Expert: Low-risk Donald Trump will impose import taxes

An international finance expert has played down speculation that the Trump administration will transform the US into potentially the world’s biggest tax haven. Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist of Northern Trust, which employs 16,500 people, addressing a Limerick Chamber of Commerce event yesterday, said the likelihood of a border tax passing was low.

Any proposed border tax is at its heart, he said, a way of promoting US exports and disadvantaging imports into the US.

“It would prospectively turn the US into the biggest tax haven on the face of the earth. And, of course, in this part of the world, which has made a lot of headway by having corporate-friendly policies, this is alarming.

“The good news is that for Ireland and the UK and perhaps the bad news for the US, the likelihood of this is actually very modest. At first level, it violates world trade rules,” he said.

Mr Tannenbaum said everyone wants to avoid a trade war. The political likelihood of a border tax passing he said was under 25%.

On Brexit, he said that there will be opportunities for Ireland as businesses looking for locations to deepen their investment will not go to a market that may not be part of the EU.

He said: “I am certainly aware that a number of the larger companies operating globally here in this part of the world are considering locations and strategies as contingency to make sure that they can continue to serve the common market.”