Starmer under fire over American tariffs on UK steel
Steel exported from the UK to the US still faces a tariff of 25 per cent despite an agreement in early May to cut it to zero alongside the levy on cars and aerospace.
Most other British goods entering the US face a 10 per cent levy – which thanks to Brexit is lower than the 15 per cent Donald Trump agreed with the EU.
Sir Keir Starmer is understood to have pressed the President to finally reduce tariffs on British steel to zero as agreed during talks in Scotland yesterday.
That would give the UK a welcome competitive advantage given steel imported by America from much of the rest of the world faces a 50 per cent tariff.
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The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Democrats just got their dream candidate in North Carolina. Here are four other Senate seats likely to flip
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North Carolina Trump's feud with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) about the One Big, Beautiful Bill's cuts to Medicaid ended in the worst way possible for Republicans: Tillis deciding to not seek re-election in a super-swingy state. In response, Democrats got their dream candidate: former governor Roy Cooper, a popular two-term governor, who won races in 2016 and 2020 when Trump was at the top of the ticket. The fact he also expanded Medicaid as governor with the help of Republicans offers a contrast after Trump signed steep cuts to the health care program. He's already proven to be a prolific fundraiser. On the GOP side, Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law who grew up in Wilmington, passed on running. Now, Michael Whatley, the former state GOP chairman and Republican National Committee Chairman, is the presumptive nominee. So far, an Emerson College poll shows Cooper up by six points. But as is the case in college basketball, North Carolina loves tight races. 2. Georgia Sen. 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Reuters
23 minutes ago
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Statue of Confederate General Albert Pike to be reinstalled in Washington
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - A statue of Confederate General Albert Pike, which was overturned in 2020 during the "Black Lives Matter" protests after George Floyd's murder, will be reinstalled in Washington, the National Park Service said on Monday. "The National Park Service announced today that it will restore and reinstall the bronze statue of Albert Pike, which was toppled and vandalized during riots in June 2020," it said in a statement. The U.S. saw nationwide protests in 2020 following the killing of Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes. The National Park Service said reinstalling the statue was in line with recent executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, who has been a strident critic of renaming or removing Confederate statues and monuments. An executive order that Trump signed in late March titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" suggested that Trump sought to purge elements of what conservatives view as a revisionist history of the United States that places systemic racism at the heart of its narrative. Rights advocates say such steps undermine the acknowledgment of critical phases of American history. Earlier this year, Trump restored two U.S. Army bases to their former names of Fort Benning and Fort Bragg despite a federal law that prohibits honoring generals who fought for the South during the Civil War. The Trump administration says the names honor different individuals, all former soldiers. In 2017 during his first term, Trump defended white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, who protested the city's decision to remove a statue of the Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. At the time, Trump said there were "very fine people of both sides" of the fight, sparking widespread outrage.
