Editorial: Donald Trump's tariffs are causing global turbulence including uncertainty in Northern Ireland

​Donald Trump’s tariffs wreaking havoc with global stock markets.

London’s top stocks slid to their weakest level for more than a year yesterday as traders digested growing concerns over a potential global recession.

The FTSE 100 fell by 4.38% to 7,702.08, its lowest closing price since March last year, at the end of trading. Meanwhile, the value of the already weak pound dropped against both the dollar and euro.

In Wall Street, shares plummeted then rose then fell again.

There is confusion as to the implications of the US president’s almost unprecedented levies on various nations. And even if economic precedent can be found for some of the charges, the onslaught against former close allies in peacetime and in the absence of an existing depression has heightened the shock.

The UK is in an appalling situation. While Britain has escaped with only half the tariff applied to EU goods coming into America, it was in need of a post Brexit trade deal with the US. The lower levy makes it tempting not to hit back at Mr Trump, but that in turn makes the UK seem pliant and weak.

Northern Ireland is in an even more appalling scenario. Due to the constitutional outrage of the Irish Sea border, that is all too real even if its worst symptoms have been alleviated by the various deals to ameliorate its impact, it is unclear where exactly we will fall in the likely situation of retaliatory but differential EU-UK tariffs applied against American goods the other way across the Atlantic.

President Trump has succeeded in the necessary matter of getting other nations to take uncontrolled immigration more seriously, in getting Europe to pay more for its defence, in challenging woke DEI and trans extremism. But it is far from clear whether these tariffs will shake-up the global order in an ultimately positive way.