Morning Brew Daily
DoorDash Ups Delivery Reign with $5B Deals & Tariffs Hurt Weddings?
Wed, 07 May 2025
Episode 577: Neal and Toby discuss the meeting between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in an effort to squash the beef in the trade war. Then, DoorDash reports strong Q1 earnings and makes some big acquisitions. And, a deadly parasite that hasn’t been around since the 1980s has popped back up again and is threatening the livestock industry. Next, weddings are becoming more and more expensive because of…yup, tariffs. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow 00:00 - Real ID Starts Today 03:20 - Canada PM Visits the White House 08:40 - DoorDash Expands 11:50 - Screwworms Return 17:40 - Weddings Getting Pricey 21:50 - Headlines All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC. APY as of 3/18/25, subject to change. *Terms and Conditions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the new Real ID requirements for US domestic flights?
Flying within the United States is about to get real. Today is the deadline for U.S. adults to present a real ID at airports to fly domestically, the culmination of a process that began all the way back in 2005 but was delayed numerous times. If you don't have a real ID yet, don't cancel your plans. Homeland Security says you'll still be able to fly just after a few additional identity checks.
Plus, a passport or another TSA-approved form of ID will also get you through to your gate. still posing as a 25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor probably isn't gonna cut it anymore.
Hey, I've been getting away with using my Costco card at the airport for the last few years, so I really gotta get on it. Hopefully it doesn't add to the craziness that is already happening at airports like Newark due to the air traffic controller issues. The Department of Homeland Security did say that 81% of travelers already have real IDs or are compliant with real IDs.
So hopefully things don't get too crazy. But if I were you guys, maybe show up an extra hour or two early for your flights. Do you have your real ID? I do have my real ID. I didn't even notice it. I didn't know it until I Googled, how do you know? Got that little star in the upper right corner. So we're all good here.
Chapter 2: Why did Canadian PM Mark Carney visit the White House?
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One of the last times the U.S. met Canada, there were three fights in the first nine seconds. Their most recent meeting was a little more cordial and also not a hockey game.
Yesterday, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a highly anticipated visit to the White House for a chat with President Trump at a time when the economic ties between the two North American neighbors are fraying like never before.
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Chapter 3: How is DoorDash expanding its global reach?
Yeah, despite this relatively chummy meeting, you are right that the U.S. and Canada are not jumping back into bed with each other to do business because think about business owners. They want things like stability. Banks want stability if they're lending money. Private equity firms want stability. And what do we not have right now between the U.S. and Canada when it comes to trade relations?
Stability. Canada is looking at kind of their dependence on the U.S. and reevaluating here because right now Canada depends on the U.S. for 75% of its exports. That is a huge number. Obviously, their manufacturing sector ships 42% of its output to the U.S. as well. So now you're seeing companies kind of reevaluate and say, hey, where are other customers? Can we look to you?
Asian markets potentially to replace the U.S.? Can we focus on distributing not exclusively to this one market that's typically made up most of our sales? Can we reduce the amount of sales coming in for the U.S.? So you are just seeing this kind of re-evaluation when it comes to who we're relying on for trade partners if you are a Canadian business.
And it's worth remembering, amid all the talk between the U.S. and China, that the U.S. and Canada are each other's largest trading partners. The two exchanged $916 billion in goods and services last year. Yes, Canada sent 75% of its exports to the United States, but the United States also sends $350 billion worth of goods to Canada. And now Canada has retaliated with tariffs on $44 billion worth
worth of goods like alcohol and things like that. So there is an economic pain happening in the other direction, too. And you're already seeing trade levels plummet between these two countries in March. Canadian exports to the U.S. fell 6.6 percent. That doesn't sound like a ton, but it is the biggest drop since the COVID-19 pandemic.
And then imports from the United States to Canada fell 3 percent.
And if we look even smaller at just tiny border towns in Washington that rely on a lot of Canadian tourists to survive, they're seeing a lot of pain there as well. One grocery store said that we've seen sales drop 30% because no one's coming into the US anymore. And then this was a very funny detail from a Bloomberg report. There is a rubber duck museum that used to be located in the US.
And again, most of its customers came from Canada, but they relocated over the border because they could dodge some of the tariffs on Chinese goods because a lot of the rubber ducks were sourced from China. So again, that's a very small scale example, but it just shows you how this decoupling has affected everyone from very large businesses to rubber duck museums.
The travel industry really has been the poster child of this economic fraying. Just recently, WestJet, which is Canada's second largest airline, canceled a planned flight from Vancouver to Austin. It was the first nonstop flight between these two cities. And they just said, well, the demand wasn't there. And you just go down the line from the earnings reports.
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Chapter 4: What is the threat of the screw worm to US livestock?
It all adds up to an industry that is in its consolidation era after a slowdown from pandemic era highs, clearing the way for a lead.
It is bulking season in the delivery industry. You mentioned Uber bought this Turkish delivery app process and also in Europe agreed to buy Amsterdam's Just Eat Takeaway, which is a big delivery competitor in Europe. Wonder Group, which is this delivery startup founded by Jet.com's Mark Lohr, bought Grubhub earlier this year. That company is now worth $7 billion. So you are seeing a
a lot of consolidation in this industry, which really has weathered the post-pandemic slump, I think, a lot better than anyone expected. DoorDash became profitable in the last year, reported really strong earnings. And if you go down the line from these earnings reports from these delivery companies, they're saying we're... we're fine.
Like, I don't know what McDonald's and these other, you know, Starbucks and these other companies are talking about a nervous consumer who's pulling back. I mean, DoorDash CEO Tony Hsu said, we haven't seen any changes in consumer behavior, even if there are changes in consumer sentiment. Instacart CFO got up there and said, no, I haven't seen any signs of a weaker consumer.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called this company recession resistant. So to a T, these companies are saying, we're doing perfectly fine. I don't know what everyone else is
And some companies that you mentioned are even expanding, launching into new markets. Instacart was one that you mentioned. They just launched a new drinks and snack delivery app called Fizz. This is a alcohol and snack delivery specific app that allows you to actually split the cost amongst your friends if you're hosting a party. So
Instead of just having one person buy all the alcohol and then vending them later, they think that you should do that within their app called Fizz because they said young people love doing this. It used to be in the olden days like the host would determine the menu, determine what people are drinking, and bear a lot of the cost.
Now millennials and Gen Z, they want to spread it across their friends. Everyone wants a say in what they're actually going to be eating and drinking. So they launched a standalone app there. So you're right. It's another data point that some of these delivery companies are saying, okay, We are seeing not only that we're doing fine right now, but opportunities for expansion into new markets.
They want to go after the frat party market. Yeah, we'll see how that works out. OK, moving on. A vicious flesh eating fly has broken a biological barrier in Central America and officials warn hordes of them are on their way to wreak economic havoc and do other really gross stuff in the United States. It's not the plot of a new Stephen King novel. This is actually happening.
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Chapter 5: Are tariffs affecting the cost of weddings?
It devastated livestock in the South for decades, costing the US economy hundreds of millions of dollars each year. I mean, this thing can kill a full-grown steer in just 10 days.
But after the US government, working in tandem with Mexican and Central American partners, poured tons of resources into monitoring and eradicating these flesh eaters, screw worms have been virtually absent from the country saving the American consumer more than $1 billion every year on beef by 1974, or $6.5 billion today. Now the screwworm is back on the move while our defenses are down.
More than 950 cases have been reported in Mexico so far this year, with the potential to infest American livestock and also decimate wildlife like deer, hogs, squirrels, and raccoons. As one USDA inspection leader said, I'm now very nervous, almost to the point of being scared. Toby, are we screwed?
I am nervous to the point of being scared. Neil, these things are called flying piranhas because they descend upon livestock. They lay their larvae and their larvae literally eat their way out from the inside. Do not Google this. Do not Google image search this because it is as gross as it sounds. But yeah, back in the 1930s, scientists did have this major breakthrough.
We're like, wait, we can sterilize these flies. It can really keep down populations and hurt the ability of them to reproduce. And by 1950s, they were using literal airplanes to drop millions upon millions of these sterilized flies per week over infected areas, which obviously did wonders to keeping these in check.
And we actually did set up a factory to produce these things alongside the Panama government in the narrowest part of Central America. That's been the most fascinating thing is that these flies cannot travel over water.
So we literally went to the narrowest landmass we could find, set up a production factory that can pump out millions upon millions of these sterilized screw worms every single week and use that to kind of control outbreaks as they happen. But
As with most things in life, as you get further and further away from that initial fear, which was decimating the cattle industry all those years ago, people kind of forgot about it. A lot of veterinarians don't even know how to identify screwworms anymore, which is why it's creeping back into the lexicon and into the agricultural industry.
We just forgot that it was a problem because these sterilization efforts were so successful. But yeah, I am with the USDA official. I am a little bit nervous myself.
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