By Business Correspondent | 4 April 2025
We all know the script. Free trade is a Good Thing, and protectionism is a Bad Thing. Tariffs, we are told, are the enemy of economic growth, the path to isolationism, and a surefire way to provoke diplomatic spats and trade wars. Donald Trump’s latest wave of tariffs—like his previous ones—are bound to end in economic pain, whether through retaliatory measures from trading partners, increased costs for manufacturers, or higher prices for consumers.
Nobody wants to pay an extra 20 per cent for a television or see the price of a new car climb even higher. And yet, despite everything I know about the dangers of tariffs, there’s a part of me that can’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for them.
The death of British manufacturing
Here’s a challenge: try buying something—anything—manufactured in Britain. Not food, not gin, not a nice bottle of wine, but an actual, tangible product. A doll, a kettle, a set of kitchen scales. It’s harder than you’d think.
A while back, I was shopping for a baby toy with a friend in Peter Jones. We sifted through a sea of plush animals, checking label after label. Every single one was made in China—except for one, which, as it turned out, was from Sweden. The same thing happened when I went looking for a lavatory brush in another department store. Every single option had been imported from China.
British manufacturing has all but disappeared. If you want British-made products, your best bet is a charity shop, where you might stumble across some relic from a time when “Made in England” was a mark of quality rather than a rarity.
From 200 potteries to two
I come from a pottery family, so perhaps I feel this loss more acutely than most. My father trained as a ceramics designer, working in the once-thriving potteries of Stoke-on-Trent. In the 1950s, there were around 200 potteries in the area. Today, there are barely two.
Only a few months ago, Royal Stafford closed after 180 years of production. That was 83 skilled jobs gone overnight, taking with them generations of craftsmanship and expertise. It was the third major pottery factory to shut in just two years. Once, Wedgwood employed 600 people; today, that number is closer to 75.
The war in Ukraine may have pushed energy costs through the roof, but the real cause of the industry’s decline was the flood of cheap imports. Given the choice between quality British ceramics and far cheaper Chinese alternatives, British consumers opted for the latter.
The case for tariffs
And this is why, however unfashionable it may be to admit, I have a sneaking sympathy for tariffs. Not because they’re a perfect solution—far from it—but because, in a world where British industries are being undercut by cheaper foreign goods, they might have at least slowed the decline.
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Chinese goods aren’t cheaper because they are better, but because wages in China are lower. Even now, despite rising wages, Chinese labour remains significantly cheaper than British labour. That’s why even a company like Lakeland, which prides itself on ethical sourcing, produces its best-selling heated airers in China rather than the UK. They do their best to ensure fair pay for the factory workers, but at the end of the day, it’s still cheaper to make them there than here.
A future for British industry?
Would tariffs actually work? In theory, if they helped bolster domestic manufacturing, they could stop the complete hollowing-out of industries like ceramics, textiles, and even electronics. In 2022, just 2.6 million Britons were employed in manufacturing—far fewer than in Germany, where manufacturing remains a cornerstone of the economy. The UK has now slipped to twelfth place in global manufacturing rankings, lagging behind not only China and the US but also Germany and South Korea.
Perhaps things will change. Maybe Britain’s future lies in high-tech manufacturing—military equipment, advanced engineering, and precision machinery rather than tableware and textiles. But if tariffs could bring back something resembling a balanced economy, where we produced a little more and imported a little less, I wouldn’t be opposed—even if it meant paying a bit more for my next laptop or mobile phone.
Of course, I wouldn’t say that in polite company. Free trade is one of those unquestioned dogmas of modern economic thought, like globalisation and deregulation. But every now and then, when I pick up an old British-made plate in a second-hand shop, I can’t help but wonder whether tariffs might have saved more than just a few factories—they might have saved entire communities.
