You can see where Liam Fox's sympathies lie with this item from The Guardian HERE. To him the EU is acting like a gang and threatening to "punish" Britain. But this morning on the radio he was heard responding to the US unilateral decision to apply tariffs to steel and aluminium imports. He says this is not time for "knee jerk reactions". I think this tells us all we need to know about the thinking in the upper reaches of our trade department. Logic doesn't enter into it. Policy is driven by prejudice and ideology.
Trump's declared aim is to punish us, by putting America first he is not seeking a trade deal where both sides can benefit equally, but he is openly saying he wants to address the USA's huge balance of trade deficit. This means increasing US exports and reducing imports. This is what the steel and aluminium tariffs are about.
Yet Fox invariably has a knee jerk reaction to anything from the EU who are our close neighbours, friends and allies but panders to the nutjob in The Whitehouse when he declares his intention to punish us. Let us hope workers in Port Talbot, Scunthorpe and other places where jobs are being saved by the Krupp-Thyssen (European) deal can see the difference between that and the job destroying actions coming across the Atlantic.
