Starmer needs to publicly say Trump is wrong and give more reassurance over tariffs, Harriet Harman urges | Politics News

Sir Keir Starmer needs to reassure the public more over tariffs – and tell them Donald Trump is wrong, Harriet Harman has said.

Speaking to Beth Rigby on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, the Labour peer said ministers were avoiding the “elephant in the room, which is that Trump is wrong on this, we don’t agree with him”.

The US president placed 10% tariffs on all UK goods exported to the US, and while other countries were much worse hit, the FTSE 100 fell by about 1,000 after Mr Trump’s “liberation day” announcement last week.

It then kicked off its best day in five years on Thursday after Mr Trump decided to defer the worst of his tariffs for 90 days. Financial markets around the world reacted similarly.

Baroness Harman said there was no need for “gratuitous insults” but that the prime minister needed to “own the narrative” because there is “a danger” if the leader of the country is not saying what is actually happening.

A minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Baroness Harman said that when the US put steel tariffs on imported steel in 2002, Mr Blair “did say ‘this is unacceptable, this is wrong, it’s unjustified, it is breaching the World Trade Organisation rules'”.

“He was able to say ‘we do not believe this is how you should be within the world organisation and Bush has got it wrong’,” she added

“I think it feels as if there’s a kind of restricted vocabulary amongst ministers at the moment where they are speaking in code.”

The Labour peer said she also thought Sir Keir should be “being more positive and giving reassurance”.

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She acknowledged there was “a lot of criticism” in the first six months of Labour’s tenure and the government “didn’t help the economy by rather talking it down”.

There is a danger of being “too pessimistic”, she said, and Sir Keir needs to be “realistic”.

“But I think that giving people reassurances – we’re not going to panic, we’re not going to make mistakes by knee-jerk retaliation,” she said.

“I think the story needs to be told to the country that this is a really difficult problem and Trump has caused it and he is wrong to do this, but we will be okay with this government.

“And I think he’s entitled to say that, and I think people will want to hear that.”