Joe Biden took a swipe at Liz truss last night, ahead of their bilateral meeting in New York later tonight, as Britain and the US begin to tackle the global cost of living crisis in radically different ways.
In pure Donald Trump fashion, Biden – far from “sleepy Joe” – took to Twitter last night to make a thinly veiled sideswipe at the new PM’s economic policies, ahead of their meeting.
“I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics – it has never worked. We’re building an economy from the bottom up and middle out,” he wrote.
The message comes after Truss’ admission yesterday that her tax-cutting policy would benefit the rich more than others: “What we know is that people on higher incomes generally pay more tax. So when you reduce taxes, there is often a disproportionate benefit because those people are paying more taxes in the first place,” Truss said.
“We should be setting our tax policy on the basis of what is going to make our country most successful,” Truss added, “what is going to deliver that economy that benefits everyone in this country.”
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, on the other hand, will increase corporation tax, lower costs of medicine and offer huge subsidies for households to invest in electric vehicles.
This widening divide within the special relationship might not bode well for upcoming negotiations, and makes a US-UK trade deal look further away than ever.
