I detect a reasonable sprinkle of the jitters in government as the world waits for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs announcement later.
It is the single most globally consequential day so far of the president’s second term.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK must “prepare for the worst” and there is every expectation in Whitehall that the president’s moment at around 21:00 UK time, in the Rose Garden of the White House, will be noisy, theatrical and provocative.
But there is also a hope that what we hear later can amount to a “ceiling”, as it was put to me, from which the USs can be negotiated down.
Talks are ongoing, at quite an intensity by all accounts, between London and Washington on a narrow trade deal, talked up enthusiastically by Donald Trump when the prime minister met him at the White House in February.
Those on the UK side feel they are making progress and that any agreement could not only ease the impact of tariffs but improve trading relations in particular sectors, such as technology.
Let’s see.
The big challenge is for how long is it sustainable politically to maintain a strategy that amounts to ‘We are not going to shout our mouths off about the president, instead we will be publicly civil and privately carry on talking’, once you’ve been whacked with tariffs anyway and before you land a trade deal?
I expect the government will respond pretty quickly after Wednesday’s announcement, but the language is likely to be measured and articulate that this is part of a process, far from the end of a process, and the conversation is continuing.
Can a deal then be done within days? Possibly. Again, let’s see.
There is a willingness for negotiators to jump on a plane if necessary to get something over the line.
The challenge then tilts to what is in that deal – and crucially what concessions the government is willing to make.
Could there be a cut to the Digital Services Tax, which would mean US tech giants like Amazon and Meta paying less tax in the UK?
The 2% levy was introduced in 2020 and raises around £800m a year.
Merely the prospect of a cut to this tax has been seized upon by the government’s critics – the Liberal Democrats branding it an “insult to people with disabilities and carers”, given the cuts to benefits announced in the last fortnight.
And it could become an even harder sell domestically for ministers if the EU and others react in a far more punchy way by retaliating with tax hikes, their own tariffs, rather than tax cuts.
Remember that old Brexit slogan “Take Back Control”?
Well, this is what control looks like: it gives the government options, trade-offs and accountability for what it chooses to do or not to do.
And all this as it seeks to reset its relationship with the EU. Awkward.
A final thought, which amounts to the key thing never to forget with Donald Trump back in the Oval Office.
Unpredictability.
When I asked a senior figure in government if they had a reasonable sense of how things were going to play out, or were waiting like the rest of us for what the president says in public, I was told “more of the latter”.
British understatement, as we await quite the statement from America later.
