Speech is all Don's giving for free

SO, NO more Mr Nice Guy. Not that Donald Trump is exactly being Mr Nasty to the UK. We avoided the kind of swingeing tariffs he imposed on so many other countries this week, didn't we? Ten per cent. Could have been worse, eh?

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But like so many of The Donald's swaggering, bombastic, and mostly unpopular (outside of the US) policies and statements, you have to - however grudgingly - concede that the man, well, has a point.

Take the new tariff on UK cars exported to America. We may bleat about it, but hang on. Don't we slap our own tariff on US cars sold here? We sure do. We tax American cars at, er... 10pc. We have done since we were part of the EU. It's a relic from the old days that we never quite got around to reviewing. And until this week, the US tariff on our cars sent there was... 2.5pc. Three-quarters lower than the hit they've been taking.

It's only one of many such one-sided arrangements. Chicken? America's been charging just under $90-around £70 on every 1,000kg we sell there. But we tax theirs at almost double that; £135.