Donald Trump has done a lot for the car industry, but the UK isn’t cashing in

The only US president I’ve ever met and had a one-to-one chat with was Bill Clinton. But I also have previous – well, sort of – with the shy, retiring, meek and mild Donald Trump. One year ago, almost to the day, I warned in this magazine of the dangers of him imposing potentially ruinous tariffs on UK-built cars. By April, I outed him in the mag as “the most powerful car bloke on the planet”.

It really doesn’t matter to the reigning US President, or American or global ‘democracy’, if you adore or abhor Dicey Donald. Like it or not, there are no plans for him to vacate the White House. Also, there’s zero indication that his sometimes savage negotiating methods, unpredictable nature and pantomime villain act are to be watered down.

But, occasionally, there is another side to Tricky Trump. If he’s to be believed, and due largely to his anti-inflationary policies, US citizens are now safer, while enjoying lower healthcare costs, better job prospects, more lucrative pensions and greater spending power. His seemingly genuine concern for how much US motorists are spending is admirable. 

He’s keen to remind them that a gallon of fuel costs less than $2 (£1.47) in certain places, while the average is still only $2.31 (£1.71). I know that a US gallon is slightly smaller than the UK’s, but there’s no getting away from it: we’re paying around three times more for our fuel than our US cousins. And in a rare act of unselfishness, the usually Difficult Don is reminding the UK Government that Britain is rich in traditional natural energy sources, so would do itself and its ripped off consumers a huge favour by adopting his “drill baby drill” ethos. Makes sense, right?

Also sensible – for him, not us – is his crusade for more US and non-US companies to create more jobs for American workers by building more cars and other goods on his turf.

Last week, he claimed he’d just returned from a Ford plant in Michigan that almost shut two years ago. “Now they’ve announced they’re going around the clock making cars.” He gleefully thanks his punishing tariffs on cars made outside America for this.

“A lot of the Canadian auto plants are closing and they’re moving into the US. Same with Mexico, Germany, Japan and other countries. They can’t pay the tariffs, so they’re coming here. We have more plants being built than at any time in our history.”

Sadly, no British firm has said it will build in the US. Even sadder is that Trump is effectively and dangerously using tariffs as negotiating weapons – even while admitting they’re already “too much” and can be massively hiked at short notice. Scarily, he’ll continue to impose them on manufacturers who refuse to open American production lines. So Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover and Rolls-Royce (not forgetting the UK Government), you’ve all been warned – by the most powerful car bloke on the planet.

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