Enda Brady: UK correspondent on Donald Trump threatening the EU with 25 percent tariffs

Donald Trump has threatened to slap import tariffs on the EU.

The US President has already slammed neighbours Canada and Mexico with levy hikes - and both quickly returned the favour.

Holding his first Cabinet meeting, Trump says it will be 25 percent generally speaking, and mentioned cars as one target.

He also claimed the EU formed to 'screw with the US'.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says Starmer will be looking to make sure the UK avoids a similar fate as he heads to Washington.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're going to London. In the Brady's aw Uken you
have corres correspondent, I should say correspondent in that Welcome
to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey Ryan, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
So the terriffs for the EU obviously one thing, and
then you've got Starmer also going over to Washington to
make with Trump.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, it's a big day, it really really is. And
look there are two issues on the table today when
Starmer gets there. Trade is obviously huge because Britain's economy
is going nowhere. And if he puts twenty five percent
tariffs on UK goods, remember UK famously notoriously now not
in the EU, twenty five percent on goods from this
country will basically wipe out this year and the next

(00:40):
four years nothing, There will be no growth. So Starmer
will be concerned about that and we'll be asking for
an exception to be made for the UK. And then
the huge issue internationally is Ukraine. And it's clear that
Starmer has spoken to Macron. Tuesday night there was a
phone call from Paris to Downing Street. Mac had spent

(01:00):
time with Trump on Monday. So Europe is coordinating, joining
forces and coming at Trump from the same page. What
Starmer is going to offer today is that there will
be an offer of British boots on the ground as
peacekeepers alongside French soldiers. Other European nations may get involved
as well, up to thirty thousand troops rotating in and

(01:21):
out of Ukraine, and Starmer is going to tell Trump
that we need air support from the United States to
deter Putin from coming again.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
You guys should be okay on the teriff front, though, right,
because you don't have a trade difficit with the US.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
No, but it will look extremely unfair if he starts
whacking tariffs on every twenty seven members of the European Union,
I mean Ireland where I'm from. There's huge concern over
this because our economy is built on exporting pharmaceutical and
tech products to the United States. And he's already pointed

(01:59):
out that a lot of these big tech companies that
are American who base themselves in Dublin and are paying
their taxes to the Irish government. He believes that money
should be going to the US treasury. So every capital
city in Europe right now is running around you know,
he has set the cat amongst the pigeons big time.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, Zelensky coming to London on Sunday. So busy. He's
going to be busy. He'll be in Washington tomorrow in
the Friday local time, and then he'll be in London
on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
The guy never stops. I've seen him in person this
year speak. I don't know where he gets the energy
from three years of war. He is relentless and he
has to be because the Russians are and will be relentless.
I mean, we need to wise up to what's coming here.
Zelensky will come to London on Sunday and it's clear
that he will be angling to see just how much

(02:49):
progress Starmer has made with Trump in terms of getting
a deal. But Starmer has been clever this week, you know,
cutting UK foreign aid and diverting that money to the military,
trying to get spending on defense up to two and
a half percent of GDP. Europe is playing catch up.
But whatever Trump, whether he's a genius or an idiot,
he has got everyone dancing to his tune, which you know,

(03:11):
it's extraordinary.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, and it seems some things in some ways that
is working for him as well. On the international stage. Now,
let's talk about this nurse who complained that a colleague
lift her out of a tea round and she's tried
to get compensation. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
She has and she has won eighty thousand dollars of compensation.
Took it to an employment tribunal. Way do you hear this?
Her name is Susan Hamilton. She's a nurse. She qualified
in nineteen eighty six, so she's a very experienced nurse.
And she's nursing at Saint Helier Hospital in Sutton, which
is just south of London. So there's a male dietitian

(03:48):
working there. They clearly don't like each other. She would
say good morning to him or greet him in the morning,
and complaint went into management. Ultimately they both complained about
each other. She took it further, She took it to
a tribune. So she said that this male dietitian would
would not return her greeting in the morning meetings when
she spoke, he would look the other way. And then

(04:08):
the final insult was he would make rounds of tea
and she would be excluded. And her management pulled them
this is so peasant. And then when management pulled them
up on this and said, you know you can't exclude
her from the rounds of tea. His response was to
stop making the tea altogether, so nobody got a cupa.
So she's taken it to an industrial tribunal. They found

(04:30):
in her favor and she has been awarded eighty thousand dollars.
So if there's anyone out there that wants to leave
me off their cup of tea, round filler, kettle filler,
boots eighty.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
K on what grounds? On what grounds do you get compensations?
And who pays the compensation? Is that the employer?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I would say it's the employer, yeah, to be the
National Health Service ultimately the UK taxpayer. But I mean
it does sound ridiculous that this must have been a
very long running mini work feud but ended up with
that judgment. And yeah, it's all over the papers today.
Check it out. Read it eighty grand because she was
left out of the tea round.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Goodness me in the Thank you so much for that.
Indo Brady, our UK and Europe correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
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