Ireland preparing for potential EU-U.K. trade war, Varadkar says

Ireland is preparing for a possible trade war between the EU and U.K., its deputy prime minister said, amid rising tensions between the two sides.

“We’re making preparations” for potential disruption to trade, Leo Varadkar told RTE Radio on Tuesday. “We had a meeting yesterday of the cabinet sub committee on Brexit, essentially to dust down, if you like, and restart our contingency preparations should we get into difficulty.”

Varadkar’s comments come amid growing concern that the British government may suspend parts of the Brexit accord over how it manages trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

“I don’t think anybody wants to see the European Union suspending the trade and cooperation agreement with Britain,” Varadkar said. Still, “if Britain were to act in such a way that it was resiling from the protocol, resiling from the withdrawal agreement, I think the European Union would have no no option other than to introduce what we call rebalancing measures to respond,” he said.