Tag: Spain

Spot the difference: US tariffs on Scotch are not part of a tariff war

BBC Question Time was wrong about tariffs. It matters.

By Peter Ungphakorn
FROM UK TRADE FORUM, JANUARY 24, 2020 | UPDATED DECEMBER 9 2020

On January 23, 2020, Fiona Bruce, the host of Question Time on BBC TV, repeatedly and wrongly confused US tariffs on Scotch whisky with the US threat to raise tariffs on cars if Britain taxes digital technology companies.

The mistake matters because UK-US trade talks are likely to feature regularly over the coming months, not least on Question Time.

Continue reading “Spot the difference: US tariffs on Scotch are not part of a tariff war”

If we’re to understand the Brexit talks, the media must do better than this

The notion that the EU was uncompromising was as absurd as the claim that Brussels had buckled. Brexit has entered a negotiating phase. We need to understand negotiations and to spot the flexibility in the noise

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED APRIL 1, 2017 | UPDATED APRIL 1, 2017

Perhaps we should not be surprised, but should we be concerned? After Donald Tusk presented the EU–27’s draft negotiating guidelines for Brexit on March 31, 2017, the headlines showed widely different interpretations.

They ranged from fact and conciliation to confrontation and capitulation, all based on the same document:

Continue reading “If we’re to understand the Brexit talks, the media must do better than this”