May 9, 2025

Friday, May 9,2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.

There is resistance.

Do you know the way to Sesame Street?

Elmo from Sesame Street posted on LinkedIn.👇

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Clarifying Trump’s tariff deal with the U.K.

Two politicians trying to pull the wool over the public- Donald J. Trump and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

U.S. and Britain announce Trade Framework,with sparse details.

President Trump said Britain had agreed to increase market access for billions of dollars of American exports, including beef, ethanol and other farm products under a new trade deal — but left many of the details to be worked out later.

The agreement — promoted by Mr. Trump as the first of many that will result from his efforts to blow up the global trading system — appeared to be more of a framework than a full trade deal.

Both sides agreed to drop tariffs on specific products and made general agreements in other areas, but officials from both governments will still need to meet in the coming months to hammer out specific language. That can be a tricky and difficult process, leaving open the possibility the agreement could still fall apart.

Britain occupies the No. 11 spot among the United States’ biggest trading partners — it represented 2.9 percent of total U.S. trade in the first quarter of the year — and the leaders of both nations invoked the deep relationship between their countries in a joint announcement on Thursday.

Speaking from the Oval Office and with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain on speakerphone, Mr. Trump called it a “great deal for both countries.” Mr. Starmer called it a “really fantastic historic day” and pointed out that it was the 80th anniversary of Winston Churchill announcing victory in Europe in World War II, invoking one of Mr. Trump’s favorite historical figures.

The agreement will leave in place a 10 percent tariff that Mr. Trump imposed on Britain and other nations globally at the beginning of April. But it will pare back other tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on British steel, aluminum and automobiles. In return, the British will open up access to beef, poultry, ethanol, soft drinks, cereal and other products.

Britain’s government said tariffs on its auto exports to the United States would fall from 27.5 percent to 10 percent for a quota of 100,000 British vehicles. It also said U.S. tariffs on British steel would fall to zero. Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said Rolls-Royce engines and plane parts will come over tariff-free, while the United Kingdom will buy $10 billion of Boeing airplanes.

Although Trump officials framed the deal as a result of the aggressive tariffs Mr. Trump imposed around the world, there has been longstanding interest in an agreement. Mr. Trump discussed the possibility of a trade deal with Britain in his first term, while British officials have eyed an agreement with the United States since Brexit as a way to offset reduced trade with Europe.

Here’s what to know:

Trade balance: The two nations have relatively balanced trade: The United States sent $80 billion of machinery, airplanes, natural gas, crude oil and other products to Britain in 2024, while it bought $68 billion of cars, pharmaceuticals and other goods in return.

Courting Trump: A trade deal would provide Mr. Starmer a much-needed political victory, as well as vindication of his strategy of assiduously cultivating a relationship with Mr. Trump. (New York Times)

Will Trump Pretend to Fix What He Broke?

Why you shouldn’t get excited about his “deals.”

The Trump administration is planning to announce its first trade deal today, with Britain. Except it won’t be a deal; more of a “deal.” Reportedly it will mainly be a “framework” for an actual deal that may or may not happen sometime in the future. This is the tariff equivalent of “concepts of a plan” for health care.

In other words, this will be smoke and mirrors, an attempt to persuade the gullible that Trump’s tariffs are actually working. Markets — driven by small investors who seem desperate to believe that the people in charge have some idea what they’re doing — may briefly bounce on the announcement.

Trump, however, has already declared that the tariff that really matters right now, the prohibitive 145 percent rate on imports from China, won’t be coming down. That tariff has already caused a 30-40 percent drop in the volume of US-China trade, which, given the time it takes to ship stuff, guarantees a sharp increase in consumer prices and possibly empty shelves a few weeks from now.

But back to that UK “deal.” Nobody knows what will eventually come out of it, but we can be sure of one thing: It won’t lead to any significant opening of the British market to U.S. goods. Why? Because that market was already wide open before Trump stomped in.

The most important thing to understand about Trump’s trade war is that it’s an attempt to solve a problem that only exists in his imagination. He keeps insisting that other countries are engaged in unfair trade, but the reality is that most of our important trading partners impose very low tariffs on U.S. products:

You could argue that China is less open to trade than the tariff number suggests, because the government plays such a large role in the Chinese economy. But for Britain, Canada and the European Union Trump’s tariffs are a huge, destructive attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken. These nations can’t stop doing bad stuff on trade because they weren’t doing bad stuff before Trump came along.

What about America’s trade deficit? As economists have repeated ad nauseam, this deficit doesn’t reflect unfair foreign trade policies. It is, instead, the flip side of large flows of capital into the United States, which historically reflected the fact that the U.S. was perceived as an attractive place to invest. Even if Trump manages to score some actual deals, as opposed to concepts of deals, they won’t change that logic. If his strategy does manage to reduce the trade deficit, it will do so only by destroying America’s attractiveness to foreign investors, which may be an achievable goal.

But let me go back to the point that Trump’s tariffs are a response to a problem that didn’t exist. That’s actually an observation that goes beyond trade policy. The Trump team likes to claim that it inherited an economy in terrible shape. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, keeps claiming that the economy needs a “detox.”

In fact, however, when Trump took over the U.S. economy was in very good shape. Unemployment was around 4 percent, while inflation was at most a fraction of a percentage point above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent. Our productivity growth was the envy of the world. We had a trade deficit, but as I said, this mainly reflected America’s attractiveness as a place to invest.

It's true that Goldilocks now seems to be leaving the building, but that’s entirely — entirely — due to Trump himself. In discussing the Fed’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged, Jerome Powell repeatedly talked about “uncertainty,” but the only reason things seem much more uncertain now than they did a few months ago is the chaos Trump has created.

So should we celebrate the trade deal that will be announced today? No. It won’t solve any of the problems Trump has created. It will, if anything, offer Trump the temporary illusion of success, encouraging him to create even more problems. (Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner, Economics. Substack. Click on the blue link at the top of the post, to read the whole article.)

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Habemus Pappam.

By now, you surely know that there is a new Pope for the world’s largest Christian Church.

Where Pope Leo Stands On Specific Issues

White smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel Thursday afternoon after a short two-day deliberation, and onlookers watched while Robert Prevost, the first American pope in history, walked across the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in a white cassock.

More than 100 cardinals gathered to elect Pope Leo XIV as the new leader of the Catholic Church, ushering in a transformative era for the religious institution that will be distinct from its direction under Pope Francis.

Much remains to be known about Pope Leo, who is seen as a centrist. The Illinois native has dual citizenship from the U.S. and Peru, and spoke Italian and Spanish during his first address to the public, during which he emphasized peace.

His election is, in part, a departure from Pope Francis, who was regarded as a progressive. Francis is remembered for his acts of humility and inclusion, such as: washing the feet of migrant refugees—including Muslims, Hindus, and others—and voicing support for a greater role for women in the Church. He is perhaps most remembered for his stance on LGBTQ+ Catholics: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" Francis said in a striking 2013 statement. Francis was also a prominent voice in the call for global peace, using his last message at Easter mass to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Pope Leo will serve about 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide—many of whom come from the global south—during a period marked by decreases in Catholic Church attendance and great political conflict.

Here’s what we know about the new Pope’s stance on these issues:

The LGBTQ+ Catholic community

The Catholic Church has been firm on its stance that homesexuality is a sin, and same-sex couples cannot be married within the Church.

But in October 2023, a letter by Francis in support of the blessings of same-sex unions on a case-by-case basis was made public. “We cannot be judges who only deny, push back and exclude,” Francis wrote to a group of conservative cardinals. “As such, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not convey a wrong idea of a matrimony. Because when one seeks a blessing, one is requesting help from God.”

Leo’s stance on LGBTQ+ Catholics marks a departure from the late pontiff, according to the College of Cardinals report. In October 2024, Prevost voiced the need for greater conversations between each “episcopal conference” to discuss the blessings and apply them in a way that aligned with cultural differences across the globe as some countries still criminalize homsexuality.

“The bishops in the episcopal conferences of Africa were basically saying, that here in Africa, our whole cultural reality is very different … it wasn’t rejecting the teaching authority of Rome, it was saying that our cultural situation is such that the application of this document is just not going to work,” Prevost reportedly said. “You have to remember there are still places in Africa that apply the death penalty, for example, for people who are living in a homosexual relationship … So, we’re in very different worlds.”

In a report assessing his opinions regarding queer couples, The New York Times cited a 2012 statement from Leo in which he expressed dismay at the way media and pop culture expressed “sympathy for beliefs and practices that contradict the gospel.”

Francis was openly critical of laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ people, calling them “unjust,” and was generally seen as a supporter of greater inclusion in the Church.

Helping migrants

Pope Leo’s stance on migrants falls in line with that of Francis. Jesus Leon Angeles, a coordinator of a Peruvian Catholic group who personally knows Prevost, told Reuters that the new pontiff had always shown care for Venezuelan migrants in Peru. More than 1.5 million Venezuelan migrants live in the South American country as a result of economic instability.

Francis was a strong supporter of migrants, expressing his support for the community in a February letter to U.S. bishops. The letter came after the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, which has been marked by calls for mass deportation, attempts to end birthright citizenship, an undocumented immigrant registry, and other anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. “Your work in defending migrants is deeply rooted in the mission of Christ and the history of the Church,” Francis wrote. “The legitimate regulation of migration must never undermine the essential dignity of the person.”

Equality for women

Pope Leo has been firm in his stance against the ordainment of women, falling in line with Pope Francis’ own opinion.

“Something that needs to be said also is that ordaining women — and there’s been some women that have said this interestingly enough — ‘clericalizing women’ doesn’t necessarily solve a problem, it might make a new problem,” he said in October 2023 during the Synod on Synodality.

However, he did point to the appointment of women to higher leadership positions under Francis as evidence that women contribute “a great deal to the life of the Church.”

Pope Francis similarly signaled greater support for women in leadership throughout his 12-year papacy, giving them the right to vote during synods and appointing women to senior positions, while noting that they could not become priests.

Still, Francis made pointed actions to show his support. In 2024, he washed the feet of Roman prisoners from a female prison, marking the first time a Pope had only washed the feet of women.

Climate change

Pope Leo will continue Francis’ legacy as a steward of climate change. The pontiff has made statements calling for the Church to take greater action against the destruction of the planet. “Dominion over nature” should not be “tyrannical,” he said during a November seminar, instead emphasizing the need for a more reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

The seminar came about at the request of Pope Francis, who called on the Church to act with “compassion” in regards to climate change, referring to the mistreatment of the planet as a “structural sin.” The late pontiff made connections between climate change and its disproportionate impact on the developing world.

“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social,” Francis wrote. “But rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental." (Time).

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The 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day.

Trump marred the American recognition of VE Day by rejecting the idea of a shared Allies victory in Europe. Instead, he tarnished the pride the Allies share in this day by proclaiming, “the Victory was only accomplished because of us.” Small-minded, petty, ignorant man.

at the London Underground.

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