UK shoppers raised their spending in March in face of Trump's tariff onslaught

By William Schomberg

LONDON (Reuters) - British shoppers spent more last month even as worries about the global economy grew in the run-up to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff increases, according to data published on Tuesday.

The British Retail Consortium said sales at its member stores - mostly large retail chains - rose by 1.1% year-on-year in March, matching February's increase.

The increase would have been bigger were it not for the Easter holiday falling in April this year unlike in 2024 when it was in March, boosting sales in that month, the BRC said.

"Despite a challenging global geopolitical landscape, the small increase in both food and non-food sales masked signs of underlying strengthening of demand," BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said.

A separate measure of overall consumer spending published by Barclays painted a less upbeat picture.

Barclays said spending rose by 0.5% in March compared with the same month last year, slowing from February's 1.0% increase and weaker than the rate of inflation. However, its figures also did not adjust for Easter falling in different months in 2024 and 2025.

Warm weather helped garden centres and specialist food and drink shops but supermarket sales were down by 2.6%.

Jack Meaning, chief UK economist at Barclays, said a drop in confidence among consumers highlighted the risk of a pullback in spending in the coming months.

"We expect spending to remain muted through mid-2025, before picking up into 2026 as interest rates easing starts to be felt and uncertainty begins to normalise," Meaning said.

Two in three of consumers surveyed by Barclays after Trump's tariff increase announcement earlier this month were worried that imported products would become more expensive and 71% said they planned to buy more "Made in Britain" items.

A third survey published on Tuesday showed company bosses turned negative on the outlook for the first time since the end of 2022 as worries about a tax increase on employers added to the concerns about Trump's tariffs.

The measure of business confidence published by Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales dropped to -3 in the first three months of 2025 from +0.2 in the previous quarter.

Employment growth was its weakest in almost four years, reflecting the impact of finance minister Rachel Reeves' decision to raise social security contributions for employers from this month.

(Writing by William Schomberg; editing by Suban Abdulla)