As if there wasn’t enough going on in the world of geopolitics, US president Donald Trump has revived his tariff campaign, coming up with a new legal basis to keep import charges going – and with them the revenues to the United States exchequer.
His threats against the EU are loud but for the moment do not mean much change for Irish exporters – especially the giant pharma sector. But with Trump rattling the cage about further investigations and possible tariffs, the threat of trouble remains.
The levies imposed by Trump on what he referred to as Liberation Day in April 2025 were ruled illegal by the US supreme court, meaning the president was obliged to replace them with other temporary tariffs to keep the basic 10 per cent charge in place. As the legal cover for the temporary move runs out, Trump needs a new trick. And so he has pulled out section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to claim that the tariffs are justified on the grounds of the labour standards in place in other countries. On Friday night he demanded an EU fine on Google imposed earlier in the week be reversed or the bloc would face more tariffs.
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These threats are plainly nonsense in most cases. But legal experts point out that each country which objected to the 301 investigations would have to take an individual case, meaning that a legal challenge to the whole regime is not possible. Other investigations are under way into trading practices which could provide cover for future tariffs, or increases on these ones. With Trump, who knows?
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For Irish businesses, in the immediate term most of those to whom tariffs apply at present may remain at the same or a similar rate. There may be small differences for those who paid older historic tariffs. Despite the latest threat, the EU has done relatively well out of the deal, in the sense that most countries will not see a rise and some will see a small fall and the 10 per cent is not being stacked on top of existing tariffs.
The Republic’s largest export – pharma – remains excluded. And for now the EU-US trade deal remains in place, because the tariffs are below the 15 per cent ceiling agreed as part of that for EU exports to the US. The State’s luck on tariffs has held for now. Whether that continues though is much less certain.
