US-UK Reach Major Trade Deal & Bill Gates Giving Away $200B By 2045
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, AI is resurrecting dead people to give testimony in court and teach writing classes, innovative or creepy. Then Trump announced a framework for a trade deal with the UK. We're sending them Guy Fieri and we're getting back David Beckham. It's Friday, May 9th. Let's ride. Let's ride.

As white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel's chimney yesterday, signaling the election of a new pope, the screech of a bald eagle could be heard in the distance. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born Villanova University math major, was elected as the first American pope in history, taking the name Leo XIV.

As the new Pope made his first appearance on the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square, the crowd went wild and so did people in his native United States who were delirious that a Chicago boy known to his friends as Bob was now the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Many questions remain about what direction he'll take the church in, but at least one mystery has been solved. According to the new Pope's brother, he is a White Sox fan, not a Cubs guy.

First of all, everyone who bet on the Pope yesterday was totally wrong. Prevost was at 0.3% on Polymarket right before the announcement. So whoever backed an American Pope made a pretty penny. But yesterday was an all-time day on the internet. I'm just going to run through some of the best jokes I saw. First,

Chicago Pope, Rome will finally have some good pizza, followed by a lot of jokes about Chicago Deep Dish being the new body of Christ. Then lots of tariff content. The tariffs worked. We're even making popes in America now. And then finally, lots of Chicago sports jokes. Prevost is a Chicago White Sox fan. The Chicago Sun-Times found a picture of him back at the

the 2005 World Series, which means a fan in the stands became the Pope before the White Sox made it back to the World Series. Also, Chicago produced a Pope before a QB who has thrown for over 4,000 yards. So American Pope, really, really great for lots of good jokes.

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Like ice cubes in the summer, some trade tensions with key U.S. partners are beginning to melt. 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 U.S. 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 in 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 U.S. 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 didn't

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. And maybe this is more of a deal, a win for Britain than anything else, given lots of post-Brexit governments have been chasing a broader trade deal with the United States. This agreement,

falls short of that deal, but it is kind of the first deal that they have gotten, that they've been waiting for for many years. But Ryan Peterson from the logistics company Flexport tweeted out, as one of the only countries with a trade surplus with the United States,

The UK was still only able to negotiate a 10% tariff rate. That does not bode well for the rest of the world. So that's one interpretation of this deal. I think one of the big takeaways is that 10% tariff on the rest of the world that Trump implemented is not going away. It's never going to get below 10%, which economists say would drag on economic growth. I thought this was probably the most illuminating part of...

of this press conference that Keir Starmer and Trump had. So Starmer was asked by a reporter if Britain would still face higher tariffs under the deal than it faced before Trump was elected. Starmer replied, the question you should be asking is, is it better than it was yesterday? And maybe that is true, but it certainly is not true than before Trump elected and put 10% tariffs. So if you're looking at the global trade infrastructure right now, there's just going to be 10% tariffs as a baseline throughout America.

Obviously, the biggest cheese here is U.S.-China trade talks. Scott Besson and another trade representative are going to Switzerland to meet with Chinese representatives this weekend. That will be more consequential than anything that was announced here between the United States and the U.K. But yes, I think the biggest winners are probably McLaren, Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover because they're only going to face 10 percent tariffs instead of 25.

The Bill Gates Foundation is marking its 25th year anniversary. And how do you celebrate 25 years of being the most influential philanthropy in the world? You announce your retirement. At least not for a while. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that the Gates Foundation would close its doors in 20 years. That's 2045 if you're counting. While ramping up its giving to deplete Gates' personal wealth by 99% before he dies. So far in 25 years, the Gates Foundation has given almost

$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 phone foundation, mentioning Elon Musk's sweeping doge cuts of

foreign aid. Still, he believes now is the time to act for his philanthropy to make the biggest impact in the shortest period of time. 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 the Bill Gates's history, a hundred billion dollars 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 was 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 U.N. 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 percent 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. He said,

in an interview to the Financial Times, the picture of the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. This is an extension of a feud that Gates and Musk have had for years. And, you know, Gates really is

very much against what Doge has done, cutting USAID budgets and foreign aid around the world. AI usage has reached a new frontier after a family used the tech to resurrect their dead brother to give an impact statement during a trial. In an Arizona courtroom this week, an uncanny representation of Christopher Pelkey, who died from a gunshot wound four years ago, played in front of a courtroom of his now convicted killer's trial.

The video was created by Pelkey's sister, who set off on a mission to humanize her brother using the technology. She collected a total of 48 victim impact statements and relied on her husband and friend to cobble together the simulation using a variety of different AI tools. In another life, we probably could have been friends, the video version of Pelkey said. Towards the end of the hearing, the judge said, I loved that AI. Thank you for that.

Experts say that this is likely the first time in the U.S. that an AI-generated rendering of a deceased victim has been used to deliver an impact statement. But it's far from the only attempt companies are making to bring people back from the dead. Case in point, BBC Maestro, a service kind of like Masterclass, launched a writing course last week taught by an AI version of the mystery writer Agatha Christie in cooperation with her estate trained on her writing and interviews.

Neil, the courtroom resurrection was well-received, and both Christie and Pelkey were resurrected by members of their families. But still, creating digital clones of dead relatives is always going to be a controversial capability of AI, but one that companies are increasingly exploring. For sure. My first question was, is this legal?

In Arizona, it is. Victims can give impact statements in any digital format. So this family, this sister, you know, really catalyzed this particular AI rendering of Pelkey to give the impact statement. It was well received. Some critics have come out saying, well, this is a slippery slope here. If you're bringing AI into the courtroom, we could have consequences.

deepfake evidence and other shenanigans. And there was an instance last year of a man without a lawyer using an AI generated avatar to argue his case in a video. And that video started playing and the judge was like, wait, well, wait, what, what was that? Okay. That's an AI. Like we cannot allow this to proceed. So there is, you know, some concerns around, you know, how far AI will, uh,

influence a courtroom's proceedings. At least in this case, they consider this one of the least unobjectionable versions because it is an impact statement endorsed by the family. But you can see how AI will certainly impact legal proceedings going forward. And digital ghosts in general are certainly a thing that are coming down the pipeline. Companies are trying to train algorithms on people's

digital data, deceased people's digital data so they can offer comfort for friends or family. They think that these ghosts can give people a sense of agency when it comes to confronting deaths. But then you go on the downsides and the risks, which are numerous as well, because one, they

A lot of data privacy laws are probably not well equipped to deal with companies that are mining through a dead person's data and then recreating a simulation of them, but then also healthy grieving...

experts are saying that you're disrupting the grieving process by giving people access to their loved ones once they have a pass. So digital ghosts are certainly a controversial sector of the market, not even when you consider the fact that they could be introduced to legal proceedings as well. I mean, but I will say if you're not concerned by that and you want to

live an AI afterlife, what you should do is go into a room and video yourself talking for a half hour because you need to give the people who will create the AI avatar of you a lot of material and data to build your future AI dead self on.

So this is what the sister of Pelkey did. Actually, she said, now I'm confronting my own mortality. She went and recorded a video of herself in, uh, for 10 minutes and Agatha Christie was recreated because there's a lot of footage of her. Uh, so that was the only way that they were able to do that. So I will say, if you want to live a digital afterlife, go into a room, video, keep yourself, uh, laughing and speaking, laughing and speaking. If you are a person who laughs, uh, and,

that will be the key to help you live after your physical body is gone. Up next, let's talk about Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week.

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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, it's cranking up the setting to high by investing in new areas of growth. The company is expanding from vacuums, blenders and other home products into lucrative markets like beauty and skin care. Analysts found patent filings for new products like light therapy devices, power operated brushes for exfoliating skin, shavers and oral care products. And they're super amped about this move because of the higher margins they offer.

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 remarkable.

will be some 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. They have seen the writing on the wall here and have diversified their supplier base, their manufacturing base to really remove a dependency on China, which is another reason why I think the market is especially bullish on this Massachusetts-based technology.

company. My dog of the week is Krispy Kreme, who reported earnings yesterday that were neither hot nor ready, is reassessing its big rollout with McDonald's and pulled its full year guidance due to economic conditions softer than a dozen fresh donuts. Krispy Kreme's big partnership with the Golden Arches was supposed to be a big national opportunity, but after rolling out to 2,400 of McDonald's 13,500 domestic locations, the companies hit pause to reassess.

We are shocked by the speed at which the story fell apart, Truist analyst Bill Chappell wrote in a note. Especially since a year ago, Krispy Kreme announced their donuts would be sold in all McDonald's U.S. locations by the end of 2026. While initially promising, customers didn't bite on the prospect of pairing their quarter pounder with even more calories and sales have fallen below projections.

Krispy Kreme had also been quickly expanding their capacity in order to serve McDonald's sprawling restaurant footprint, which weighed on the company's overall profits. So now, Neil, Krispy Kreme is a shell of its former self. Its stock fell 24% yesterday and is now down 70% over the last year.

The combination McDonald's and Krispy Kreme hasn't worked out as well as the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. And that may be more of a McDonald's story than a Krispy Kreme story. McDonald's is coming off its worst quarter since peak COVID. Sales are falling. Traffic is falling across the fast food sector. It's been...

hit really hard by inflation, really hard by souring economic sentiment. So perhaps Krispy Kreme just inked a deal with the sector at the worst possible time. And it is pain on top of more pain because they were increasing their capacity to fulfill all of these new McDonald's locations. And this partnership has really hit the skids. Yeah. And they also had a big cybersecurity instance back.

in November too, which hurt its online ordering systems. Online makes up 15.5% of the company's donut shop sales. So it is a rather digital first company as well, which you wouldn't really expect from Krispy Kreme. So yeah, the hits just keep coming, which is tough because they're good donuts. I mean, come on, the product is there. So good luck, Krispy Kreme.

Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. New Zealand has long been home to more sheep than humans, but like the Matrix, humans are staging a comeback. According to latest government figures, there are just four and a half sheep for every one person on the Ovine-dominated island. That is down from a ratio of 22 to 1 back in

in 1982. While nearly five sheep to a man is still a lot of sheep, a shifting agricultural landscape has led to a drop-off in the amount of woolly creatures roaming New Zealand's green fields. Back in the 80s, farming sheep for wool and meat was the nation's

primary economic driver, but the rise of synthetic fibers has kneecapped the industry, leading many farmers to remake their fields to pursue dairy farming or pine forestry in order to sell carbon offsets, which both make more money. Neil, New Zealand has always been the butt of a lot of sheep-related jokes, so make them now because humans are staging that comeback. I mean, in the 80s, those were

very appropriate because in 1982, more than 70 million sheep were in New Zealand compared to 3.2 million people. So that is a great ratio if you're a person. And you're right, Australia had been making a lot of jokes at New Zealand's expense.

about the amount of sheep that they had. But now the gap is narrowing, and it's possible that Australia will have more sheep per person than New Zealand in the coming years. There are about three sheep per Australian currently, and you said there's four and a half sheep per person in New Zealand. So we'll see when they reach parity.

Finally, a Soviet spacecraft from the 1970s could crash your Saturday barbecue, or more like crash into. At some point in the next day, Cosmos 482, which failed to land on Venus when it was launched 53 years ago, is expected to hurtle uncontrolled back to Earth.

Unfortunately, scientists have no idea where this half-ton hunk of metal is going to land, but they project it could fall anywhere from 52 degrees north to 52 degrees south, where virtually all of you are listening to this from. But you probably don't need to strain your neck looking up all weekend. The creaky spacecraft could burn up upon reentry, and more importantly, most of the Earth is water, so the likelihood that it startles a few fish in the ocean is far more likely than it plunking down on your head.

Yeah, the Cosmos 482 is only about a meter wide but weighs 1,190 pounds. So it is short, but it is stout. And modeling suggests that it'll hit the ground at around 150 miles an hour, which honestly doesn't sound crazy fast to me because right now it's currently traveling at 17. You should try it. No, that's not going to feel good if that hits you. But it is not expected to break up into that big, you know, meteor-esque shape.

that happens when objects typically burn up in the Earth's atmosphere because it was designed to reenter in one piece. So you got to be really, really unlucky if the one meter wide object, first of all, hits land in general, not in the ocean. And second of all, if it somehow found its way into someone's personal property, that would just be deeply, deeply unlucky. But it's going to hit somewhere. Yeah, it's got to hit somewhere. It's going to hit somewhere. We hope it's the ocean.

Okay, that's it. That's our shows for the week. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. If you have any thoughts on the show, send an email with your questions, comments, or feedback to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron

is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and the birthday girl, Olivia Lake. Happy birthday, Olivia. Scoops Dardaris is on audio. Hair and Makeup wishes all the MBD moms a happy Mother's Day. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. I wish you all well.