Donald Trump’s announcement that he will lift punishing US tariffs on scotch whisky has been overshadowed by a row between rival Scottish party leaders over claiming credit for the decision.
The whisky industry and business leaders were delighted by the US president’s announcement on his Truth Social network on Thursday that he would end the tariffs to mark the visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
“The King and Queen got me to do something nobody else was able to do, without hardly even asking!” Trump said.
The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) estimates the 10% tariff imposed by Trump last year has cost producers about £150m in lost sales and led to hundreds of job losses. Shares in Diageo, the drinks multinational that produces Johnnie Walker, rose sharply on the news.
Graeme Littlejohn, the SWA’s director of strategy and communications, told BBC Radio Scotland the breakthrough was a “demonstration of the soft power of the monarch and what he can bring to the United Kingdom”. He said it had taken “months and months of work” to get negotiations to this point.
The decision sparked a bitter dispute between the Scottish Labour party, UK government ministers and John Swinney over the first minister’s insistence that his meeting with Trump at the White House last September had played a significant part in it.
Labour and Swinney’s Scottish National party are in the final week of a lacklustre Scottish parliament election campaign in which Labour is fighting to prevent the SNP from winning a fifth successive term in office.
Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, accused Swinney of being “shameless” after Swinney claimed the UK government had done little to raise the tariffs issue with Trump. Swinney said Trump had been unaware of it until they met at the president’s Aberdeenshire golf course last summer.
Speaking on a distillery visit on Friday morning hastily arranged after Trump’s announcement, Swinney said the president had messaged him directly on Thursday evening to applaud his influential role in the decision.
He said Trump had thanked him for pointing out last year that the tariffs on Scottish whisky had also hit jobs and profits in Kentucky, because lower whisky sales meant fewer bourbon barrel sales to Scotland.
“The president indicates to me in his note the significant influence on his thinking of the Kentucky-Scotland deal, as he puts it, and he references that in his post on social media last night,” Swinney said.
Swinney later said he was delighted with Trump’s decision and confirmed he had thanked the president personally on Friday afternoon during a telephone call. “The president was clear that our discussions on the mutual benefit of this deal, and Scotland’s ability to work with the state of Kentucky, formed a very big part of his thinking. He said that he was pleased to be able to do this for Scotland, together with his majesty the king.”
Swinney said they had briefly discussed international affairs, including the conflict in Iran, during the nine-minute call.
He said: “My primary duty as first minister is to promote Scotland’s interests and ensure that people’s jobs and livelihoods are protected. I am delighted that the hard work of all involved has now paid off.”
Industry sources said UK officials and ministers had been pressing for whisky tariffs to be lifted since a state banquet for Trump at Windsor last September, to which Swinney was invited by the UK government. At the time, the two administrations were in an uneasy alliance to persuade Trump to act.
Douglas Alexander, the UK Labour government’s cabinet minister for Scotland, said trade agreements were the responsibility of the UK government, not Swinney’s devolved administration, and dismissed Swinney’s claims.
“The first minister can hold as many photoshoots and take as many day trips to Washington as he likes – this was delivered after relentless engagement and negotiation with our friends, partners and allies in the United States,” Alexander said.
Baillie accused the SNP of hypocrisy. She said Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, had called for Trump’s state visit last year to be cancelled after the president humiliated the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while an SNP candidate and former adviser to Swinney had called several days ago for an end to the monarchy.
Jack Middleton, the SNP candidate for Aberdeen Central, told a BBC Debate Night election special: “The royal family have frankly brought nothing but embarrassment to Scotland and the United Kingdom.”
Baillie said the king’s visit to Washington had clearly been instrumental in Trump’s decision. “John Swinney and the SNP’s record is so dismal that they are now trying to claim credit for work they are not responsible for,” she said.
The US is the whisky industry’s largest market, worth about £1bn ($1.2bn) a year, and Scotland’s largest export market overall. Scottish whisky producers buy about £220m worth of bourbon barrels from Kentucky, an essential component in maturing the raw spirit.
Industry sources said it could take months or years to recover the lost business. The tariffs had “led to the gradual erosion of market share versus other whiskies, in a very competitive market”, said one.
