Scotland's First Minister John Swinney should focus on domestic issues rather than pursuing trade negotiations with the US over Scotch whisky tariffs, according to Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander. Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland on Friday, Alexander emphasized that international trade negotiations remain solely the responsibility of the UK Government.
The criticism comes as tariffs on Scotch whisky cost the industry approximately £4 million per week. Swinney has met with US President Donald Trump four times this year to pursue exemptions from these tariffs, with another meeting scheduled between Swinney and US Ambassador Warren Stephens in Edinburgh.
Alexander dismissed Swinney's efforts as largely symbolic. "I'm very happy for the First Minister to be supporting the British Government's efforts on tariffs, but that's all that he's doing," he said. He characterized the meetings as "day trips" and "photo calls," adding: "He's perfectly entitled to get his picture taken with the president, like anyone else who makes the day trip to Washington."
Domestic priorities
The Scottish Secretary argued that Swinney should prioritize domestic challenges instead. "Respectfully, many of us here in Scotland wish the First Minister was spending more time avoiding the underspend of £1 billion as we discovered last night, or the state of our schools and hospitals," Alexander said.
He stressed that only the UK Government can negotiate substantive deals with the US. "But there's a second point beyond the legal requirement that this is a competence of the UK Government - Donald Trump doesn't give gifts, he does deals. [...] The only counter-party in those negotiations that can do a deal is the UK Government," Alexander explained. British negotiators will be on the ground in Washington in the coming days to conduct the actual negotiations.
upday contacted the Scottish Government for comment.
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
