Nigel Farage has compared the fallout from Donald Trump’s tariffs to the market chaos sparked by Liz Truss and her mini-budget.
The Reform UK leader said the US president “did too much, too soon”, adding that his long-standing ally’s approach was “rather like Liz Truss a couple of years ago”.
Mr Farage, Mr Trump’s most vocal major backer in Britain, added that he has “never in my life before seen stock markets fall quickly and bond markets fall at the same time”.
But, giving the president the benefit of the doubt over his trade war, Mr Farage told LBC it “remains to be seen” whether his approach will be vindicated.
He said: “I've never agreed with the tariff policy. I do understand, though, that China poses an existential threat to the west economically.
“I think Trump did too much too soon, rather like Liz Truss did a couple of years ago. I've never in my life before seen stock markets fall quickly and bond markets fall at the same time.”
He added: “There's little doubt that Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, who’s also a friend of mine, played a decisive role in saying, ‘whoa, we've got to ease back on this’.”
It is the latest example of Mr Farage distancing himself from the more politically toxic parts of Mr Trump’s agenda, but not fully disowning the president and his administration.
The Reform leader has recognised that associating too closely with Mr Trump could be costly at the polls, with his treatment of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky sparking a cross-party backlash in the UK.
The president’s tariffs have also hit British savers and are expected to push up prices for consumers, with Mr Farage eager to distance himself from the fallout.
But his comparison of the US president with former PM Ms Truss is his most brutal putdown of Mr Trump yet.
Ms Truss’s tenure in Downing Street lasted just 49 days after her disastrous mini-budget triggered market turmoil and saw the pound tank to a 37-year low against the dollar.
The ex-PM and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced the biggest raft of tax cuts for half a century in the September 2022 statement, but were quickly forced to climb down over their plan to scrap the top rate of income tax for the highest earners.
She has since admitted her plan to cut the 45p top rate of tax may have gone too far but insisted it was not fair to blame subsequent interest rate rises on her mini-budget.
As well as spooking markets with the tax cuts themselves, the former PM added to the uncertainty by shunning the usual forecasts from government spending watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), leaving investors in government debt flying blind on the state of the public finances.
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