Trump scoffs at rising prices for families while his inner circle cashes in on foreign deals
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Okay, so it's been more than a month, if you can believe it, since Donald Trump announced his sweeping and pretty ridiculous tariffs. But Mr. Art of the Deal, as he calls himself, has not yet struck a single trade deal, not a single one, with any single country. but someone very close to him has. This, you can see right here, is Lesotho. It's a tiny, tiny country surrounded entirely by South Africa. It's literally in the middle of South Africa. Now, just to put the size of the country in perspective, which you can definitely tell from the map, it's roughly the size of the state of Maryland. It has about a third of the population. So it's teeny tiny, but it was still hit with tariffs by the Trump team.
And will Trump and the White House have not managed to strike a deal with the kingdom of Lesotho? The Washington Post reports tonight that Elon Musk has. This is from that brand new reporting. Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50% tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, they even note the size, the country's communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink. Now Starlink, as you all know, is of course Elon Musk's satellite communications company. And according to the Washington Post, Starlink had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho for some time. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country awarded Musk's firm the nation's first ever satellite internet service license. Quite a coincidence, isn't it?
Now, this deal even drew a mention in an internal State Department memo obtained by the Washington Post. And here's what that memo said. As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses. The diplomatic translation of that for all of you is the government of Lesotho feels like it's being awfully generous with the Starlink deal. And they're hoping that means something good for them down the road. Now, you may be thinking, Elon Musk is the world's richest guy. Why would he care about landing the satellite contract for a country the size of Maryland? The answer to that question is that it's not just Lesotho. The Post also reports that Starlink has won at least partial accommodations from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam. And the Post even notes, this is probably not a comprehensive count, which means everyone, more coming probably.
Now, it would be one thing if countries were just trying to fill the pockets of Elon Musk on their own accord, maybe because they see Musk in the Oval Office a lot. He's close to Trump. You know, they're calculating a benefit. But the eye-popping element of today's reporting in The Washington Post is that The Post claims to have obtained internal government messages that show U.S. embassies and the State Department proactively pushing nations towards Starling. I mean, it doesn't get much more blatant than this. And I'm just going to quote the story again here because I think it tells you kind of what you need to know. Under Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signed at least two cables asking department staffers worldwide to promote American satellite services, including Starlink, mentioned by name in both missives. Now, another cable from April 17th reported that Starlink was pushing for a license to operate in Djibouti.
Embassy staffers in Djibouti responded that they would help Starlink as much as they could. When asked for comment, the State Department responded to the Washington Post with this. Here's what they said, quote, Sure. OK. Fair. I mean, The Washington Post also accurately notes that the Biden administration pushed other nations to work with American satellite companies, including Starlink. And that's true. They did. But here's the thing, as we all know, Starlink's owner was not one of President Biden's biggest donors who was hanging out in the Oval Office all the time. Nor was Biden strong arming foreign countries to help that particular donor.
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