OF ALL the stupid things Donald Trump has done, launching a trade war with the rest of the world could be the most dangerous.
The returning US president has imposed new tariffs on goods entering the US from Canada, Mexico and China.
And his advisers says Europe and the UK could be next on his hit list.
These tariffs are a bad move. Trump says they will help the US economy, protect employment and bring in more tax revenue.
But this is not the case.
Tariffs are bad for jobs and bad for growth.
All they will mean is that the US cannot sell its goods to other countries and other countries will not sell their goods in the US.
So workers are at risk of losing their jobs here in the UK and in the US and the cost of living will rise even further.
The tariffs are also bad for co-operation between nations.
The main reason that there has been no war between the major European nations since 1945 is because they all trade freely.
On a larger scale, keeping trade flowing between the big economies means they tend to rub along.
Trump has now put this all at risk by winding up his closest neighbours and the world’s second largest economy.
Trump’s disdain for international co-operation and common sense is not only damaging the world’s economy.
He has twice withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, has pulled out of the World Health Organisation, appointed conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary and roused his supporters to storm the Capitol.
But bringing in these trade tariffs may turn out to be his biggest blunder yet.
No excuse on NHS
SCOTLAND’S ambulance crews are at the very sharp end of the crisis afflicting our NHS.
These hardworking heroes are out there saving lives every day.
And they know only too well that being stuck in queues outside A&E departments is stopping them doing their jobs properly.
Figures show that nearly 9000 people died last year either waiting for an
ambulance to arrive or before they could get to a hospital.
That number has risen by more than 80 per cent since 2019.
The Scottish Government must make progress on its promise to fix the NHS, or this figure will only get worse.
Nobody thinks this will be an easy task after the calamity of Covid and years of Tory austerity.
But with new money coming to Scotland from Labour’s Budget the SNP government in Holyrood have run out of excuses.
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