Donald Trump welcomes Keir Starmer to Washington DC today.
And if you listen to the mood music from officials and diplomats on both sides, you’d think the pair were best buds looking forward to a cordial and productive meeting.
And maybe that’s true.
But as usual the Donald and his entourage have done a number of things in the last 24 hours that make things a little awkward for Starmer’s arrival.
Measles is back, as is Ebola. Tariffs are back on the agenda.
Oh, and a couple of guys wanted for alleged sex crimes in the UK have been welcomed into the US with open arms.
Here’s a few things Trump has done in the last 24 hours that you should know about before Starmer’s arrival.
1. The Tate brothers have landed in Florida
(
AP)
Nicely timed for Keir Starmer’s arrival in Washington, chinless internet weirdo Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in Florida – released from their Romanian travel ban allegedly as a result of US pressure.
Tate, who is wanted in the UK on allegations of sexual aggression, and deny charges of human trafficking, sexual misconduct and money laundering in Romania.
The Tates will, for some reason, get all their fancy cars and watches back and will be allowed to stay in the US for a month to conduct “business”, before returning to Romania.
Sure.
2. Elon accidentally defunded ebola protection. Whoopsie.
Speaking at the top of Trump’s first cabinet meeting, Elon Musk made quite a startling admission.
“We will make mistakes,” he said. “We won’t be perfect. But when we make a mistake we’ll fix it very quickly.”
He went on: “One of the things we accidentally cancelled – very briefly – was ebola. Ebola prevention. I think we all want ebola prevention, so we restored that immediately. So there was no interruption.”
Problem is, according to the Washington Post, DOGE did not “restore” the ebola prevention effort.
“There was a waiver for Ebola, but USAID funds have never been back online,” a current official told the Post. “USAID has been frozen: staff and money.”
“If there was a need to respond to Ebola, it would be a disaster assistance response team, or DART,” a former official said. “There is no longer a capability to send a DART or support one from Washington. Many of those people are contractors who were let go at the very beginning.”
Top.
3. NICE NEW LAW!
Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social account what seems to be a pre-emptive strike against “fake books and stories” based on “anonymous” or “off the record stories.”
Trump, hailed as the “free speech president”, suggested he plans to sue publishers and authors, adding: “Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!”
4. Measles is back. Very cool.
Asked at Trump’s cabinet meeting about the death of a young child in West Texas from measles, RFK Jr responded: “It’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks all the time.”
This is the first measles death in the United States for a decade. The child was unvaccinated.
The number of confirmed cases in West Texas has now reached 124 – mostly children ages 5-17. In the entire United States last year, there were only 285 cases of measles.
Nearly 14% of children in Gaines Country, Texas have an exemption from the measles vaccine, granted for reasons of conscience or religious belief.
RFK Jr, America’s foremost vaccine conspiracy theorist, is now in charge of America’s healthcare, heading up the department of Health and Human Services.
Yesterday he also reportedly cancelled a meeting where clinicians were due to identify which strains of flu would be included in this year’s flu shot.
5. Tariffs are also back
Trump confirmed he’s going to slap tariffs on Mexico and Canada from Tuesday after all – as well as doubling the 10% universal tariff imposed on imports from China.
Posting on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said that illicit drugs such as fentanyl are being smuggled into the United States at “unacceptable levels” and that import taxes would force other countries to crack down on the trafficking.
“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” the Republican president wrote. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”
Barely any fentanyl comes into the US over the Canadian border. Literally almost none.
Trump also said yesterday that European countries would face a 25% tariff – with separate charges on cars, computer chips and pharmaceutical drugs that would be levied in addition to the reciprocal tariffs.