THURSDAY 5/8/25
Much Ado About UK Deal – President Trump announced a trade deal with the UK Thursday that eliminates tariffs on steel and aluminum and cuts the tariffs on British cars from 27.5% to 10%.
“Timing couldn’t be more apt,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said phoning in to the Oval Office for Trump’s announcement, where the US president was flanked by cabinet members and staffers. Trump said the two countries have been working in futility on a trade deal for 25 years.
“This is why Donald Trump produced Liberation Day,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said. “People don’t understand he gets deals done.”
(The deal will not be finalized for another couple of weeks, NPR notes.)
“If we’re going to rehabilitate and rebuild international trade, we’re better off doing that together,” the UK’s ambassador to the US, Lord Peter Mandelson, said from the Oval Office. The deal, he said, also provides a “springboard” for the two nations to create a “tech partnership.”
The deal includes opening of beef and chicken exports to the UK and trade involving commercial aircraft. Rolls-Royce aerospace engines (a company long ago split from Rolls-Royce motorcars, which is now part of BMW Group) will sell aircraft engines in the US tariff-free, while a British airline carrier Trump declined to name will buy $10 billion worth of Boeing airframes.
That’s an obvious kind of deal, because all Rolls-Royce aerospace engines are built in the UK and all Boeing airframes, powered by those engines, are built in the US.
As for the auto tariff deal, sale of US vehicles sold to the UK is negligible – chiefly US-built Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volvo SUVs – while the US with its 16-million auto market purchases about 125,000 BMW Minis, Jaguars, Land Rovers, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and Aston Martins per year.
Trump said he expects to make a deal with the European Union on tariffs, separately because of the UK’s Brexit, and with China. He said that the US’ 145% tariff on Chinese goods will have to be reduced because it already is at its maximum, but tariffs on China will not be cut like they were with the UK.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with US trade representative Jamieson Greer are to meet with China’s top economic official, Vice Premier He Lifeng, in Geneva Saturday and Sunday to discuss a trade deal.
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The Fed Stands – Interest rates hold steady at 4¼% to 4½% after the Federal Reserve Board of Governors this week met for the second time since President Trump took office. Chairman Jerome Powell cited swings in net exports, but stable low unemployment and “somewhat elevated” inflation.
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Libyan Prisons for Migrants? – President Trump wants to send migrants to a Libyan prison or prisons as early as this week, according to Morning Edition, which reports that US officials have been in negotiations with other countries to take in allegedly undocumented immigrants from the US.
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Accepting Afrikaner 'Refugees' – The Trump administration’s anti-DEI campaign is not just about ending anti-discrimination policy; It’s also about fixing so-called reverse discrimination. Case in point is a plan by the administration’s Department of Health and Human Services to use funds from its Office of Refugee Resettlement to resettle an estimated 20,000 white Afrikaner “refugees” in the US from post-apartheid South Africa, according to a report in The Lever, which cites an internal memo obtained from government sources.
The Trump administration cut off US aid to South Africa in February over Afrikaners’ claims of post-apartheid discrimination at the prompting of DOGE chief Elon Musk, a native of the country who has tweeted he is not of Dutch-Afrikaans heritage, but rather of British/English heritage, yet has championed the reverse-discrimination claims.
Apartheid in South Africa ended in 1994 when the Black majority were given the vote, leading to election of Nelson Mandela as president. White South Africans still hold about 72% of the nation’s farms and agricultural holdings despite making up just 7.3% of the population, according to Action for Southern Africa, a land reform advocacy organization.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa