Gilyonos for Shabbos attached

The UK and US have agreed a trade deal, with Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump confirming the announcement during a live televised phone call.

It is the first trade deal agreed after Mr Trump began his second presidential term in January, and after he imposed strict tariffs on countries around the world in April.

Sir Keir said the “first-of-a-kind” deal with the US will save thousands of jobs across the UK, boost British business and protect British industry.

The deal includes:

• Lowering 27.5% tariff on British car exports to the US to 10%, affecting 100,000 vehicles each year

• UK steel and aluminium industries will no longer face any tariffs after they had 25% duties placed on them

• Beef exports allowed both ways

• UK to have “preferential treatment whatever happens in the future” on pharmaceuticals, the president said.

However, there is still a 10% tariff on most UK goods imported into the US after Mr Trump imposed that duty on most countries’ exports last month.

Mr Trump said the “final details” of the agreement were still being “written up”.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the Politics Hub with Ali Fortescue: “It is a brilliant deal because without the breakthrough on these sectoral tariffs that we’ve been able to announce today, thousands of people stood to lose their jobs very soon in the UK, and the economic damage to the UK would have been very significant from there.”

He said the deal is only the first part and negotiations on the 10% tariffs are “still ongoing”.

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United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says that after speaking with US President Donald Trump and US Vice President JD Vance, he understands that Washington’s actions against Houthi attacks on Israel will depend on whether American citizens are harmed, according to Channel 12 news.

“The United States isn’t required to get permission from Israel to make some type of arrangement that would get the Houthis from firing on our ships,” Huckabee says in a clip from an interview set to air this weekend on the Israeli network.

His comments follow Trump’s surprise announcement this week of a bilateral ceasefire agreement between the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen and the US, after which the rebel group vowed to continue its attacks on Israel.

“Here’s what I can tell you, because I had a conversation with both the president and the vice president last night,” Huckabee continues.

“There’s 700,000 Americans living in Israel, if the Houthis want to continue doing things to Israel and they hurt an American, then it becomes our business,” says the ambassador.

Asked by Channel 12 to clarify whether he means that only if a Houthi missile hits an American citizen will the US intervene to fight the rebel group, the ambassador says, “It’s a matter of what becomes our immediate business.”

Israel threatened Yemen’s Houthi rebels with “heavy” military strikes and warned the group’s Iranian sponsors that they would suffer the same fate as other regional foes of Israel if attacks on the country did not halt.

Speaking two days after the United States announced that it had reached a ceasefire with the Yemeni terror group, Defense Minister Israel Katz called for Israel to be capable of defending itself even if deprived of American support, as some Israeli officials privately expressed concerns over the ramifications of the US deal.

“The Houthis will absorb heavy blows from Israel if they continue firing at us. The IDF is prepared for any mission,” Katz said in a statement early Thursday morning.

He added that Iran, which is accused of funding and arming the Houthis, would also be targeted, saying an array of other Iranian proxy groups that had targeted Israel since war in Gaza broke out with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault had “collapsed.”

“I also warn the Iranian leadership that funds, arms and operates the Houthi terror organization… You are directly responsible. What we did to Hezbollah in Beirut, Hamas in Gaza, to Assad in Damascus and the Houthis in Yemen, will also be done to you in Tehran,” Katz stated, in comments that echoed previous US threats.

The United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh next week.

Dropping the demand that Saudi Arabia establish diplomatic relations with Israel would be a major concession by Washington. Under former US president Joe Biden, nuclear talks were an element of a wider US-Saudi deal tied to normalization and Riyadh’s goal of a defense treaty with Washington.

The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without a guarantee of a viable path to a Palestinian state, frustrating Biden administration attempts to expand the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term. Under those accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalized relations with Israel. Progress toward Saudi recognition of Israel has been halted by fury in Arab countries over the war raging in Gaza. The nuclear talks had also stumbled over Washington’s non-proliferation concerns.

For the UK Jewish Orthodox Community
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Erev Shabbos

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