The trade war kicked off by US president Donald Trump resulted in near-total domination of the media’s business reporting this weekend. Markets opened in the Far East and the ’bloodbath’ in the financial markets is getting worse, Reuters reports, with share prices in Asian markets suffering from the biggest fall in valuations since the 2008 Lehman Bros banking crisis.
The era of globalisation has ended, Treasury minister Darren Jones told the BBC while writing in the Telegraph prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed the government “will do everything necessary to protect Britain’s national interest” and is “ready to use industrial policy” to help shelter businesses, because “the world as we know it has gone”.
With the UK exporting more than £2bn in food and drink sales the BBC explores potential ‘winners and losers’ from the tariff wars. Despite having “fewer orders than normal”, upmarket snacks brand Joe & Seph’s Popcorn believes it may actually benefit from the tariffs. “Ironically it could be a good thing,” says Adam Sopher. “Retailers who would have sourced from Europe might now say ’actually we’ll buy more from the UK’.
But there are plenty of suppliers who are less sanguine. The Guardian reports that Scottish and Welsh whisky producers, as well as craft brewers, are reeling at the prospect. So too Cognac makers in a report by Reuters on the trade wars. And brewers are warning Trump’s beer tariffs could cost 100,000 jobs in Europe, with the industry not only blindside by the 25% levy but confused as to whether it applies only to products imported in cans, according to a report in the FT.
Meanwhile the Independent has speculated that tariffs may cause UK inflation on cheese, whisky and (English) wine as producers look to recoup lost exports to the US. sales.
From trade wars to supermarket price wars. No-one is quite sure if there’s a price war going on. At the end of last week Tesco announced a series of price cuts on items in a national advertising campaign. The (small) reductions may be a response to the perceived threat offered by Asda’s vow to invest in a sustained campaign of Rollbacks following the return of Allan Leighton to run the Leeds-based supermarket chain. Or they may have been designed to highlight how competitive Tesco already is ahead of its results later this week. Yesterday City AM predicted that Tesco would reveal stronger sales but also noted that ’shareholders will be hoping for reassurance over continued sales growth and robust profits amid the prospect of an intensifying grocery price war’.
And this morning Reuters noted that Tesco plans to address the Asda pricing challenge in its results on Thursday. It notes a report by Bernstein comparing the price of 550 own-label lines at Tesco, Asda and Aldi. ”Tesco and Aldi do not massively need to react,” it concluded. “They are winning on price perception.”
But the FT is sceptical. A piece over the weekend concluded that ’Asda’s comeback kid has returned [but] all-out UK food wars have not’.
Another major retailer in the headlines last week is also the subject of an intriguing report in the Mail. It says Primark may be spun off from parent company ABF, following the scandal engulfing the fast fashion chain in the wake of the departure of CEO Paul Marchant. Insiders claim a separate listing may be sought, says the Mail.
Breakfast cereal manufacturer WK Kellogg is being investigated by the state of Texas for advertising its products as healthy, Reuters reports. The office of state Attorney General Ken Paxton said some of the breakfast cereals - which include Froot Loops, Apple Jacks and Frosted Flakes - “are filled with petroleum-based artificial food colorings that have been linked to hyperactivity, obesity” and other health problems.
A loophole means Brits are still using billions of plastic bags the Telegraph reports. While the 10p levy has reduced high street usage, online shoppers still receive their deliveries in plastic bags at many supermarkets.
And finally British supermarkets have received a land planning boost in their battle against German discounters, the Telegraph reports. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons are poised to win fresh powers to open more stores in areas dominated by Aldi and Lidl stores, ‘officials slapping new restrictions on the German discounters’.
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