UK says US whisky tariff ‘in nobody’s interest’ in trade deal talks
The UK has said it will step up demands for the US to drop tariffs on goods such as single malt Scotch whisky after the industry warned a decision by Washington to retain the levy was putting its future at risk.
The US government yesterday vowed to maintain 15 per cent tariffs on Airbus aircraft and 25 per cent tariffs on other European goods as part of a long-running trade dispute.
However, it held off adding some extra tariffs as it had threatened.
UK trade secretary Liz Truss welcomed the absence of new tariffs today, but said she had raised the whisky issue with her US counterpart Robert Lighthizer during talks last week and she would now go further.
“These tariffs damage industry and livelihoods on both sides of the Atlantic and are in nobody’s interests,” she said in a statement. “I am therefore stepping up talks with the US to remove them as soon as possible.”
After leaving the EU earlier this year the UK is trying to tie up swift trade deals with major partners like the US to capitalise on its new freedom to strike bilateral deals rather than EU-wide ones.
But the UK has still been affected by a US decision to impose tariffs on an array of EU food, wine and spirits in retaliation for EU subsidies on large aircraft.
The Scotch Whisky Association said UK exports to the US had fallen 30 per cent since the tariff came into force and jobs and the supply chain were at risk.
“It has taken the UK government a full six months after the UK left the EU to start to tackle tariffs directly with the US government, which seems to us inexplicably slow,” chief executive Karen Betts said.
She urged London to do more to support the industry.
“Scotch whisky is a crucial part of Scotland’s economy, employing over 11,000 people and many more than that through our supply chain, in some of the UK’s most productive jobs,” she said.