Donald Trump has caused chaos around the world this week by slapping tariffs on more than 60 countries – and Brits cannot help but compare him to Liz Truss.
The US president has announced a series of “reciprocal” taxes on international imports into America which he claims will boost his country’s economy.
More than 60 countries were hit with levies ranging from 10% – the rate given to the UK, New Zealand and Taliban-run Afghanistan – to 34%, which was applied to China.
Those tariffs come on top of the 25% levy Trump already applied to cars and steel products earlier this year.
The stock market has already plummeted in the wake of Trump’s announcement, sparking fears of a worldwide recession.
While some countries like Britain are hoping an economic trade deal could encourage Trump to drop tariffs on their exports, others have decided to up the ante instead.
China, the second largest economy in the world after the US, hit back on Friday with a retaliatory 34% tariff on US goods.
Despite all these deeply concerning signs, Trump told reporters on Thursday: “I think it’s going very well. It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on, it was a big thing.”
He added: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the rest of the world wants to see if there’s any way they can make a deal.”
“They’ve taken advantage of us for many many years,” he said, claiming they have an extra $7 trillion of investment coming into the US as a result.
For the British, it reminds them of a rather similar moment of economic turmoil – Truss’ historic time in No.10, which was shorter than a lettuce’s shelf life.
The Conservative prime minister’s £45bn of unfunded tax cuts, unveiled in her October 2022 mini-Budget, sent the pound into decline.
The Bank of England even had to step in to rescue the markets, and later admitted the UK was hours away from total “financial meltdown”.
So it’s no surprise the chaos coming out of Washington this week even has Trump’s former communications director Anthony Scaramucci making the comparison...
And he was definitely not the only one....
...others said Truss, in comparison, looked like a genius...
...but plenty also pointed out that, while the Conservatives were able to oust Truss quickly and get the economy back on a slightly more even footing, Trump cannot be kicked out of the Oval Office quite that easily.
...Meanwhile, Truss herself avoided commenting on the economic comparisons at all and instead called for a trade deal with the US...