By Harry Hutchinson
Labour Northern Ireland (Mid-Ulster branch, personal capacity)
Bombardier Inc, the Canadian-based multinational aerospace and transportation company, employs 4000 workers in Northern Ireland. The Belfast factory, formally known as Shorts, builds wings for the CS100 airliner and incorporates employment from 15 other small aerospace companies in the province.
An $5.6bn order from Delta Airlines in the US for 125 planes has now opened up a potential trade war between the UK and the US. Boeing, the massive US multinational aerospace company that also produces defence equipment, has objected to the sale of the CS100 in the US.
Boing claims that Bombardier received $1bn in subsidies from the Canadian government and other subsidies from the UK to build the airline and thus imposes unfair trade on US aerospace manufacturers.
As a consequence, Trump imposed a 219 per cent tariff, later increased to 300 per cent, on imports of the CS100 into the US, therefore tripling the cost of the airliner and making it unsellable in the United States.
Trump’s protectionist policy of ‘America first’ puts the jobs in Northern Ireland at risk and opens the way for a trade war between the UK and the US. Britain has already threatened to stop ordering Boeing aircraft.
In the face of Brexit, it exposes the vulnerability of the UK in the global trade of manufacturing products. As Britain negotiates its exit from the EU, it is questionable if the US would take on trade with Britain that would that would be in any way equivalent to in a continent of countries, ie the EU.
UK Trade secretary Liam Fox had just returned from talks in the US which had been aimed at opening up post-Brexit trading links with the US. Britain is desperate to create ‘new’ trading links in the aftermath of pulling out of Europe and had seen the US as a major partner.
Now these tariffs from Trump put all future trade links with the UK in jeopardy. British capitalism will be the subordinate partner to the huge multinational corporations and aggressive trading approach of US Companies.
Britain has already opened trade talks with the US in pharmaceuticals and agriculture. The US has already many products banned from the EU, particularly in food production, due to the use of animal hormone implantation in its farming. Chickens washed in chlorine, which can lead to the meat appearing fresher than it really is, could be a post-Brexit product in British supermarkets.
British capitalism is in crisis. Its isolation from world trading blocs leaves its industry open for exploitation.
Corbyn’s Labour Party should stand out in defence of all the jobs at Bombardier and should commit to nationalising the company and guaranteeing the skills, training and employment of its thousands of workers.
October 8 2017
