Trump tariffs hang over Reeves’ plan to repair UK public finances

Digest opened free editor
Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will try to correct a deep hole in Britain’s public affairs this week in a spring statement held in the shadow of Donald Trump, where the ministers are racing to secure a deal with the United States to avoid punitive definitions.
Reeves will tell deputies on Wednesday that Britain is facing a “changing world” that must find more money to defend itself. She has warned that “global opposite winds such as commercial uncertainty” cause disturbance.
The counselor did not deny that Britain was looking to change or even the digital services tax, a tax that Trump and American technology companies opposed, in a move aimed at appeaseing the American president.
Any tax changes, which are expected to collect 800 million pounds this year, will already exacerbate the public finance in Britain. But the ministers believe that it might be a price worth paying to avoid the US global definitions of punishment, expected to be announced on April 2.
The rising possibility of the World War War will be suspended on the spring statement, when the October 2025 growth forecast of the budget responsibility office is expected to be reduced from 2 percent to about 1 percent.
Financial times revealed last week that the digital services tax on the table in talks with the United States.
“The right thing that companies operating in the UK are paying their taxes in the United Kingdom,” said the counselor, who spoke to the BBC on Sunday, said: “We are currently discussing about a full range of things related to tariffs with the United States.”
British officials say that the United Kingdom and the United States are about to finish the “heads of the agreement” on an economic deal that initially focus on technology and definition cooperation.
Digital services tax in Britain, which affects American technology groups including Alphabet, Meta and Amazon, was presented by the previous conservative government in April 2020 to ensure that global digital companies pay a tax that reflects the value they derived from UK clients.
The fixed rate tax is applied by 2 percent to companies whose global revenues exceed 500 million pounds, and are applied to the revenues derived from the United Kingdom.
Treasury officials say that any deal with Washington will happen after it is too late to distribute it in a statement on Wednesday, but the ministers want this before April 2, called “The Day of the World Wright” in Whiteon.
The advisor is already suffering from major financial problems, after slow growth and high borrowing costs that have been eliminated from 9.9 billion pounds from the provinces she faced against her financial rule-which she says current spending should be balanced with tax receipts by 2029-30-in its budget in October.
It is expected that the new OBR expectations will show that Reeves in red is about 4 billion pounds, according to people familiar with the evaluation, which lets it need to find about 15 billion pounds to rebuild its current financial halls.
Reeves solution will include 5 billion pounds in providing luxury last week and 2 billion pounds from transferring spending from external aid to heavy defense budget in capital. It is expected that 1 billion pounds will be collected from improving tax compliance.
Most of the remaining gap will be funded by discounts to the planned spending by Whitehal’s departments later in parliament, a plan that established opposition at the cabinet meeting earlier this month.
Rivers said on Sunday that 10,000 civilian employees will lose their jobs, as it announced the White Hitting discounts aimed at providing more than two million pounds by 2029-30, when officials said that “tens of thousands” of jobs could go. The Civil Service had 514,000 full -time rewards in December 2024.
Reeves said that the best use of technology and discounts in the use of consultants can achieve Whitheoul savings, as well as discounts in the budgets of communications and travel.
“I am sure we can reduce civil service numbers by 10,000,” Reeves told Sky News’ Trevor Phillips.
Dave Pinman, head of the Civil Service Federation in the FDA, has warned that the cuts may lead to great losses in jobs and damage to public services. He said: “The idea that the discounts of this scale can be delivered by cutting human resources teams and COMMS is for birds.”
Meanwhile, Sir Kerr Starmer, the Prime Minister, will try to show on Monday that he is still investing in the priority of the voters despite the amazing public financial affairs, determining the details of the digging program.
2025-03-23 22:33:00