
01:10of the tariff rates.
01:14Lesotho is a 2 billion economy. The US is saying that
01:20the likes of Lesotho are a threat. The US is a 29 trillion economy
01:26and they've got a 50% tariff. It's extraordinary.
01:30But there's lots of others. Madagascar has got a 47%
01:33tariff. Botswana 37%. These are countries
01:38who are some of the poorest in the world.
01:41This will absolutely hamper their ability to develop their economies.
01:47Lesotho is the second highest HIV rate in the world. So they've already
01:51been hit by USAID cuts. They've been thumped
01:54a second time. So it just feels incredibly punitive
01:59to lots of economies. Sorry Chris, you've picked out
02:02some of the losers there, if you like, from this new tariff regime.
02:06Are there any winners here? Nobody wins in a tariff war. I mean the UK has gone
02:11off reasonably lightly in comparison to
02:13everybody else, but we lose too. The Spring Statement was
02:17effectively a sort of rebalancing of the books but
02:20left us with a £9 billion headroom. But £300 billion of our trade is
02:25with the US. That's 30% of our total trade,
02:28which is 60% of our economy. So we will be impacted by this.
02:33What we're now saying to government is we need a more
02:36resilient plan. £9 billion is simply not enough.
02:40It's now the time to really reform the economy,
02:43really drive growth, particularly in trade, which is screaming for
02:48transformation and modernisation and digitalisation.
02:51And that way we can build more growth into the economy, we can
02:55de-risk the economy and bring down some of the cost and risk for business
03:00in the face of tariffs. This is now much more urgent
03:04going into the summer so that we don't end up
03:08having to raise revenue through taxes in the autumn.
03:12If you though are sitting in the Oval Office, if you are President Trump,
03:16from his point of view, are these tariffs going to work?
03:20Well, if you look at the history of tariffs, they almost never work.
03:24I can't think of a single example when they have worked, going all the way back
03:27to the 1800s. So it's very, very hard to see what the
03:31US is trying to achieve. You know, there are economic
03:35imbalances in the global economy. He's right on that.
03:38But tariffs are not the right tool to solve the problem. What we're calling for
03:43is more multilateral dialogue, a proper grown-up conversation with the global
03:48community at the World Trade Organisation. That's the right forum for
03:51the conversation so that we can actually, you know, sort
03:54out what the new trading system or a reformed trading system should look
03:59like. But tariffs will just damage people's
04:02economies. This certainly won't go down well in
04:05terms of the US reputation internationally. If it's not already
04:08permanently damaged, it certainly will be damaged.
04:11And all the sort of ripple effects, which we'll see over the coming weeks
04:14and months, re-routing trade will hit the US
04:19economy for sure. All sorts of, you know, job threats in
04:23places like Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, you know, for them this is 80 percent
04:28of their export economy is now going to get hit with 37 percent
04:32tariffs. It's just enormous economic damage.
04:37So the big question now is how does the world respond?
04:40The other 87 percent of the trading economy and who steps forward to lead?
04:45I think the UK should do that. I think the UK has been doing a good job
04:48at showing leadership, being pragmatic, seeking deals, seeking dialogue,
04:53not over-retaliating. But what we really do need now in the global economy is
04:58leadership. So this does not escalate beyond
05:00where it needs to go. But overall it's extremely disappointing
05:03in terms of all of us being impacted. None of this helps us in
05:09the UK. It doesn't help anyone else anywhere else either.
05:12Chris, thank you very much indeed for coming on the programme. That's Chris
05:15Southworth, the Secretary General of the International
05:17Chamber of Commerce in the UK.