‘How dare the US attack the UK’s free speech’: Readers call out trade deal demands
www.independent.co.uk
Our community share their views on the US trade deal ultimatum, from outrage at ‘JD Vance’s demand to scrap LGBT+ protections’ to calls for Keir Starmer to ‘defend British laws, not bow to US pressure’

Overall, our readers had a clear message for Prime Minister Keir Starmer: don’t trade away British laws and values for a quick economic boost. Many argued that any deal undermining protections, particularly for LGBT+ people and other minority groups, would be not only politically reckless but morally indefensible.

  • talEnglish
    11·
    7 days ago

    Normally, Congress imposes tariffs, rather than the President.

    Trump’s authority to impose tariffs is entirely based on him making a very-questionably-legal use of an act granting him authority to act in emergency situations.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act

    The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Title II of Pub. L. 95–223, 91 Stat. 1626, enacted October 28, 1977, is a United States federal law authorizing the president to regulate international commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to any unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States.[1] The act was signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 28, 1977.[2]

    I think that there is probably a pretty strong argument that LGBT policy in the UK does not rise to the level of an emergency posing an unusual or extraordinary threat to the United States.

    California just filed a lawsuit arguing that Trump’s use of the act is not legally justified:

    https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/04/16/governor-newsom-files-lawsuit-to-end-president-trumps-tariffs/

    SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta today filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging President Trump’s use of emergency powers to enact broad-sweeping tariffs that hurt states, consumers, and businesses. The lawsuit argues that President Trump lacks the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs through the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, creating immediate and irreparable harm to California, the largest economy, manufacturing, and agriculture state in the nation.

    I think that Trump demanding policy on LGBT in the UK as a condition to refrain from imposing tariffs probably only strengthens California’s case.

      • talEnglish
        5·
        7 days ago

        I mean, he’s a populist. He scores political points by blaming “the elite”. That’s kind of hard when you’re the President, since you are the establishment, and especially when your party holds a trifecta, so he’s got to find someone to show himself fighting, be it being in the news over court cases or whatever. Someone else has to be responsible for obstructing what you’re doing.

        During term one, he kept himself in the news by having legal fights over his “ban immigration from several majority-Muslim countries” thing.

        He’s got to always be visibly fighting something for that to work. If you aren’t in a fight at any given moment, go push on something until you get pushback, and make sure that you stay in the news for it.