president to announce measures on ‘liberation day’

She said Italy would defend its industries if “necessary”.

Reeves said the UK would not risk the possibility of a trade deal with the US by “posturing” in response to the president’s tariffs.

The chancellor told MPs she had been speaking to exporters who did not want a rushed response. She said: “We don’t want to be posturing here, the prize on offer is a good economic agreement between us and the United States. We are not going to do anything to put that in jeopardy, we are not going to rush into action to get a quick headline.”

She said she had discussed the situation with Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission economy chief.

“Let’s see how other countries and other trading blocs respond,” she said. “We are discussing with other countries and the EU about the appropriate response to whatever announcements are made later today. “

Sir Keir Starmer will resist putting ­retaliatory tariffs on American goods even if British exporters are hit by US duties on Wednesday.

President Trump has vowed to ­impose levies on a wide range of goods from April 2, which he has declared “liberation day”.

Starmer’s hopes of securing an ­exemption for British businesses have faded despite the efforts of Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, to secure a bespoke trade agreement. Reynolds described talks last week as “challenging”.

On Monday, Dame Angela Eagle, the home office minister, said that “intensive talks are going on even as we speak over in the US to see if we can come to that agreement for our mutual economic benefit”.

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President Trump has posted on his social media platform Truth Social to celebrate the announcement of a slew of tariffs on US trade with the rest of the world.

The UK would not be “out of the woods” on tariffs even if it could secure a deal with the United States, the chancellor has told MPs.

Rachel Reeves told the Commons Treasury committee that the main impact on the British economy would be from “global tariffs” rather than UK-specific ones, thanks to depressed demand and higher inflation in other countries.

She said: “I think that’s really important to understand, because even if we are able to secure an economic deal with the United States — which we very much want to secure and are working hard to secure that — even if that’s possible, [it] doesn’t mean somehow that we are out of the woods and not impacted by tariffs.

“So we don’t just want to see an agreement between the UK and the US, we want to see free trade continue.”

Unfailingly loyal and on-message, Leavitt is perhaps the most visible person in the White House after the president as she takes on the traditional media at press briefings.

The New Hampshire-born Trump acolyte has said politics was “in her blood” growing up in a small town, where she worked in her parents’ ice cream parlour. “My dad came from nothing and worked his way up,” Leavitt told the Eagle Tribune in 2020. “He didn’t take any handouts from anyone. He reminds me of President Trump.”

Leavitt attended Saint Anselm Catholic College and became hooked on politics during the 2016 Trump campaign. While her fellow students were partying at college football games, she was firing off letters to the White House, and secured internships in Washington and at Fox News during Trump’s first term.

After graduating in 2019 with a degree in communications and political science she joined Trump’s team, swiftly rising to become assistant press secretary. In January last year she became his campaign press secretary.

Trump’s presidential campaign coincided with Leavitt’s first pregnancy with her husband Nicholas Riccio, a property tycoon more than 30 years her senior. Plans to take maternity leave evaporated when, three days after giving birth to her son, she saw Trump survive an assassination attempt. “The president literally put his life on the line to win this election. The least I could do is get back to work quickly,” she said.

US and European stock markets fell on Wednesday as investors worried over what shape the fresh wave of tariffs would take at the end of the day.

The dollar and oil prices dipped while gold, viewed as a safe-haven investment, came close to achieving an all-time high.

After Tokyo’s stock market closed up slightly and Chinese indices steadied, Europe dropped, led lower by Frankfurt, and Wall Street’s leading indexes followed after the open.

“For traders and investors, today represents a day of huge uncertainty as we weigh up the potential for retaliatory tariffs and a tit-for-tat trade war,” said Joshua Mahony, analyst at the traders Scope Markets.

Investors are buying on the dips to take advantage of market shocks caused by America’s new trade tariffs. In March 60 per cent of the trades made through Interactive Investor, one of Britain’s largest investment platforms, were buys with 40 per cent being sells. For US shares specifically, 61 per cent of trades were buys and 39 per cent sells. Typically buys tend to make up about 55 per cent of trades while sales make up about 45 per cent.

America’s S&P 500 index is down about 5 per cent this year while the tech-heavy Nasdaq index is down 10 per cent as markets prepare for fresh US tariffs on Wednesday — a day President Trump is calling “liberation day”.

Myron Jobson from Interactive Investor said: “Market dips driven by geopolitical tensions, such as Trump’s tariff wars, often trigger knee-jerk sell-offs — but they could present prime opportunities to buy quality investments at a discount. Timing the market is notoriously tricky, but for those willing to ride out the storm, picking up undervalued assets during periods of uncertainty can be a rewarding strategy over time.”

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President Trump has surrounded himself with advisers who share his conviction that wide-ranging tariffs will usher in a “golden age” of prosperity. They include:

Peter Navarro, the chief trade and manufacturing adviser in the West Wing. He taught economics for 20 years, then pushed a protectionist agenda, including tough tariffs on China, as a trade adviser during Trump’s first term.

Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary. The billionaire former chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services company, was a lifelong Democrat who switched to Trump for the 2020 campaign.

Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary. The hedge fund billionaire is thought to be the most reluctant of Trump’s senior advisers on the sweeping tariff plan but has come around.

Jamieson Greer, trade representative. The former US air force lawyer represented US Steel against China while in private practice and was chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, his predecessor from the first Trump administration.

Read more : Who is behind Trump’s tariff plans? The four key players

President Trump’s latest approval rating is at 43 per cent, according to polls by Gallup.

This is marginally higher compared with his first term but is also his lowest approval rating of his second term. Trump’s approval ratings peaked at 47 per cent immediately after his inauguration.

Read more: Trump’s approval rating: tracking the opinion polls

The EU responded to previous tariffs on European steel and aluminium imposed under the first Trump administration with retaliatory tariffs, which were suspended under President Biden and restored on Tuesday.

Further countermeasures are set to be imposed by the EU from mid-April, bringing the total up to €26 billion. China and the US have also been engaged in a trade war since Trump’s first administration.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly described India as a “tariff king”. For example, India’s weighted average agricultural tariff is 37 per cent on US products. The two countries have been working on a trade deal.

The foreign trade barriers confronting the US were detailed further in the Office of the US Trade Representative’s annual national trade estimate report a few days ago.

Every year Britain exports more than £60 billion worth of goods to the United States — goods which, from tomorrow, could face blanket tariffs of up to 20 per cent.

The new taxes come on top of tariffs on cars and steel that have already been announced by the Trump administration.

So which sectors will be hit hardest? We look at the likely impact of the US president’s announcement this evening on industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to food and drink.

Read in full here: Which British sectors will be hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs?

Analysis by Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

The Europeans will keep a poker face and their cards close to their chest in the initial aftermath of Trump’s “liberation day”.

Europe has a good hand to play and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, has warned: “We have the power to fight back.”

It is as yet unclear what exactly Trump is planning but Europeans are braced for 20 per cent tariffs on most goods or a targeted country-by-country approach.

Brussels could decide to move beyond goods and its traditional retaliation of hitting American exports such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles or bourbon whiskies to hit services.

On services, in contrast to goods, the US has a surplus of €109 billion in trade with Europe, meaning that American tech and banking sectors are highly vulnerable.

America’s pharmaceutical sector, protected from tariffs by a World Trade Organisation agreement designed to improve access to life-saving drugs, could be affected too if Trump hits European medicine makers.

Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, told MPs that any impact of tariffs from the US would be “felt equally” across the UK.

However, if the EU responds with its own tariffs then businesses may have to demonstrate that goods imported from the US are not leaving the UK in order to have the tariff reimbursed.

After Brexit, Northern Ireland continues to follow the EU’s rules in some areas of trading as a result of the Windsor Framework arrangement.

The government will look closely at the impact on Northern Ireland of any retaliatory tariffs imposed by the EU, the prime minister’s official spokesman said.

President Trump’s tariffs are essentially a tax on imports with the aim of boosting American manufacturing.

The idea is that tariffs increase the price of imported goods, and are an incentive to consumers to purchase domestic products instead.

Trump insists that tariffs are paid for by foreign countries but it is importers that pay them and the money goes to the US treasury. Those companies typically pass their higher costs on to customers in the form of higher prices.

The White House has said that the new tariffs will take effect immediately after they are announced by President Trump.

The 25 per cent tariff on car imports, which has already been announced, will take effect on Thursday, with taxes on parts set to come in at a later date.

Tariffs of 25 per cent on aluminium and steel imports are already in place and the tariff on all goods from China has been doubled to 20 per cent.

A delay for most Canadian and Mexican goods from Trump’s 25 per cent fentanyl-related tariffs is also due to expire today.

The exact details will remain unclear until President Trump begins speaking at the White House, but he is expected to announce tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all imports into the US.

Trump has also often talked about “reciprocal” tariffs, which he has succinctly explained as “they charge us, we charge them”.

In March, the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent suggested the “Dirty 15” could be a target, referring to the 15 per cent of countries that make up the bulk of trade with the US and impose tariffs or other barriers on US goods.

Read in full: What tariffs could Trump impose and how can the UK respond?

Analysis by Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

Trump’s tariff barrage will hit an apprehensive Brussels and other European capitals late tonight, at 10pm local time.

There will not be immediate countermeasures, just a statement expressing regret and intent from Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president.

Her team of trade officials, widely regarded as the best in the world outside Washington, will work through the night to pore over the tariffs package in on order to weight a suitable response.

A general strategy will be prepared in time for a meeting of EU ambassadors tomorrow. “Keeping calm is the order of the day,” said one official.

EU trade ministers meet in Brussels on Monday. The commission, following talks at a recent EU summit, wants a unified approach.

The line is to keep cool and to make sure that it is Trump, not the European reaction, that gets the blame for any economic fallout, inflation or recession.

The French government expects tariffs to be announced later today to be in the range of between 20-25 per cent, the government spokeswoman Sophie Primas said.

“They risk being pretty powerful,” Primas told reporters.

Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems, commended Sir Keir Starmer for his “coalition of the willing” on Ukraine and called for something similar to counter the effects of Trump’s tariffs.

Starmer responded: “Every week he tries to tempt me to make a false choice between our relationship with the US and Europe.”

He said that choice was also “wrong” on trade and the economy, insisting the UK had a “balanced” trade relationship with the US.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the government is preparing for “all eventualities” and will rule nothing out ahead of President Trump’s announcement on tariffs.

Opening prime minister’s questions, Starmer emphasised that a trade war was in nobody’s interests, and the “country deserves, and we will take, a calm and pragmatic approach”. He added that his decisions would “always be guided by national interests”.

He said “constructive talks” were progressing “for a wider economic prosperity deal” with the US. The government was also working with all industries and sectors likely to be impacted by tariffs, he said.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that US tariffs could eliminate the chancellor’s headroom against her day-to-day spending plans, requiring her to make more spending cuts or raise taxes to meet her fiscal rules.

The tariffs could also knock up to 1 per cent off the size of the economy if the UK embarks on a full-blown trade war, which the government has so far suggested will not be happening.

Thousands of jobs could also go, with analysis from the Institute for Public Police Research think tank suggesting tariffs on car imports would put 25,000 UK jobs at risk.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said Britain was in a “strong position” to strike a deal with the US but admitted the next few weeks could be challenging.

She told Sky News this morning that a trade war with the US “would be in no one’s interests”, and suggested Britain would not introduce reciprocal tariffs as the EU has already vowed to do.

Phillipson said that ministers were still “working at pace” to secure a deal.

“I think we all recognise this is going to be a difficult period, but there won’t be any knee-jerk reactions from this government,” she told Times Radio.

In his announcement from the White House at about 9pm BST, President Trump will finally let the world in on his plans for sweeping global tariffs.

He is expected to announce tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all imports into the US, hitting the UK’s £60 billion worth of exports, effective immediately.

The White House said that liberation day, as Trump has called it, would “fix the wrongs of the past” and “restore the golden age of America”.

The EU has said it plans to retaliate by imposing its own tariffs on US products, but Sir Keir Starmer has indicated the UK will not follow suit, instead focusing on an economic deal.

For weeks President Trump has built up today, the day he will unveil his long-promised set of global tariffs, as liberation day.

Many other countries celebrate liberation day in relation to freedom from Nazi Germany or another repressive regime, but Trump has repurposed the phrase several times for pivotal moments of his second term.

First it was election day that was liberation day, then the day of his inauguration. From March, Trump pivoted to April 2, the day of his tariffs announcement, and this one seems to have stuck.

Trump has complained that some countries are “ripping off” the US and his tariffs are a way to force them to lower their tariffs while driving the rebirth of America as a manufacturing superpower.

His rationale is that the US will be freed from its dependence on foreign goods and “fairness” will be restored for Americans.

Read more: What is ‘liberation day’? Only Trump seems to know

Today has long been billed by President Trump as liberation day, and weeks of speculation about what tariffs will be applied to which countries will finally end when the president makes his announcement at 4pm ET (9pm BST).

Trump will deliver the news from the White House Rose Garden and will be flanked by his cabinet.