Detail still lacking ‘but Ireland would be worse off without EU-US deal'
US president Donald Trump signed an executive order that sees tariffs of 15% or above imposed on trading partners including Brazil, Lesotho, Taiwan and Switzerland.
The EU struck a trade deal with the US five days before Mr Trump said a 30% tariff would kick in for the bloc.
The deal sees 15% tariffs on most EU goods including cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals entering the US.
There are 'zero for zero' tariffs on a number of products including aircraft, some agricultural goods and certain chemicals – as well as EU purchases of US energy worth 750 billion dollars over three years.
Simon Harris said on Friday after a meeting of the trade forum at Government Buildings that a lot of detail of the agreement still needs to be clarified as he defended the deal.
'Without a deal between the US and the EU, today would have seen 30% tariffs introduced by President Trump on the EU, and would also have seen very, very significant counter measures introduced by the EU to the tune of around 90 odd billion euro,' the Tanaiste said.
'There's absolutely no doubt that that would have been a moment of catastrophe in terms of our economic wellbeing as a country.'
He added: 'We'd be in a very different and a much worse position I think if we were standing here today with no deal.
'You don't have to take my word for that, if you just see the executive order last night and all of the tariffs levelled in other countries, including countries that didn't have deals.
'They were generally much, much higher than the tariff rate for the European Union.'
He said the EU tariff rate of 15% would come into effect from August 7.
Tariffs on pharmaceuticals would remain at zero until the US administration concludes its Section 232 investigation, relating to imported goods of importance to national security, into the sector.
Mr Harris said he was informed by Brussels that this is expected to conclude in around two weeks.
Mr Harris also said 'there is too many variables' to yet know the effect of the tariff differential between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
He said he spoke with Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, and the Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald who agreed on this.
'So to give you an example, at the moment butter in Ireland already has a tariff of around 16% on it, pre-existing.
'It's had 10% on top of that since President Trump's last round, so that's meant butter in Ireland had a tariff of 26%. Under the new EU deal, that will fall to 16%.
'Butter in the UK, if I can use that as a comparison, will actually probably end up with 16%, plus 10%, so 26%.
'I'm just using a pound of butter as an example here, but if you look at it, you know, at a headline rate, you'd say 'Well, there'd be lower tariff on butter in the UK than Ireland', and actually that's probably not the case.
'So we need to tease our way through this. But there is no doubt that there will be challenges that will have to be worked through.'
He said: 'I suppose the last point I'd make is that this is a subset of businesses. It's really a subset of a subset, because this will obviously only affect businesses that are doing cross-border trade and exporting to the United States of America. So it's not to be in any way dismissive of that, but it will obviously only affect that proportion of the business community.
'Pharma is another example. I mean, the EU seems to have a commitment in writing to 15% or less, no more than 15% for pharma.
'The UK language is much more vague. It doesn't have a number beside it, so we'll need to see where that brings us in the weeks ahead.'
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