Daniel McConnell

Absolutely.

So we had seen, since Donald Trump has come back into office, a clear attempt to, I suppose, ramp up his protectionist policies, not only with some of his strongest allies, but deemed enemies as well.

So this has been a broad campaign since the get-go about trying to institute very hefty tariffs across the board, I suppose.

In Ireland, the big fear is that we're so exposed, given the concentration of US multinational companies here, the tech, pharma, etc., like that,

You know, we've been kind of almost sighing with relief every time we've escaped the kind of direct focus of these tariffs.

This latest move, as you say, comes on foot of a report that was done by the government and they're using the basis of what they're calling forced labour.

And they're saying any goods made by the use of forced labour will be subject to a tariff.

So there's a 10% tariff being applied to imports from Canada, Mexico, all European countries, including Ireland, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

And as you said, there's a 12.5% levy on countries including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland.

So again, this is, as you say, Donald Trump's very clear attempt to say, I'm not backing down from this protectionist kind of policy that I'm very keen on.

And I'm now going to start rebuilding that wall here.

But now finding new legal mechanisms to do so.

Yeah, so there's an internal US body that essentially produced a pretty hefty report.

It's called the USTR.

They ultimately said it was imposing the low rate on goods from economies that impose prohibitions on forced labour imports.

or have committed to doing so, including the EU.

So the EU, and I think Olaf Gill, the Irish spokesperson for the Commission, has basically said Europe is working very hard to try and eliminate these forced labour practices in the industry chains out.

But the higher rate was being applied to those who have failed to impose any sort of tariff

or enforce any move against these sort of forced labour practices.

Obviously the idea of forced labour has been a long controversial one because developed economies like our own and other Western countries have looked to cheaper labour forces in the Far East and elsewhere to produce their goods and services at a much lower cost.