Trump's tariffs bad news for Ireland and just about everywhere else - Derry Journal Editorial

The past few years has seen prices skyrocket across the globe and these new measures by the US President and his administration will likely see them rise again.

While the pharmaceutical industry – one of Ireland’s largest employment and export sectors, concentrated largely south of the border – are for the moment largely exempt, there’s nothing to say this won’t change in the near future, or that tax breaks already being suggested for companies to move their base or expand operations onto US soil will not severely impact economic output and growth here. The same goes for big tech companies who have set up home in Ireland.

North of the border, it is a confusing picture. It seems the lesser 10% UK tariffs on exports to the US will apply, but with the north regulatorily aligned with the EU across a number of fronts, there could be complications, and there is already a lot of concern in terms of what this could mean for jobs, businesses, prices here and elsewhere, as well as potential impacts on inflation, exchange and interest rates.

The more severe tariffs on poorer parts of the world, where whole communities are employed in and reliant upon the exporting of the goods they manufacture, could be devastating.

The fall-out and outworkings of this may not be felt, or even fully understood, for some time.

The only certainties are that Trump’s tariffs will increase uncertainty and volatility just about everywhere, and that everyone from Detroit to Derry, and from Dublin to Dehli will be the poorer for it.