What does Trump’s tariff blockage mean for the UK?

0:03Hi, I'm Rachel Abbott and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up in today's show, our review of Kylie Minogue at London's O2 with The Standard's Vicky Jessup. She delivers pure Kylie energy, basically, I think. You know, people go to a Kylie gig wanting to feel appreciated and loved. Like, she had a very long relationship with her fans because her career has been so long. But first, President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs have been blocked by a US federal court plunging his trade reset into turmoil.

0:48The Court of International Trade found the president overstepped his authority by imposing across-the-board duties on imports from US trading partners. Moments after the ruling, the Trump administration appealed, saying it is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. The US is currently negotiating individual trade deals with dozens of countries, but those talks have now been thrown into chaos. Joining us now is Aishok Kumar, an American Associate Professor of Political Economy at Birkbeck University. Aishok, can you remind us what Trump was trying to do with tariffs and what today's ruling says?

1:35So Trump has moved and vacillated quite wildly over tariffs. The purpose that Trump was trying to do originally was to primarily target Mexico, Canada, China, and use tariffs as a kind of way to shift the trade deficit the US has with many different countries. They've settled on sort of 10 % across the board with quite high tariffs on China. And then that moved down to now 30%, so 10 % of the existing 20%. And the court, this is a US federal court on international trade, ruled that Trump didn't have the authority to do that using his emergency powers. And it sort of ruled that this tariffs didn't constitute an emergency.

2:23And so therefore, it had to go through Congress. Aishok, how significant is this ruling? There are ways to get around it. Firstly, you know, there is a kind of a 1974 law that authorizes the president to establish 15 % tariffs for 150 days in cases of large and serious trade deficits. Of course, to Trump, that would give away his bargaining power if, you know, countries could simply wait 150 days. And some of the law that was instituted around steel and aluminum were passed through the presidential authorities that were authorized in the 1960s law that Congress passed. So the current ruling wouldn't apply to that.

3:07He could still impose those tariffs. The Trump administration has already appealed the case. So now it would go to the Washington Court of Appeals. It's the federal court of appeals. Stages after that would ultimately include, I would assume, the Supreme Court. And so it's not a done deal, but it's definitely a blow because the two planks of Trump's administrative policy or policies in terms of his term were around trade, specifically tariffs and around migration. So that would be deportations and a border wall. So what does the tariff decision mean for the UK? Unfortunately, the UK, days after Liberation Day, as Trump called it, the imposition of the tariffs, were the first to sign a trade agreement with the US.

3:57Much of it was around steel, aluminum in the auto sector, which wouldn't be affected by this court ruling. But it still means that that trade deal was done under potentially a different regime. Many countries that are now negotiating with the US are holding off on any agreement because of the volatility of the situation. Britain probably shouldn't have jumped at the opportunity when things were still in the air to sign an agreement because now they signed it with the assumption that they would be under a different tariff regime if they didn't sign it. So we don't know how this happened just, you know, less than a day ago.

4:36So we don't know how this would affect the US-UK deal, but it certainly doesn't advantage Britain to have done that. We can say that with some certainty. And how has the ruling impacted markets around the world? The Asian financial markets obviously are rallying. Other markets are positive, but I think that we have to draw a distinction between investor confidence and markets. People might see this as a way that it's turning around. Free markets generally usually end up rallying the markets because it means that you'll have a free flow of capital and potentiality of investment. But it doesn't take into account the volatility of the situation.

5:16So that doesn't necessarily mean greater investment. It's just speculative. So the markets have rallied, but that's because tariffs in general are seen as constricting to investor confidence. Finally, what could Trump do next? Yeah, there's a few different tactics they might deploy. I mean, we know that ultimately it'll probably be the Supreme Court that decides this. The Supreme Court is more right-leaning, definitely, right now, the current Supreme Court. But this is the contradiction. There are some that are very partisan, so they will vote likely with Trump. I'm thinking of people like Clarence Thomas.

5:52But then there's other Supreme Court justices that are much more ideologically free marketers. Typically, that has been what the Republicans have supported. So they may end up opposing it, and they may end up supporting the court ruling of the federal court. So it's really, I would say, up in the air, even though it's ideologically right wing, tariffs aren't typically ideologically right wing, you know, free marketers oppose tariffs. So I think it's hard to say. I think a lot of observers are saying the Supreme Court will support it. I'm not so sure because, you know, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you know, vociferously opposes the tariffs.

6:29Various business interests oppose the tariffs. So I think the jury's out on that. let's go to a break coming up in part two we join the standards culture writer and commissioning editor vicky jessup did kylie minogue deliver pop perfection at her tension tour at london's o2 arena we'll see you back here in just a moment

7:08welcome back fans are raving after kylie minogue delivered pop perfection at her tension tour at london's o2 arena the 57 year old pulled out all the stops singing classic pop anthems from a career spanning decades the star is the highest selling australian female artist of all time but has only now begun to make a name for herself in the us following the success of her viral 2023 hit Padam Padam. Culture writer and commissioning editor Vicky Jessup was lucky enough to be in the crowd on the opening night and joins us now. Vicky, you gave Kylie's show a five-star review. What did she deliver for fans?

7:51You know, her first hit, I think, was the Locomotion, which came out all the way back in 1987. So her accolades include, you know, she's won two Grammys, she's won four Brit Awards, she's massively successful. And this is kind of a celebration of that, fans basically got the works. It was a 30 song tour through her entire back catalogue. It lasted two and a bit hours. Yeah, it was kind of Kylie the Era's tour. I mean, I was in the crowd on the first night and the fans were absolutely loving it. And what songs featured in the show? Yeah, so there was stuff from all over her back catalogue. I guess, you know, this being a selection of songs from across her career, there were newer tracks that maybe people don't know so well certainly my mum maybe did not like lights camera action get out of my way the title track from tension because um this is the tension tour you know it's related to her newest album but i think she knew that people were there for the older stuff so pretty much immediately we had spinning around on a night like this better the devil you know i think she's made it a feature of her tour like with taylor swift to kind of include two audience request songs so So we were lucky enough to get a kind of acoustic, I should be so lucky, which is really lovely.

9:02And of course, like all of the biggest hits. So the locomotion, which she performed kind of wearing a sparkly red jumpsuit, like literally ripped straight from the set of Home and Away, like the ultimate 80s jumpsuit. We had Slow, we had Confide in Me, that she sang kind of like decked out all in black. And it was like a black and white video on the screen behind her. Essentially, like she was performing some kind of like Bond theme song. And then she closed out with All the Lovers and then the encore, Padam Padam, of course, Comeback Hit and Love at First Sight. So, yes, it was pretty extensive.

9:36I think by the end, it kind of felt like it'd been power hosed in the face by pop music. Were there any special guest appearances? So on the night that I was there, there were not. I think the focus is very much on Kylie herself. I don't think that's for want of, you know, trying to get people to come up on stage with her because she's obviously so successful. She's pretty much collaborated with everyone in the industry. She did this lovely duet with Nick Cave called Where the Wild Roses Grow. She's collaborated with the Blessed Madonna. So yeah, I think this is very much like a celebration of all things Kylie.

10:04What were the highlights? I think there was a lovely sequence to a crew out fan service where she sang the locomotion and kind of locomotioned through the crowd, which I wasn't expecting. So that was rather lovely. And obviously the crowd loved that. So she was kind of surrounded on all sides by fans. and then she handed out some roses to the crowd. Obviously, that was like setting up her song, Where the Wild Roses Grow. She gave one rose to a fan and then serenaded her and the fan looked like she was about to like cry, losing her mind. And then Kylie invited this fan on stage, like hug it out with her basically.

10:38I think everyone was cheering. It was great. And I think also probably Pudam Pudam because she left it right to the end and because this is one of her songs and this is like a greatest hits tour, I wasn't sure if it was going to make it into the set. But then when she came back on the encore and performed it, it was very much like, you can see the younger people in the audience loving it and maybe the older mums being a bit like, what is this? I think the highlights probably was just any of the classics, really. They're just such euphoric songs and they've been around, you know, there's a reason they're so beloved and they've still been played in clubs now.

11:05It's just that excellent pop hits and getting to see them performed by the person who actually wrote the songs, sung the songs, became famous off the back of the songs was really quite gorgeous. and I think the nice thing about Kylie is that she's very she like embraces the naffness and the campness like she knows it's quite like it's quite cheesy the music is cheesy and it was all performed kind of like tongue-in-cheek wink wink confetti cannons at full blast the backing dancers was in kind of at one point they were dressed up as like giant inflatable people so they were wearing these big inflatable suits in primary colors and kind of dancing around in the background so yeah it was just like a really lovely kind of like wholesome gig and I think it kind of underlines why she's so loved.

11:46She spotted someone in the crowd who was waving a sign and she's like, oh my gosh, that's your 40th gig since 1991. That's crazy. And it's just coming up quite nice. Like it shows a lot of love both ways. You know, obviously the fans love her enough to have been going to her shows for 30 years. But also she's like giving the love back. She had this lovely sequence where she was obviously taking audience requests. And like at one point she got someone's original LP, like the vinyl of one of her first albums and was like holding it up on stage. So yeah, it's like a lovely two-way rapport between her and her fans, which I think shows, again, why she's such an icon, I suppose.

12:27And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head on over to standard.co.uk. If you'd like to get in touch with us, please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow at 4pm. See you then. Thank you.