Episode 519: Neal and Toby discuss the major announcement from President Trump imposing reciprocal tariffs on many of America’s trading partners that could shake up global trade. Then, RFK Jr. is confirmed as the new Head of Health and Human Services as he tries to upend and overhaul the food industry which he blames as the majority of America’s health problems. Next, Robinhood gains ground in the crypto trading game, setting up fierce competition among crypto heavyweights. Meanwhile, DoorDash is the Stock of the Week and Reddit is the Dog of the Week. Lastly, a roundup of the biggest headlines for the weekend! 00:00 - 6-sec kiss can extend your life? 3:15 - Reciprocal tariffs coming? 9:20 - RFK Jr. confirmed to lead Health and Human Services 14:00 - Robinhood boosted by crypto 18:00 - Stock of the Week: DoorDash 21:15 - Dog of the Week: Reddit 24:00 - Sprint Finish! 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. Check out https://wise.com/business for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How can a six-second kiss improve your relationship?
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Trump goes full Hammurabi's code, pledging an eye for an eye with reciprocal tariffs on the countries of the world. Then RFK Jr.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of Trump's reciprocal tariffs?
was confirmed as the nation's top health official, while everyone from cereal makers to drug makers are bracing for change. It's Friday, February 14th. Happy Valentine's Day, and let's ride.
Love is in the air this Valentine's Day, and whether you're headed on a third date or going strong 20 years with your partner, here's a little tip that could add a lot of intimacy to your relationship. Kiss for six seconds each day.
Kissing for six seconds, a method pioneered by clinical psychologists John and Julie Gottman, is the threshold at which your body will release oxytocin, the hormone that calms the fear center of the brain, builds trust in a relationship, and is the same one believed to be responsible for a baby bonding with its mother.
They developed this intentional intimacy concept after studying more than 3,000 couples over 30 years. Don't want to smooch each day? Maybe your lips are a little cracked? Another scientist found that a 20-second hug is pretty much the equivalent.
Okay, lots of thoughts here, Neil. First, are there compounding returns if six seconds of kiss and 20 seconds of hug release X amount of octytocin? That would a 60-second kiss and a 200-second hug release 10 times that amount? If I kiss someone for six hours, am I going to be the happiest person on earth? That was my first question. Probably be a little hungry.
You would probably get a little hungry by the end. But also, what other activities derive a similar amount of chemical satisfaction? I was thinking maybe a 45-second firm handshake might get it done. Or, you know, two hours worth of high fives. Just little bursts of oxytocin here and there. But thank you for sharing these intimacy plans on this day dedicated to love.
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Chapter 3: Why is RFK Jr.'s appointment to Health and Human Services significant?
I think I might try it out later this evening with my girlfriend. Now a word from our sponsor, Wise Business. Sometimes running an international business just feels like being stuck in a giant maze.
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Remember all those other tariffs the Trump administration has talked about? Small potatoes. Yesterday, the president unveiled what he deemed the big one, a set of reciprocal duties meant to even out trade deficits America has with other countries. Federal agencies are taking it slow, initially conducting studies on how to
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Chapter 4: How is Robinhood capitalizing on the crypto market?
update tariffs before implementing them in April, but nearly every country that conducts international trade will likely be affected, especially the likes of India, Japan, and the EU. It's time to be reciprocal. You'll be hearing that word a lot, Trump said earlier this week. If they charge us, we charge them. This reciprocal approach extends the U.S.
's trade wars to far more countries outside of just China, but we'll have to wait and see if this strategy is to try and extract concessions, as Trump has been known to do, or a legitimate attempt to raise import barriers and non-tax revenue in the process.
Either way, implementing a new tariff code is a massive undertaking that will require re-evaluating hundreds of countries' current policies in less than two months. Neil, the big one is here.
And the big spreadsheet is coming. I mean, if you think you're good with Excel, the Trump administration probably wants to hire you because this is about to be the most gnarly spreadsheet ever. Imagine going to a tailor and getting a custom suit for every single country. That's exactly what is about to happen. And it's not just...
Chapter 5: What makes DoorDash the Stock of the Week?
tariffs, because say, Toby, I'm trading with you and you have 10% tariffs and I have 2% tariffs. So I say, OK, reciprocal, I will bump my tariffs up to 10%. No, there was a huge Clayton Kershaw level curveball here, which is that it applies to more tariffs. you know, trade barriers than just tariffs.
They want to go after subsidies, regulations, value added taxes, exchange rates and other factors, all that amount to trade barriers on the United States. And that will go into their calculation that what is deemed reciprocal. So, yeah, this is not going to happen within weeks or months that so they're hidden.
They're hidden the books and figuring out what a reciprocal relationship actually looks like.
Chapter 6: Why is Reddit considered the Dog of the Week?
Let's take a step back and think about what the current system is and why Trump wants to remake it. Remember, we are currently in a global trade environment. Following World War II, a lot of the most powerful economies and countries in the world signed this thing called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, GATT. That ushered in this era of scratching each other's back.
The agreement was eventually turned into and absorbed by the World Trade Organization. So for a long time, this word tariff has been Kind of this ugly word because you wanted to supercharge global trade. You wanted to open up a lot of these pathways.
But now the Trump administration thinks that higher tariffs is this pathway towards bringing manufacturing back to the United States and also potentially boosting revenue that you're going to lose if he implements these tax cuts. So there's been a lot of criticism of these plans, obviously, but this is kind of what Trump wants. has been pushing for.
Chapter 7: What are the biggest headlines for the weekend?
He wants to even the playing field on the global level, which really does upend the system we've been operating under since post-World War II.
Yeah, and economists would push back on Trump's reciprocal pushes and say, look, the reason that tariff rates differ is because different companies Different countries are really good at making different things, and we trade with each other so that, you know, one plus one equals three, and a good example of this is coffee. Brazil is great at making coffee beans.
They are the largest exporter in the world. The United States... not so good at making coffee beans. Our climate is just not acclimated to that. So Brazil has a tariff on green coffee beans of 9% because they have a big domestic industry there. They want to protect it. So they are putting tariffs on coffee beans coming into their country. The United States
we don't make any coffee beans, so we have 0% tariffs, and that is to have cheaper coffee, because if we put tariffs on coffee, we import all of them, essentially, so it'll just raise prices for consumers. And then on the converse of that, let's look at an industry like pickup trucks. The United States is really good at making pickup trucks.
If you haven't noticed, just go to your local mall and look at all the cars in the parking lot. Japan makes good cars, but they aren't good at making pickup trucks. So Japan has a 0% tariff on pickup trucks coming from the United States because they want their consumers to have as cheap pickup trucks as possible. The U.S.
has a tariff of 25% on pickup trucks from Japan because we have a local big industry here that we want to protect. So that's sort of How it's shaken out over the past few decades, this is the reason why we have differing trade and tariff rates, and now it looks like that is going to be shaken up.
And one of the other final critiques here is that if you insist that we are going to match your tariff rate, we're going to be reciprocal with whatever you're charging us, we charge you, then you basically are handing over your entire trade strategy to other nations because they say, oh, you're going to match us. we're going to jack imports up to, or the tariff rate up to 20%.
Now you have to jack it up to 20%. So you're like almost taking your agency away when dictating how you want to deal with other countries. So yeah, there is just widely varying tariff rates, depending on which country you're even talking about. I mean, India has tariffs of 60% on automobiles and flowers, 50% on apples, coin, apples, corn, and motorcycles.
These are domestic industries that they want to protect. So I, Let's go back to this spreadsheet. It is going to be quite this undertaking because there's just so many different industries, so many different countries that you have to sort through and come up with a cohesive plan.
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