Comment: Greenland crisis could have devastating consequences for our region's manufacturers

Donald Trump's threat to impose swingeing tariffs on the UK if our government stands in the way of his ambitions to annex Greenland are cause for great concern.

Just eight months after announcing his 'historic' trade deal with the UK, the mercurial American president is now threatening to rip up his promises and impose a 10 per cent tariff on export to the US from the start of next month, on top of the blanket 10 per cent levy he introduced last year. This will rise to 25 per cent in June, meaning that almost everything Britain sells in the US will cost an extra 35 per cent.

For the British car industry, and Jaguar Land Rover in particular, this could be devastating. After pharmaceuticals,. which appear not to be affected, the car industry is our biggest export to the United States, bringing in £10 billion to the UK economy. To lose £35 billion of that would be catastrophic. JLR was forced to halt production when President Trump threatened similar tariffs last year, costing the company millions of pounds. And the stoppages resulting from last year's cyber attack piled further pressure on the company and, more to the point, its struggling second and third-tier suppliers which are the backbone of many parts of the Black Country, Staffordshire and Shropshire. 

And now, having bent over backwards to build up diplomatic relations with President Trump - including an unprecedented second state visit - we now find we are back to square one. So much for the special relationship.

it is, of course, out of the question for the Prime Minister to timidly acquiesce to Mr Trump, and maybe the reaction will have taken a man so used to getting his own way a little bit by surprise. What happens next is anybody's guess, and the president does have a track record of quickly backing down from his threats. But it is vital that the rest of the West puts on a show of unity in defence of Greenland's right to self-determination.

The next few months are going to be vital not only to the security of the West, and to the values of peace, freedom and democracy, but also to the livelihoods of thousands of people across the West Midlands whose livelihoods depend directly, or indirectly, on the motor trade.

The Prime Minister faces possibly the most daunting challenge of his short time in office. For all our sakes, we hope he can rise to the challenge.