Starmer is right to keep calm and swerve the tariffs brawl

Rather unexpectedly, Keir Starmer has flourished as things go wrong abroad. His calm demeanour may not make any practical difference to the global economic disaster unleashed by Donald Trump, but it might make the British feel better not least as they enjoy the schadenfreude of other countries being hit even harder.

- JOHN RENTOUL

The prime minister is right, I think, to ignore the siren voices urging him to stamp his feet and denounce the US president. That would be easy to do, as every respectable economist knows that tariffs hurt both sides, buyer and seller. Everyone knows that Trump’s trade war will put up prices for Americans. But let Ed Davey point that out; most people recognise that it is not in the national interest for the prime minister to wade into the saloon-bar brawl that Trump has started.

It would be easy, too, to make fun of Trump for declaring a trade war on penguins – among the territories on his tariff list are the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands belonging to Australia in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean. The president has also announced tariffs on Diego Garcia, the US base in the Chagos Islands, which is inhabited only by American and British service personnel.