Trump’s chief trade adviser says Britons will like chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef – US politics live

One point of apparent disagreement between American and British officials seems to be whether the UK will have to drop its digital services tax, imposed on US tech companies like Amazon, Google and Meta.

The tax, which is imposed by several European countries and is set at 2% by the UK on the revenues of search engines, social media services and online marketplaces, was described recently by the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent as an “unfair tax on one of America’s great industries”.

While the 10 Downing Street statement on the new trade deal agreed on Thursday says, “The Digital Services Tax remains unchanged as part of today’s deal”, Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters a short time ago, “we’re still in negotiations with that”.

“That’s a very big deal to President Trump”, Navarro added. “The digital tax has spread like a bad virus around the world, but it started in Europe, and it basically targets American companies”.

According to the UK prime minister’s office, instead of dropping that tax, “the two nations have agreed to work on a digital trade deal that will strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – opening the UK up to a huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy.”

In the House of Commons on Wednesday, the UK’s trade minister, Douglas Alexander, was asked if the digital services tax, and legal regulations to prevent “online harms”, are on the negotiating table. The tax, and those measures on online harms, he said, “remain undisturbed and unchanged by this agreement”.

Peter Navarro, Trump’s chief trade adviser, just told reporters outside the White House that British consumers will like chicken and beef imported from the US despite the use of chlorine and hormones.

“Let’s see what the market decides,” Navarro said when asked about longstanding concerns in the UK about the safety of chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef produced in the US.

“Our position is and always has been”, he added, that sanitary standards are “simply a phony tool used to suppress what is very fine American agricultural product”.

“So if more of that comes into the market and the British people don’t want to buy it, that’s one set of facts,” Navarro said. “We don’t believe that once they taste American beef and chicken that they would prefer not to have it.”

Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and Donald Trump agreed on the need to quickly resolve trade disputes in a phone call on Thursday evening, Reuters reports that a German government spokesperson said.

The two leaders also agreed on the need to closely cooperate with the aim of ending the war in Ukraine, the spokesperson said.

“President Trump congratulated the Chancellor on taking office” earlier this week, the spokesperson said. “Chancellor Merz assured the American President that, 80 years after the end of the second world war, the United States remains an indispensable friend and partner of Germany.”

On the day of his election earlier this week, Merz warned the US to “stay out” of his country’s politics after the far-right AfD received strong backing from allies of the US president, including Vice-President JD Vance and controversial tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Merz condemned recent “absurd observations” from the US, without specifying particular statements, and said he “would like to encourage the American government … to largely stay out of” German domestic politics.

• The state department said a solution to be able to deliver food aid to Gaza was “steps away” and an announcement was coming shortly, although it fell short of detailing what the plan would entail, per Reuters. Gaza is on the brink of catastrophe after two months of a total blockade by Israel.

• Trump and British PM Keir Starmer announced some details of the framework for a future US-UK trade deal, most of which pertained to cars, steel and aluminum, and agriculture. The details have not been finalized, but what was announced today was that tariffs for UK cars imported into the US would be cut from 27.5% to 10% up to a maximum of 100,000 cars a year, while US tariffs of 25% on steel and aluminum would be dropped to zero. On agriculture, Starmer said there had been no compromise on food standards, while the deal would open exclusive access for UK beef farmers to the US. But it also includes £5bn worth of agricultural exports from the US to the UK, with ethanol and beef – of great concern to British farmers – the only products mentioned specifically. US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the deal would “exponentially increase our beef exports” to the UK. While the White House fact sheet and later press release from the US commerce department alluded to “unprecedented access” to the UK market for other American agricultural products being on the table in the talks – which neither side talked about in their press conferences today – they appeared to actually be referring to areas where the US already exports to the UK, albeit in small amounts.

• Trump congratulated Pope Leo XIV on his election to head the Catholic Church on Thursday, writing on Truth Social that it “is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope”. Trump said he was looking forward to meeting Robert Francis Prevost, who is originally from Chicago. A quick glance at Prevost’s X account gives some indication to his possible views on the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Whether this might put him on a similar path to the late Pope Francis, who had a difficult relationship with the US president as a vocal critic of his most aggressive policies, remains to be seen.

• Bill Gates announced plans to shutter the Gates Foundation in 2045 and also strongly criticized Elon Musk for slashing funding to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), accusing the Tesla CEO of “killing the world’s poorest children” in new interviews.

• Trump said he will nominate a new candidate to serve as Washington DC’s top federal prosecutor, after his first pick Ed Martin, who holds the job on an interim basis, failed to garner enough support to advance in the Senate. Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who sits on the Senate judiciary committee, appeared to deal Martin’s nomination a fatal blow when he told reporters he could not support him because of Martin’s past comments which downplayed the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack.

• The Trump administration asked the supreme court to intervene in its bid to revoke the temporary legal status granted by Joe Biden to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the US.

• An Irish woman who was detained by US immigration authorities because of a criminal record dating back almost 20 years was released after 17 days in custody.

Reuters reports that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was speaking to Donald Trump on Thursday evening (Ukrainian time), according to Zelenskyy’s spokesperson Serhiy Nikiforov.

We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

The state department said a solution to be able to deliver food aid to Gaza was “steps away” and an announcement was coming shortly, although it fell short of detailing what the plan would entail, Reuters reports.

Gaza is on the brink of catastrophe after two months of a total blockade by Israel, aid workers say, with many families down to one meal a day. Medical officials report rising cases of acute malnutrition, and community kitchens that served 1m meals a day are shutting down for lack of basic essentials. Aid agencies say they have distributed all remaining stocks of food. Dozens of bakeries that supplied vital free bread closed last month.

I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

My colleague Peter Walker has this very helpful explainer from a UK perspective of the key points of the US-UK trade deal that was announced to be under discussion today.

• Tariffs for UK cars imported into the US will be cut from 27.5% to 10%, up to a maximum of 100,000 cars a year, close to total exports last year (after that the tariff will be 25%). This was, Starmer said, a “huge and important reduction” – even if it is capped, and still a tariff.

• Agriculture is the most potentially tricky area of the deal, not least due to concerns among UK voters – and farmers – about chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef. The result was hailed by Downing Street as “a win for both nations”. As ever, the devil could be in the detail. Government officials said there had been no compromise on food standards, while the deal would open exclusive access for UK beef farmers to the US. But, it also includes £5bn worth of agricultural exports from the US to the UK, with the US agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, saying the deal would “exponentially increase our beef exports” to the UK.

Read Peter’s full piece here:

Americans are celebrating after US cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who will be known as Pope Leo XIV, was announced as the next pope.

“Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was just named Pope. It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after the pope, who was born in Chicago, appeared on the Vatican balcony in Rome, Italy on Thursday.

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson quipped on X about Prevost’s appointment:

Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago! Congratulations to the first American Pope Leo XIV! We hope to welcome you back home soon.

The US Embassy to the Holy See also lauded the new pope on X:

With joy we extend our heartfelt congratulations to the first Pope from the United States of America, His Holiness Robert Francis Prevost, as Pope Leo XIV, elected as the 267th Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church.

As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council astutely notes on X, the new pope didn’t post on his X account at all in 2024, but in 2025 he has posted twice and reposted three times.

Of his own posts, Robert Prevost – now Pope Leo XIV – posted an article criticizing vice-president JD Vance’s take on Jesus, and posted another article critiquing Vance’s statements on the administration’s deportation policies. Two of his reposts were to do with the health of the late Pope Francis, and his most recent repost was criticism of Donald Trump and El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele’s laughter at Kilmar Ábrego García (who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration and whose reeturn to the US the supreme court has ordered the administration to facilitate).

Earlier, Trump said he looked forward to meeting with the new pope, who he had “realised” was the first American to hold the position. How Pope Leo’s personal views will influence their relationship going forward will be interesting to see. Indeed, Trump had a difficult relationship with the late Pope Francis, a vocal critic of many of his policies – particularly his crackdown on immigration which, as recently as February this year, Francis called a “major crisis”.

Donald Trump said he will nominate a new candidate to serve as Washington DC’s top federal prosecutor, after his first pick Ed Martin, who holds the job on an interim basis, failed to garner enough support to advance in the Senate.

“I was disappointed. A lot of people were disappointed, but that’s the way it works sometimes,” Trump said in the Oval Office earlier. “We have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days who’s going to be great.” A spokesperson for Martin’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

A source close to the Senate judiciary committee earlier this week said the committee would not move forward with a vote before Martin’s interim term expires on 20 May.

Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who sits on the committee, appeared to deal Martin’s nomination a fatal blow when he told reporters he could not support him because of Martin’s past comments which downplayed the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack.

Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the panel, said he was “relieved” that the nomination was withdrawn and that “Martin’s record made it clear that he does not have the temperament or judgment” for the top US law enforcement job for the nation’s capital.

Per Politico: “Martin has spent the last few years advocating for January 6 defendants and helping organize their legal defense. He has embraced conspiracy theories about the attack and the results of the 2020 election and he has spoken favorably about some of the most egregious perpetrators of the riot.

“He also has also drawn scrutiny for his evasive answers to the judiciary committee about his relationship with January 6 defendant Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who had been accused of openly anti-Semitic behavior, and omission of dozens of appearances on Russian state media in recent years.”

It was unclear what is next for Martin. Trump said he would consider giving him another role in the administration, potentially in the department of justice.

Donald Trump congratulated Pope Leo on his election to head the Catholic Church on Thursday, writing on Truth Social that it “is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope”.

US cardinal Robert Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV, is originally from Chicago. Trump went on:

What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!

For more from the Vatican, my colleague Jakub Krupa has been live-blogging the moment:

Tom Bradshaw, president of the UK’s National Farmers’ Union, told the Guardian he is concerned the beef imported from the US will be produced to a lower standard than the UK product. He said:

80% of our beef diet comes from grass so it’ll be interesting to see exactly what the standards for the imported beef is. We are unclear on that as the details are still being worked on.

Many beef cattle are fed with soy, which can be bad for the environment as it comes from sensitive areas including the Amazon rainforest.

Bradshaw said the “main focus” in their recent lobbying was on hormone-treated beef, but said “the large US beef lots were also a big concern for our members – we will be watching that very closely.”

The US has vast factory farms for its beef, which outcompete those in the UK, farmers fear. Bradshaw added:

What we need to look at is how the US beef is produced, what are the health and welfare standards and what is the diet. [British] beef is one of the most sustainable in the world.

However, he said he was pleased the UK secured reciprocal access to the beef market, adding:

We’ve had a very clear ask that we wanted reciprocal access back, and the red lines on animal health and welfare standards have thankfully been maintained. We cannot see agriculture used as a pawn to shoulder the burden of tariffs.

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said she hopes to expand today’s agreement to include “all meats” and that she will be visiting the UK next week to make this point, adding: “There is no industry that has been treated more unfairly than our agriculture industry.”

Bradshaw replied “good luck with that,” adding:

The [UK] government is trying to negotiate with the EU [which also has high food standards] at the same time so that sounds unfeasible.

The US-UK trade deal includes £5bn worth of agricultural exports. The farming sector in the UK has been very concerned about farmers being undercut with cheap products from the US, which has lower environmental standards for its food than the UK. They say the large beef feedlots in the US outcompete the smaller farms in the UK.

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters:

This [trade deal] is going to exponentially increase our beef exports. American beef is the crown jewel of American agriculture for the world.

UK ministers have been clear that chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef will not be included in any deal, but Rollins said she hopes to expand today’s agreement to include “all meats” and that she will be visiting the UK next week to make this point, adding:

There is no industry that has been treated more unfairly than our agriculture industry.

Donald Trump, however, mentioned that US agriculture could end up being produced to higher health and environmental standards under the leadership of his health chief Robert F Kennedy Jr, adding:

Bobby Kennedy is probably heading towards your system.

The UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sources said imports of hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal, and that the deal will open up exclusive access for UK beef farmers to the US market. They said only a few countries such as Australia have this access.