One of the UK’s most experienced and skilled analysts of the political workings of the USA and the EU, Lord John Kerr, made the comment on a panel hosted by former MEP and SNP MP Alyn Smith.
Kerr served as British ambassador to the US while Tony Blair was prime minister, and during John Major’s premiership, he was the UK’s ambassador to the EU.
His comment comes after First Minister John Swinney said he will appeal to Trump’s love of Scotland if it means it will protect the country from damaging tariffs on exports to the US.
The event, which is part of a European Movement in Scotland webinar series, also hosted writer and political activist Madeleina Kay and associate director of the Europa Institute at the University of Edinburgh Benjamin Martill.
During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to impose a blanket 20% tariff on all imports into the US with analysis suggesting this could cost the UK £22 billion.
When asked whether a Trump trade war may revitalise manufacturing in Europe and if that could push the UK into much more alignment with the EU, Kerr said: “If the United States imposes trade tariffs on Britain, Scotch whisky will be certainly on the list, high on the list because Tennessee and Kentucky are the rival.
“It always happens and it takes a very long time to get them lifted. I remember when the Scotch Whisky Association in Edinburgh was being run by David Frost and he did not succeed in getting them lifted.”
Tariffs imposed for 18 months during Trump’s first term as president between 2016 and 2020 cost the whisky industry around £600m.
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Kerr added: “My nightmare on this question of tariffs is that, and I think it wouldn’t just be a four-year thing, is that we rush across to Washington and Saka, saying, ‘Yes, they’re terrible. You’re absolutely right to impose tariffs on n the massive tariffs on China and tariffs on the European Union – but don’t tariff us’.
That would actually have a rather severe psychological effect in Brussels.
He went on to say he believed Prime Minister Keir Starmer has a “genuine difficulty in dealing with this”.
“Because there will be businesspeople saying to him that you don’t want US tariffs – and there will be people like me saying to him, now would be a rather bad time to strike an attitude that would be seen as hostile in Brussels.”
Kay added: “I would hope that the UK government would respond to [tariffs] by trying to reduce some of the barriers to trade that Brexit brought in with the EU.
“I know just from myself of having a small online shop and just basically giving up on selling anything to the EU because of the number of parcels that kept being returned to me by customs and having to fill out all the forms and stuff.
“I can’t even imagine what it’s like for a British business to be doing that on a large scale. So I feel like that industries can perhaps try to take precautions but really we need to try and lobby and push the UK government to reducing these barriers and friction with trade with the EU.
“And if Trump brings in lots of tariffs, et cetera, I think that might be a push to Keir Starmer to move in that direction, or at least I hope.”
Trump will be inaugurated on Monday, January 20, and his second term in office is likely to have a broad impact on Europe and EU policies, including trade relations with the US.