Trump Says U.K. Could Avoid Tariff War Because Prime Minister Is ‘Nice’

President Donald Trump announced planned tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China over the weekend, and threatened that the European Union is next. The United Kingdom, however, could be spared from his global trade war, he suggested, because Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been “nice.” Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump said that while he believes the U.K. is “out of line,” he thinks things can be “worked out” to reorient Britain’s trading relationship with the United States to satisfy him, and cited his apparently warm relationship with the U.K. leader. “Prime Minister Starmer has been very nice,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of meetings, we’ve had numerous phone calls, we’re getting along very well, we’ll see whether or not we can balance out our budget.” Trump’s billionaire backer Elon Musk, meanwhile, has suggested Starmer should be thrown in prison. For his part, Starmer blasted Musk last month for spreading “lies and misinformation” about the grooming gangs in the U.K., suggesting he had given fuel to the “poison of the far right.” The EU can expect no such graces from Trump, who said tariffs on the bloc “will definitely happen.”