The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Trump scoffs at rising prices for families while his inner circle cashes in on foreign deals
Thu, 8 May 2025
Jen Psaki takes a closer look at how Elon Musk is benefitting from the understanding that doing business with Musk's companies is a way to curry favor with the United States government. And while Trump's trade war makes basic necessities more expensive for new American families, Trump's own family (and business associates) are cashing in on their proximity to the president of the United States as they make deals abroad.
How is Elon Musk's Starlink benefiting from Trump's tariffs?
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.
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