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Britain, Economic, European Union, Government, Politics, United States

Britain dismayed at US trade war

US TRADE TARIFFS

THE Prime Minister Theresa May has attacked Donald Trump’s “unjustified” trade tariffs amid fears that Britain’s automotive industry could be hit next.

Mrs May said she was “deeply disappointed” with the US President’s decision to impose higher import taxes on steel and aluminium from Britain and the EU.

The EU has signalled that it is prepared to hit back, making a complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and finalising a list of American products it will target with tariffs of its own.

There are fears, however, that this could spark a spiralling trade war, with Mr Trump responding to any retaliation by imposing additional import levies on cars from the UK and EU.

That possibility will concern the more than 169,000 employees in the UK motor vehicle industry, on top of existing fears for Britain’s 31,000 steel workers.

International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox suggested that the UK may not fully support the EU’s retaliatory measures, instead saying Britain only backs the complaint to the WTO.

He said it would “take some time” for EU member states to agree their collective response, and urged the bloc to pursue compromise with the White House in the interim – even though British diplomats have previously offered their support to measures drawn up in Brussels.

Dr Fox said it would be “very, very unfortunate if we get into this tit-for-tat position, especially with one of our closest allies.”

He added: “Nobody wins in a trade war, there are only casualties. We very much regret that these tariffs were put in place.

“We think it’s of dubious legality and we will be with the EU 100 per cent in taking this to a dispute at the WTO.”

The deepening row comes just before a G7 meeting of world leaders in Quebec this week, where European leaders will air their grievances to the US President. French president Emmanuel Macron has already told Mr Trump his new tariffs on EU goods was a “mistake” and “illegal”.

Mrs May’s language was more measured, but she said: “I am deeply disappointed at the unjustified decision by the United States to apply tariffs to EU steel and aluminium imports.

“The US, EU and UK are close allies and have always promoted values of open and fair trade across the world. Our steel and aluminium industries are highly important to the UK, but they also contribute to US industry, including defence projects which bolster US national security.

“The EU and UK should be permanently exempted from tariffs and we will continue to work together to protect and safeguard our workers and industries.”

Although it is said that the Prime Minister has additional concerns over US trade tariffs, it is believed she has not expressed these in public as she hopes to tie up a comprehensive post-Brexit trade deal with the White House and does not want to inflame the situation.

The EU, which handles trade matters on behalf of the UK, has been finalising its response to the US, with measures affecting thousands of US imports to the EU worth £2.5billion, including Levi’s jeans and Jack Daniel’s bourbon, hit with tariffs of up to 25 per cent.

Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU’s trade chief, admitted the bloc was “anxious” that Mr Trump would follow through on earlier threats to impose tariffs on European cars.

She said: “This would create enormous damage, not only to the European economy but also to the US.” The US levies of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium imports follow promises made by Mr Trump under his America First programme.

Earlier this year, he said: “If the EU wants to increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will apply a tax on their cars, which freely pour into the US.”

EU cars sold in the US face a levy of 2.5 per cent, compared to a 10 per cent tax on US vehicles brought into Europe.

How the US raised the stakes:

. Donald Trump announced in March that the EU and countries including Mexico, Canada and Brazil would be hit by increased steel and aluminium tariffs to protect US firms against imports from China, which has flooded the market with cut-price steel.

. The EU, which negotiates trade on behalf of Britain, was granted a temporary exemption while Theresa May and other leaders lobbied for a permanent reprieve.

. The UK is concerned about the effect of the measures on its resurgent £1.6billion steel industry, which employs some 31,000.

. Britain exported 350,000 tonnes of steel worth £376million to the US last year – 7 per cent of its output.

. If the EU hits back, as it has threatened to do, Britain fears that Mr Trump will retaliate by raising tariffs on cars, in a blow to the UK car industry, which employs around 169,000.

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Iran, Israel, Middle East, Russia, Syria, United States

On the brink of a cataclysmic Middle East war?

MIDDLE EAST

Israel Iran

The Middle East is on the brink of a major conflagration. The situation is complex but Russia’s Vladimir Putin could play a significant role in calming tensions. Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria has raised the stakes, precipitated some say by Donald Trump’s decision to reverse the 2015 nuclear agreement.

FOR much of 2018 so far, the world has been fixated by fears of nuclear Armageddon erupting in North Korea.

But over the last few days, alarming developments in the Middle East remind us of the even greater likelihood of conventional warfare on a cataclysmic scale in the region.

Now that its heavyweights – Israel and Iran – have traded blows for the very first time, we ignore that threat at our peril.

After 20 Iranian rockets were fired from Syria at military positions held by the Jewish state on the Golan Heights, Israel immediately responded by launching dozens of missiles at Iranian forces in Syria.

They hit a radar station, air defences and an ammunition dump – killing at least 23 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which is based in the UK.

Iran’s rockets – fired by the Quds Force, a wing of the Revolutionary Guards – either fell short of their targets or were knocked out by Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ defence system. Whilst not all out war, these events certainly take us to the brink.

In the Middle East, two major conflicts have been simmering side by side for years – the Arabs versus the Israelis, and the Shi’ite Muslims against the Sunni Muslims.

Last week’s events seem about to drag them into convergence and into a gigantic and highly unstable flash point.

Iran, which is not an Arab nation, is the chief Shi’ite power. Since the revolution of 1979 which overthrew the pro-Western, modernising Shah and imposed the harsh religious rule of the Ayatollahs, it has been spreading radicalism. The regime detests the West, with America its biggest adversary followed by Britain.

Iraq is dominated by Shi’ites, as indeed is Lebanon after Hezbollah, the paramilitary party aligned to Iran and which loathes Israel, won this month’s general election.

The Ayatollahs in Iran back the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Surrounded by hostile pro-Western nations, Iran needs all the allies it can find to help protect its regional interests. Support for Syria also allows it to station forces far to the West of its own borders – closer to the Mediterranean, in fact, than it has been since the days of the Persian empire 1,400 years ago.

Those forces, as we are now seeing, are within an easy striking distance of Israel. But that’s only half the story. Tensions are also at breaking point between Shi’ite Iran and Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni country. The two nations have been fighting a proxy war in Yemen, with the Iranian-backed forces enjoying most of the success.

However, it is Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states which control a majority of the region’s colossal oil resources. Now, many hardliners in Tehran are saying that, with Iran’s superior military power, it could seize those oilfields if they wanted.

And the ultra-hardliners in Tehran, who are even more numerous, welcome that plan because it would inevitably bring America and its allies (including Britain) into a war they know we wouldn’t have the stomach to fight. With such immense conventional forces arrayed on both sides, Iranian military planners believe the result would, in all probability, be a stalemate. While Iran would be prepared to take hundreds of thousands of casualties, they are betting that the Western allies would not.

That, bizarrely, would be seen in the Middle East as a win for Iran. If America cannot overcome its enemy, its enemy is victorious. No matter how much Europe would want to stay out of another Gulf war, it’s naïve to imagine for one moment that it could do so. For one thing, the Americans would expect the support of Britain and NATO. For another, we are heavily dependent on the Middle East’s oil.

And Britain is already deeply involved, for economic reasons as far as Saudi is concerned, and for moral reasons when it comes to its long-term ally, Israel.

Small wonder, then, that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson argued so vehemently against President Donald Trump’s decision last week to tear up the 2015 agreement which reduced economic sanctions on Iran in return for a freeze on nuclear development.

The idea of provoking more conflict and giving Tehran an excuse to restart its experiments with enriched uranium, seems wilfully reckless.

 

TRUMP, though, has a rationale for his action. He argues that his aggressive tactics over North Korea has forced dictator Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table, and kickstarted a process which might even bring about the reunification of the two Koreas.

Absurd as it may seem, suggestions that he is a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize should not be dismissed lightly.

When President Obama began talks with Iran to persuade them to abandon their nuclear programme, much was made of an ‘Axis of Evil’ – a loose alliance of Iran, North Korea and other rogue states, intent on global mayhem.

But what Trump has proved in his face-off with ‘Little Rocket Man’ Kim is that Obama’s evil axis is an illusion. North Korea isn’t interested in Iran. Dictators don’t do solidarity.

Trump hopes that by reimposing sanctions, he will force the Ayatollahs back to the table – and this time they will agree not only to cancel their nuclear weapons programme but also to cut back their conventional military forces and to withdraw from Syria.

That’s the goal, but the difficulties with the plan are twofold. Firstly, with America ending the trade deal, in economic terms Iran has nothing left to lose.

In theory, it can still deal with Europe (which continues to support the 2015 deal): In practice, it can’t buy any items that rely on US digital technology, such as the Airbus plane it dearly desires, and it can’t borrow from international banks that have dealings with America (which means all international banks).

Secondly, Iran is not a one-man dictatorship. Power is shared between religious, political and military leaders, all of whom are competing to prove they are more hardline than the next, all of them convinced America isn’t prepared for a ground war fought to the last man.

It’s true that the US does not want to commit ground troops. Israel, too, is anxious to avoid fighting with tanks and assault rifles against an enemy with long experience of guerrilla warfare.

That’s why the Israeli response to Iran’s failed missile attack was so swift and emphatic. ‘If it rains on us, it will storm on them,’ warned Israel’s defence minister Avigdor Lieberman. Iran is promising to respond, though this does not necessarily mean an all-out missile attack. Reprisals could take the form of terrorist attacks, whether in the Middle East or further afield.

Whatever happens, we are closer to open war between Iran and Israel, with the Saudis and US potentially being drawn in from the start, than we have ever been.

Is there are chink of hope? Curiously, there is, and it comes from an improbable source. Russia, which has been so belligerent over Ukraine and Syria, does not want to see Iran dominate the Middle East where it now has significant interests.

So, President Vladimir Putin may hold the balance of power here. It’s worth remembering that the monstrous Russian dictator Josef Stalin was the West’s vital ally in World War II. Significantly, the Israeli PM was in Moscow to mark the Russian victory over the Nazis last Wednesday.

Strange as it may seem, because he can talk to all sides, Putin could be the leader who can avert a Third World War.

Overview of events: how Iran and Israel traded blows for the first time

1.      20 rockets were fired from Syria at Israeli positions in the Golan Heights on May 10, 2018.

. Four rockets were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome aerial defence system, while 16 others fell short of their targets;

. No injuries or damage have been reported.

2.      Israeli fighter jets responded by striking 70 military targets belonging to Iran inside Syria, including:

. A logistics HQ belonging to the Quds (insignia right), the Iranian special forces; 

. A military compound in Kiswah, south of Damascus;

. A military compound north of Damascus; 

. Quds Force munition storage warehouses at Damascus International airport; 

. Intelligence systems and posts associated with the Quds Force;

. Observation and military posts and munitions in the Golan demilitarised zone;

. Syrian military air defence systems;

. 23 people were killed in the strikes, including five Syrian soldiers and 19 other allied fighters.

Appendage: 

Iran's presence in Syria

Mapping of Iran’s presence in Syria.

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European Union, Government, Iran, Middle East, Society, United Nations, United States

Trump condemned as US withdraws from Iran nuclear deal

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

Walking away: Donald Trump announcing that the US is withdrawing from the Iran deal.

DONALD TRUMP has faced global condemnation after the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement.

As the President inflamed tensions in the already volatile region, Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel said his decision had been met with “regret and concern”.

In a joint statement, the French, British and German leaders said “the world was a safer place” because of the deal and pledged to remain committed to it.

But Mr Trump said he was walking away from the 2015 pact in order to stop a “nuclear bomb” being acquired by the “world’s leading state sponsor of terror”.

Announcing “powerful” sanctions for Iran, he claimed failing to withdraw from the agreement would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

And he warned that, if Iran developed weapons, Tehran would have “bigger problems then it has ever had before.”

However, Iran’s president responded by saying that if negotiations failed over the nuclear deal, it would enrich uranium “more than before… in the next weeks”.

Mrs May, Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel – who each spoke to the President about the decision over the past few days – said they remained committed to the deal that was “important for our shared security”. They also urged Tehran “to show restraint in response” to the US decision.

In a much anticipated response from the White House, Mr Trump said: “If I allowed this deal to stand there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs.

“We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotting structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core.

“In just a short period of time the world’s leading state sponsor of terror would be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

Under the agreement, Iran had agreed to limit nuclear activities in return for easing economic sanctions. Tehran claimed at the time it had pursued only nuclear energy rather than weapons.

But Mr Trump said that, since the deal, “Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen” and the pact “didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will”.

The President, who had committed to scrapping the deal during his election campaign, pointed out that Iran had boosted its military expenditure, supported terrorism and “caused havoc” throughout the Middle East and beyond.

He said that he had spoken to France, Germany, Britain and friends across the Middle East who were “unified” in their conviction that Iran must never deliver nuclear weapons. He added: “America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail.

“The US no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises I keep them.”

However, the President said he would be open to a new deal in future. Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, who signed the deal, said the “misguided” decision could even lead the US into war.

He said: “At a time when we are all rooting for diplomacy with North Korea to succeed, walking away… risks losing a deal that accomplished – with Iran – the very outcome that we are pursuing with the North Koreans.

“We all know the dangers of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“It could embolden an already dangerous regime; threaten our friends with destruction; pose unacceptable dangers to America’s own security; and trigger an arms race in the world’s most dangerous region.”

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said there was a “short time” to negotiate with the countries remaining in the nuclear deal.

He told Iranian state media: “I have ordered Iran’s atomic organisation that wherever it is needed, we will start enriching uranium more than before.” The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was deeply concerned by the US decision, while the EU’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said Brussels was “determined” to preserve the deal.

Tensions were already heightened after Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu announced that his nations spies had stolen thousands of files on Iran’s nuclear programme. He also said Israel would rather face a confrontation with Iran “now than later”.

 

THE 2015 nuclear deal was signed by Iran, the US, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany.

The agreement lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to its nuclear energy programme, which many feared would be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to slash enrichment levels of uranium to prevent it reaching “weapons grade” and by redesigning a heavy-water nuclear facility it had been building so it would no longer be capable of producing plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb.

Tehran also agreed not to engage in activities, including research and development, that it would need to develop a weapon.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was granted greater access and information to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme. It also had powers to investigate suspicious sites.

In return, the lifting of sanctions meant Iran gained access to more than $100billion in assets frozen overseas. It was also able to resume selling oil on international markets and use the global financial system for trade.

The agreement stated that any violation would lead to UN sanctions being put into place for ten years.

. See also Israel, Iran and the tinderbox of the Middle East

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