Blair faces new US clash

Tony Blair was today on course for a new and unwanted collision with President George Bush, threatening to put his support for the US under strain as never before.

Ministers are braced for a decision from Washington this week rejecting almost entirely the plea for British companies to be excluded from America's tariffs on steel imports.

The Prime Minister put his personal authority on the line when he appealed for special treatment for Britain at his summit at the President's Texas ranch earlier this year. But reports yesterday suggested that the US will reject four out of five of the UK's exemption requests.

That, in turn, will force the Prime Minister to come off the fence and decide whether to back counter- sanctions now being threatened by the EU.

The steel row is the l atest bust- up to threaten the resolve Mr Blair has shown ever since he came to No10 not to fall out with Washington.

It comes on top of the dispute over the Middle East and the future of Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader and, most recently, the Bush administration's hostility to the new International Criminal Court.

America last night threatened to throw United Nations peacekeeping operations into chaos because of its hostility to the court.

At a meeting of the UN in New York the United States vetoed a resolution to extend peacekeeping operations in Bosnia because it said that it would leave American troops open to the threat that they might, in future, be prosecuted by the ICC.

The clash not only puts the future of the 3,000 UN staff in Bosnia at risk, but could also threaten the 19,000 peacekeeping troops there, even though they are under a Nato umbrella.

The tension over the Government's support for the US surfaced anew yesterday when International Development Secretary Clare Short hit out at the President's refusal to back the ICC.

Describing Washington's opposition as "an enormous disappointment" she said that the row could undermine peacekeeping operations around the world.

She also condemned what she called America's failure to open up world trade and back far bigger-scale aid for Africa and other poverty-stricken areas around the globe.

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