If you were thinking today's the day to just go for it, follow your dreams, and treat yourself to that Harley, the tight blue jeans, and the bourbon flask, think again: EU tariffs on US goods come into play this Friday.
What it means: Trump made good on his promise to put tariffs – basically a tax on goods from other countries – on steel and aluminium coming from the EU to the US.
So the EU made good on its promise to retaliate, putting tariffs adding around 25% to current prices onto steel, aluminium, and a bunch of other stuff (like bourbon, jeans, and motorbikes, but also orange juice, cranberries, peanut butter, sweetcorn...).
The idea behind it is to incentivise us as customers to buy products from our own producers, and also for countries receiving goods from abroad to get a bit of extra cash from the trade.
But not only are we not entirely sure whether this is going to help most people's personal finances our hurt them; it also represents a big shift in our mindset of how we trade with other countries – from trying to make it as easy as possible, to putting up deliberate barriers.
