The U.K. finance minister blamed a changing world—an implicit nod to President Donald Trump‘s unfurling trade war—for the shrinking size of the British economy.
“The world has changed and across the globe we are feeling the consequences,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said on Friday morning.
Official data showed the British economy contracted by 0.1 percent in January, the month Trump took office.
Trump hit the U.K. and its other trading partners with a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum this week.
The president is locked in tit-for-tat tariff battles with Canada and the European Union.
He has threatened more tariffs from April 2 for all of America’s trading partners. Trump says these will be reciprocal and aimed at equalizing tariffs.
This is a developing story and more information will be added shortly.
