Morning Brew Daily
US-UK Reach Major Trade Deal & Bill Gates Giving Away $200B By 2045
Fri, 09 May 2025
Episode 579: Neal and Toby dive into the first deal made in Trump’s tariff-era with the UK, seen by many as a win for both Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Then, Bill Gates is hanging it up soon and plans to distribute all of his wealth and end the Gates Foundation. Also, AI is making its way through everyday life…including the afterlife. Meanwhile, SharkNinja is our Stock of the Week and Krispy Kreme is our Dog of the Week. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Visit https://planetoat.com/ to learn more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC. APY as of 3/18/25, subject to change. *Terms and Conditions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the US-UK trade deal?
President Trump announced a still-to-be-finalized trade agreement with Britain yesterday that lowers tariffs on British steel, aluminum, and cars in exchange for the U.K. buying more U.S. goods like beef, ethanol, and aircrafts. The blanket 10% tariff that Trump applied to all US trade partners will remain in place.
While details are still murky, we know that the UK got the green light to ship 100,000 cars to the US at a 10% rate, down from an original 27.5%. That's a win for luxury brands like Range Rover and Aston Martin, who now have a slightly smoother road into American garages. Rolls-Royce engines and planes will also fly into the US tariff-free,
and an unnamed UK airline just agreed to buy $10 billion worth of Boeing aircrafts. This deal framework is probably not going to make a major impact on trade figures, though. The US imported just 96,000 UK-made vehicles last year, compared to 3 million from Mexico, our number one auto supplier.
And Britain was only the United States' ninth biggest trading partner last year, behind Vietnam and ahead of India, while trade in the first quarter totaled just 2.9%, of all U.S. imports and exports. As for the rest of Europe, the European Union unveiled a plan to pressure the U.S. into trade talks by proposing tariffs on $107 billion worth of American goods and launching a WTO dispute.
It might already be working. Trump said yesterday that we intend to make a deal with Europe soon. As for China, top U.S. and Chinese trade officials are set to meet this weekend in Switzerland to work on de-escalating their trade war, even though a deal remains unlikely for now. So trade talks, Neil, they are happening.
And stocks, they are going up. The S&P surged yesterday. It has risen 11 of the past 13 days. So stocks are going back up after plunging post-April 2nd. And that is... probably not because of this particular trade framework with the UK. As you mentioned, it covers a very small piece of global trade and US trade with the UK.
But it appears to be that Trump is willing to engage with these trade partners and work out some arrangements like exporting beef and ethanol products into the UK market applied more broadly that could lead to a little softening in all of these trade wars happening all around the world.
And maybe why you saw stocks react so positively, even though that the deal was relatively small, it did signal that Trump is very willing to, you know, get over these trade conflicts and make a deal. The anecdote that kind of showed that was that Trump called Keir Starmer late on Wednesday to finalize the detail.
The prime minister was actually watching the Arsenal Champions League game and took the call. Arsenal ended up losing, by the way. Starmer said that they hadn't planned to announce a trade deal on Thursday. So this was definitely kind of a last minute thing, but it shows that Trump is open to negotiating.
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Chapter 5: What role does AI play in modern technology and society?
So far in 25 years, the Gates Foundation has given $100 billion to causes like global health, anti-poverty efforts, and education around the world. It aims to double that spending to $200 billion before it calls time in 2045. That's because Gates said the foundation's ultra-ambitious goals can be accomplished in that time span with all this additional cash.
They have three key targets in mind, that no mom, child, or baby dies of a preventable cause, that the next generation grows up in a world without deadly infectious diseases, and that hundreds of millions of people break free from poverty, putting more countries on a path to prosperity.
Gates noted the awkwardness of the timing for winding down the foundation, mentioning Elon Musk's sweeping doge cuts of foreign aid. Still, he believes now is the time to act for his philanthropy,
I mean, he already has made a gigantic impact. This pledge probably puts him into the largest philanthropic gifts ever, far bigger than John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, even when you adjust for inflation. Only Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett could potentially nip him at the end because he has a larger fortune than Bill Gates does right now.
But yeah, if you go through Bill Gates' history, $100 billion since its founding. By the way, speaking of Warren Buffett, 41% of the foundation's money so far has come from Warren Buffett. So they have kind of been the number one and number two biggest philanthropic donors over the last quarter century right now. And now Gates just says, I want to accelerate the timeline.
This has been my second calling, my second career. I want to make this impact while I'm still alive here, which is why you saw this pledge basically just speed up the timetable for his giving.
And there's a certain number of metrics that they like to point to to show that their impact on global health is working. Their most prized metric is probably that there's been a drop in childhood deaths from preventable causes by almost half between 2000 and 2020, according to the UN. They don't take full credit for that, but they say their money was a huge catalyst in making this happen.
The share of the world's population living in extreme poverty also has fallen by almost 75% between 1990 and 2014. But since 2014, that's pretty much stagnated. So I think that's why you see Gates really accelerating the timeline here, saying these are things that we can accomplish if we just kind of overload the system with $200 billion in cash.
I don't want this to be a perpetual thing that gives out you know, a few billion dollars here and there. Let's give out $10 billion a year and make this thing go from 75% to 100% in terms of alleviating poverty. And he also made headlines, we have to mention, for, you know, absolutely bashing Elon Musk.
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Chapter 7: What are the reactions to the new Pope's election?
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Let's hit our Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, the segment where Toby and I pick one stock that's planned an elaborate gift for Mother's Day and another that's scrambling at the last minute. I won the pre-show packing a car trunk before a road trip contest, so I get to go first. And my stock is Shark Ninja.
The appliance maker soared 13% yesterday after pulverizing earnings even more than its blenders pulverize your fruit. And not only did its sales outperform expectations last quarter, Thank you so much for having me. And they're super amped about this move because of the higher margins they offer.
Getting into skincare would come on top of existing beauty investments by Shark Ninja, which has already dipped a toe into the sector with hair dryers and stylers. Of course, developing new product lines also means you go up against more stiff competition. And many companies have failed miserably in trying to take the one thing they do well and replicating it elsewhere.
But Shark Ninja is undeterred and seeing solid results so far. For instance, it directly took on Yeti, a beloved brand, by recently launching its first cooler product, which it says is completely sold out.
Shark Ninja is kind of crushing it, and they are running the Dyson playbook here. If that sounded like a lot of products that Dyson makes, you are correct. Shark Ninja started with vacuums and blenders, and then Dyson started with vacuums. Then they expanded into hair care.
I am especially bullish if you are Shark Ninja on this electric styling iron because the Dyson airbrush has become the de facto way that you get ready with. And it is. I've seen it in action. It is a remarkable piece of machinery. So the fact that Shark Ninja has identified this as well definitely looks like it's a growth opportunity.
And then I will say that Shark Ninja is pretty well insulated from tariffs as well. They said that they've had this pretty multi-pronged approach to where they're sourcing their materials from. And so they think that... They will have virtually no exposure to China by the end of the fiscal year. Most companies say that maybe two, three, five years down the line, they can move out of China.
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