AFP USA

The United States’ measles outbreak has surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases with three deaths so far, state and local data showed Friday, marking a stark resurgence of a vaccine-preventable disease that the nation once declared eliminated.The surge comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to undermine confidence in the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine — a highly effective shot he has falsely claimed is dangerous and contains fetal debris.An AFP tally showed there have been at least 1,012 cases since the start of the year, with Texas accounting for more than 70 percent.A vaccine-skeptical Mennonite Christian community straddling the Texas–New Mexico border has been hit particularly hard.A federal database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has lagged behind state and county reporting, as the globally renowned health agency faces deep workforce and budget cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.North Dakota is the latest state to report an outbreak, with nine cases so far. Around 180 school students have been forced to quarantine at home, according to the North Dakota Monitor.”This is a virus that’s the most contagious infectious disease of mankind and it’s now spreading like wildfire,” Paul Offit a pediatrician and vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia told AFP.He warned the true case count could be far higher, as people shy away from seeking medical attention. “Those three deaths equal the total number of deaths from measles in the last 25 years in this country.”The fatalities so far include two young girls in Texas and an adult in New Mexico, all unvaccinated — making it the deadliest US measles outbreak in decades.It is also the highest number of cases since 2019, when outbreaks in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey resulted in 1,274 infections but no deaths.- Vaccine misinformation -Nationwide immunization rates have been dropping in the United States, fueled by misinformation about vaccines, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The CDC recommends a 95 percent vaccination rate to maintain herd immunity.However, measles vaccine coverage among kindergartners has dropped from 95.2 percent in the 2019–2020 school year to 92.7 percent in 2023–2024.Measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus spread through droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or simply breathes.Known for its characteristic rash, it poses a serious risk to unvaccinated individuals, including infants under 12 months who are not ordinarily eligible for vaccination, and those with weakened immune systems.Before the measles vaccine’s introduction in 1963, it is thought that millions of Americans contracted the disease annually, and several hundred died. While measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, outbreaks persist each year.Susan McLellan, an infectious disease professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch, pushed back against messaging that promotes remedies like Vitamin A — which has valid but limited uses — over vaccines.Kennedy has led that messaging in frequent appearances on Fox News.”Saying we’re going to devote resources to studying therapies instead of enhancing uptake of the vaccine is a profoundly inefficient way of addressing a vaccine-preventable disease,” she told AFP.McLellan added that the crisis reflects broader erosion in public trust in health authorities.She said it is hard for an individual untrained in statistics to understand measles is a problem if they don’t personally see deaths around them. “Believing population-based statistics takes a leap, and that’s public health.”

San Francisco’s main public transport system abruptly shut down Friday morning, stopping all trains in the Bay Area and throwing the morning commute into chaos.”Due to a computer networking problem BART service is suspended system wide until further notice,” said a message on the Bay Area Rapid Transit website.”Seek alternate means of transport.”The shutdown left tens of thousands of commuters scrambling to find other ways to work.Pictures showed crowds of people pressing aboard buses, while reports said both the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oakland Bay Bridge — key routes into and out of the city — were clogged.Unlike many major US cities, San Francisco has a well developed public transport network that includes an underground train network, buses, trams and ferries that traverse the bay between San Francisco and other cities in the region.The closure of the BART train system, whose 131 miles (210 kilometres) of track carry more than 174,000 passengers every day, appeared to be related to how the system had powered up after overnight maintenance, communications officer Alicia Trost told ABC7.There was no immediate indication that the problems had been the result of a cyberattack, she said.The halt caused misery for those trying to get to work.David Meland told the San Francisco Chronicle he had waited in vain outside his local station for an hour to see if the service would resume.”It’s happened a lot. BART’s just too inconsistent,” he said. “This is pretty bad.”Patrick Dunn, who had driven to an exurban station to ride into the city said he was going to have to switch transport.”Now I have to take the bus, and I never take the bus,” he told the Chronicle.”I already have a long commute and now I have to wait for the (bus). I’ll be late by an half hour or so.”The shutdown came on the day that the overstretched airport in Newark, one of three serving greater New York, also suffered an outage — the second in the last few weeks.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said there “was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display” at the same Philadelphia traffic control station that guides aircraft in and out of Newark’s airspace.The outage occurred around 03:55 (07:55 GMT) on Friday and “lasted approximately 90 seconds,” a short statement said.

NATO chief Mark Rutte wants member countries to agree at a summit in June to reach five percent of GDP on defence-related spending by 2032, Dutch premier Dick Schoof said Friday.US President Donald Trump has demanded that NATO allies ramp up their military spending to five percent of GDP, a level that not even the United States currently hits.Schoof said Rutte had written to NATO’s 32 member countries calling for them to reach 3.5 percent of GDP on “hard military spending” and 1.5 percent of GDP on “related spending such as infrastructure, cybersecurity and other things” over the next seven years.Trump is piling the pressure on Europe and Canada to ratchet up NATO’s spending target at a summit in The Hague next month. Foreign ministers from alliance countries are expected to tackle the matter at an informal gathering in Antalya, Turkey, next week.Rutte on Friday refused to confirm the figures being debated but said “internal discussions” were taking place within NATO.Diplomats within NATO, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the proposal circulated last week envisioned increasing direct military spending by 0.2 percent each year to 2032.They said the discussions were at an early stage and there were no clear signs yet that there would be consensus for the figures.The parameters of what could be included in the 1.5 percent of loosely related defence spending were still to be defined, they said.”It makes no sense to argue about abstract GDP percentages now. What is crucial is that we continuously expand our efforts over the next few years,” Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz said during a visit to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels on Friday. Merz said that for Germany, every increase of one percent of GDP represented 45 billion euros ($50 billion).  – Trump threatens -Trump has long accused Washington’s allies of underspending on their defence and taking advantage of US largesse.He has also threatened not to protect countries that do not spend enough on their military in his eyes.European countries have ramped up their defence spending since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but Rutte says they must go considerably higher to ward off Moscow.Last year 22 of NATO’s 32 allies hit its current spending target of two percent of GDP on their militaries. A string of countries such as Italy, Spain, Canada and Belgium that still lag below that level have pledged to reach it in 2025. The United States last year spent 3.19 percent of its GDP on defence, behind eastern flank countries Poland, Estonia and Lithuania close to Russia. But Washington remains by far the biggest military spender in NATO in absolute terms, accounting for 64 percent of all defence expenditure last year.In a bid to help European countries bolster their spending, the EU has proposed loosening budget rules and establishing a 150-billion-euro defence fund. 

Leo XIV urged the Catholic Church to work urgently to restore the faith of millions in his first homily as pope Friday, a day after the little-known cardinal become the first head of the 2,000-year institution from the United States.Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost became the 267th pope, spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics and successor to Argentina’s Pope Francis on Thursday, after a secret vote by fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.In today’s world, Leo warned in his homily to assembled cardinals, there are places or situations where “it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied”.”Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed,” said the new pope, 69, standing at the Sistine Chapel altar with Michelangelo’s famed fresco of “The Last Judgment” behind him.The former missionary deplored “settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent”. And in an echo of his predecessor Francis, he said people were turning to “technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.”-‘Walk with me’ -“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society,” said Leo in Italian, wearing a white papal robe trimmed in gold as he addressed the seated white-robed cardinals. In an apparent message to evangelical Christians, Pope Leo also warned that Jesus cannot be “reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman”.”This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptised Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism,” he said.In an unscripted introduction to his homily in English, he also evoked a need to overcome divisions within the Church, telling his fellow cardinals: “I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me”.Many around the world were still digesting the choice of the man sometimes referred to in Rome as the “Latin Yankee” for his decades-long missions in Peru.”A pope from the United States is almost more surprising than an Argentine and Jesuit pope,” such as Francis, wrote the Corriere della Sera daily. Francis was the first pope ever named from the Americas.- Missionary in Peru -The Vatican released video images of the moments after Leo’s secret election Thursday, showing him praying at a chapel altar and shaking hands and receiving congratulations in a sea of scarlet-robed cardinals.The American, a member of the Augustinian order who spent two decades in Peru and was only made a cardinal in 2023. But he had been on many Vatican watchers’ lists of potential popes, although he is far from being a globally recognised figure.Over the coming days, including during Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer and a meeting with journalists at the Vatican on Monday, his actions and words will be closely scrutinised.He will meet with diplomats on May 16 and on Sunday May 18 will hold an inauguration mass at St Peter’s Square, which is expected to draw world leaders and thousands of pilgrims.Waiting outside St Peter’s Friday, Argentine tourist Rocio Arguello said “there were so many people from all over the world” who were riveted by Leo’s first appearance the day before, including throngs from Spanish-speaking countries.”It was very moving when he also spoke in Spanish,” said the 39-year-old woman. “When he came out and spoke both languages, it was lovely.”Back in Peru, well-wishers including the bishop of El Callao outside Lima, Luis Alberto Barrera, saluted the Augustinian’s engagement in the Andean country.”He showed his closeness and simplicity with the people,” Barrera told AFP, calling the new pope a “good missionary”.In Chicago, locals celebrated his love of baseball, deep-dish pizza and his working-class South Side neighbourhood in the United States’ third-largest city.The Chicago Tribune called him “the pride and joy of every priest and nun” at his local parish, where he went to school and served as an altar boy, while a debate erupted over which of the city’s rival baseball teams Leo supported: the White Sox, his brother ultimately confirmed.- Build bridges -In his address to the crowds Thursday, Leo echoed his predecessor Francis with a call for peace and urging a “missionary Church”.”Help us, and each other, to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace,” he said, as world leaders sent pledges to work with him on global issues at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty. Leo faces a momentous task. As well as asserting his moral voice on a conflict-torn world stage, he must try to unite a divided Church and tackle burning issues such as the continuing fallout from the clerical sexual abuse scandal.As Cardinal Prevost, the new pope defended workers and the poor and reposted articles online critical of US President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant policies.But Trump nevertheless welcomed his election, calling it a “great honor” to have a pope from the United States.With the choice of Prevost, experts said, the cardinals had opted for continuity with the late Francis, a progressive who shook up the Church in his 12-year papacy.”We’re looking for someone following the pathway of Francis, but… I believe Pope Leo will not be a photocopy of Pope Francis,” said US Cardinal Robert W. McElroy.Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi told the Corriere della Sera that Leo was “a very simple person, intensely kind. He is in the vein of Francis, but less spiky”.

Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday.”The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.On Thursday, US lawmakers voted in favor of the name change, turning into federal law an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in his first week in office in January. Sheinbaum had warned Google, which is part of tech giant Alphabet, in February that she was considering legal action unless the company reversed its decision.Her government argues that Trump’s executive order on the subject only applies to the part of the continental shelf belonging to the United States”All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with,” Sheinbaum said.”The US government only calls the portion of the US continental shelf the Gulf of America, not the entire gulf, because it wouldn’t have the authority to name the entire gulf,” she added.In response to Trump, Sheinbaum has cheekily suggested calling the United States “Mexican America,” pointing to a map dating back to before 1848, when one-third of her country was seized by the United States.The neighboring countries are in talks to defuse tensions over Trump’s global trade war, which has included a series of tariff announcements targeting Mexico.

US President Donald Trump has fired the country’s top librarian, a senator said, cutting short the term of the only woman and first African American to take on the role.New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich shared an email late Thursday that he said Carla Hayden had received informing her of her termination from the role of librarian of Congress “effective immediately.” “Over the course of her tenure, Dr. Hayden brought the Library of Congress to the people, with initiatives that reached into rural communities and made the library accessible to all Americans, in person and online,” Heinrich said. “While President Trump wants to ban books and tell Americans what to read — or not to read at all — Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone.”Hayden was nominated to manage the world’s largest library in 2016 but has been criticized by conservatives, including members of the American Accountability Foundation lobby group, which has accused her of seeking to “indoctrinate America’s children with radical sexual ideologies.””Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” the group posted on social media hours ahead of the librarian’s firing. “It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”Hayden’s 10-year term was set to expire next year. The Library of Congress provides research and information for the legislative process as well as managing a vast collection of books, films, audio recordings and other materials.The librarian of Congress is responsible for setting policy and managing staff, while also overseeing the US Copyright Office and appointing the poet laureate.Hakeem Jeffries, who leads the Democrats in the House of Representatives, called her dismissal “a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.””The Library of Congress is the People’s Library. There will be accountability for this unprecedented assault on the American way of life sooner rather than later,” he said in a statement.The library did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

US President Donald Trump signaled on Friday that he could lower tariffs on Chinese imports, as the rival superpowers prepare for trade talks over the weekend.”80% Tariff on China seems right!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, which would bring them down from 145 percent, with cumulative duties on some goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.He added that it was “Up to Scott B.”, referring to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who will confer with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend in Geneva to try to cool the conflict roiling international markets.In his post Trump did not say if he thought 80 percent should be the final, definitive level for tariffs on Chinese goods if and when the trade war ends, or an interim status.In retaliation China has slapped 125 percent levies on US goods.In another post, this time all in capital letters, Trump said “China should open up its market to USA — would be so good for them!!! Closed markets don’t work anymore!!!”Chinese official data on Friday showed that the country’s global exports rose in April despite the trade war.Experts said that the forecast-smashing 8.1-percent rise indicated that Beijing was re-routing trade to Southeast Asia to mitigate US tariffs while exports to the United States fell 17.6 percent.”The global supply chain is being rerouted in real time,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management wrote in a note.”The manufacturing juggernaut is diverting flow wherever the tariff pain isn’t,” he said.China has insisted its position that the United States must lift tariffs first remains “unchanged” and vowed to defend its interests.Bessent has said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on “de-escalation” — and not a “big trade deal”.Trump told reporters Thursday that he thought the Geneva talks would be “substantive” and when asked if reducing the levies was a possibility, he said “it could be”.- Markets up -Trump’s Truth Social post came a day after he unveiled what he called a historic trade agreement with Britain, the first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs last month.Trump said the British deal would be the first of many, and that he hoped difficult talks with the EU — as well as China — could soon produce results too.Several countries have lined up to hold talks with Washington to avert the worst of Trump’s duties, which range from 10 percent for many countries to the sky high ones on China — Trump’s main target.Major stock markets mostly rose Friday on growing optimism that tariff tensions will ease.US futures were up while European markets were all in the green after a mixed showing in Asia.The Frankfurt DAX index hit a record high before Trump’s social media post, recouping losses spurred by the US president’s April tariffs announcements.In the first trade deal since Trump’s blitz of sweeping global tariffs, Washington agreed to lower levies on British cars and lift them entirely on steel and aluminium. In return, Britain will open up markets to US beef and other farm products, but a 10 percent baseline levy on British goods remained intact.

One of the most pressing issues facing Pope Leo XIV is tackling sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church — and campaigners say he has a mixed record.Two victims’ rights groups, SNAP and Bishop Accountability, issued statements following his election as the first pope from the United States on Thursday, questioning the 69-year-old’s commitment to lifting the lid on the scourge.As head of the Augustinian order worldwide and then as bishop of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo between 2015 and 2023, “he released no names of abusers”, Bishop Accountability’s Anne Barrett Doyle alleged.The same was true of his two years as head of the powerful Dicastery for Bishops, a key Vatican department that advised Pope Francis on the appointment of bishops, she said.”Prevost oversaw cases filed… against bishops accused of sexual abuse and of cover-up. He maintained the secrecy of that process, releasing no names and no data,” Barrett Doyle added. “Under his watch, no complicit bishop was stripped of his title.” “Most disturbing is an allegation from victims in his former diocese in Peru that he never opened a canonical case into alleged sexual abuse carried out by two priests,” she added.The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), for its part, said that when Leo was bishop of Chiclayo, three victims reported their accusations to the diocese but nothing happened.The trio went to the civil authorities in 2022.”Victims have since claimed Prevost failed to open an investigation, sent inadequate information to Rome, and that the diocese allowed the priest to continue saying mass,” the group said.As provincial head of the Augustinians in the Chicago area, SNAP added, the future pope also allowed a priest accused of abusing minors to live in an Augustinian friary near a school in the city in 2000.- ‘Opened the way’ -Yet Bishop Accountability also highlighted positive reports of Leo’s role in exposing the scandal of abuse and corruption against Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), an ultra-conservative lay congregation in Peru dissolved by Francis this year.Survivor Pedro Salinas — a journalist who wrote an expose against the group — last month included Prevost among five bishops who played an “extremely important role… on behalf of the victims”.That case “gives us reasons to hope”, Barrett Doyle said, adding: “We pray we see more of this decisive action by Prevost when he is pope.”On Thursday, the head of the Peruvian Bishop’s Conference, Carlos Garcia Camader, also defended the new pope’s record.As bishop, he “opened the way here in Peru to listen to the victims, to organise the truth commission” in the SCV scandal.First accusations of abuse emerged in the early 2000s, but the case exploded in 2015 with a book citing victims that detailed “physical, psychological, and sexual abuse” carried out by the movement’s leaders and founder, according to the Vatican’s official news outlet.After a seven-year investigation, Pope Francis dissolved the group just weeks before he died, after expelling 10 members. About 36 people, including 19 minors were abused, according to Vatican News. In January, Prevost joined Francis in a meeting with Jose Enrique Escardo, one of the first victims to denounce the religious movement’s abuses.”We reject the cover-up and secrecy, that does a lot of harm, because we have to help people who have suffered because of wrongdoing,” Prevost told Peruvian daily La Republica in an interview in June 2019.

Pope Leo XIV will celebrate mass Friday, the day after becoming the first US head of the Catholic Church, with the world watching for signs of what kind of pope he will be.Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost became on Thursday the 267th pope, spiritual leader to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, after a secret conclave by his fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.At 11:00 am (0900 GMT) Friday, the 69-year-old sometimes referred to in Rome as the “Latin Yankee” for his time as a missionary in Peru, will return to the chapel to celebrate a private mass with cardinals that will be broadcast by the Vatican, delivering his much-anticipated first homily as pope.Tens of thousands of well-wishers cheered Leo as he appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening — with many having no idea who the modest man before them was.The American, who spent two decades in Peru and was only made a cardinal in 2023, had been on many Vatican watchers’ lists of potential popes, although he is far from being a globally recognised figure.Over the coming days, from Friday’s mass to Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer and a meeting with journalists at the Vatican on Monday, the actions and words of Leo will be closely scrutinised.Across the globe in Peru, well-wishers including the bishop of El Callao outside Lima, Luis Alberto Barrera, saluted the Augustinian’s engagement in the Andean country.”He showed his closeness and simplicity with the people,” Barrera told AFP.”He was a very simple person who adapted to everything, like any good missionary.”In Chicago, locals celebrated his love of baseball, deep-dish pizza and his working-class South Side neighbourhood in the United States’ third-largest city.The Chicago Tribune called him “the pride and joy of every priest and nun” at his local parish, where he went to school and served as an altar boy.- Build bridges -In his first speech to the crowds packed into St Peter’s Square on Thursday evening, Leo echoed his predecessor Pope Francis with a call for peace.”Help us, and each other, to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace,” he said.”We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, which holds dialogues, which is always open.”World leaders raced to welcome his election and promised to work with the Church on global issues at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty.Leo faces a momentous task. As well as asserting his moral voice on a conflict-torn world stage, he must try to unite a divided Church and tackle burning issues such as the continued fallout from the sexual abuse scandal.As Cardinal Prevost, the new pope had defended the poor and underprivileged and had reposted articles online critical of US President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant policies.But Trump nevertheless welcomed his election, saying on Thursday it was a “great honour” to have a pope from the United States.It was not known how many ballots it took to elect Leo XIV, but the conclave followed recent history, wrapping up in less than two days.- Consensus candidate -The crowds erupted with cheers when white smoke billowed into the sky from the Sistine Chapel chimney, the traditional sign that a new pope has been elected. “I’m not an overly religious person but, being here with all these people just blew me away,” said 39-year-old Joseph Brian from Belfast in Northern Ireland.With the choice of Prevost, experts said, the cardinals had opted for continuity with the late Francis, a progressive from Argentina who shook up the Church in his 12-year papacy.”He is a moderate consensus candidate who fits into a soft continuity, a gentle continuity with Pope Francis, who will not alienate conservatives,” said Francois Mabille, a researcher at the Paris-based think tank IRIS and author of a book on Vatican strategy.”At least, he has not alienated them.”Vatican watchers agreed that Prevost’s more soft-spoken style should help him as he navigates turbulent waters on the international stage, acting as a counterpoint to more divisive voices.”It is a posthumous success for Pope Francis, with undoubtedly some different accents and embodiment of the pontifical role,” said Mabille.

US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a “historic” trade agreement Thursday, Trump’s first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs.The deal will see Washington lower tariffs on British luxury cars and lifts them entirely on steel and aluminum, although a 10 percent baseline levy on British goods stays in place.As Trump announced the deal while making a phone call to Starmer in the Oval Office, he said Britain would in return will open up markets to US beef and other farm products.But the deal remained thin on details, despite Trump hailing it as a template for deals with other countries such as China after his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.”I’m thrilled to announce that we have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom,” Trump said. “The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports.”The deal came through at the last minute, with Starmer saying he learnt that Trump had given it his approval when he called him on Wednesday night as he watched a football match.”This is a really fantastic, historic day,” Starmer said during the call with Trump.He noted that it coincided with the 80th anniversary of “Victory Day” for allied forces — including Britain and the United States — over Nazi Germany in World War II.- ‘James Bond’ -Britain had made a major push to avoid Trump’s tariffs, which the Republican insists are necessary to stop the United States from being “ripped off” by other countries.Starmer launched a charm offensive as early as February when he came to the White House armed with an invitation from King Charles III for a historic second state visit for Trump.The reward came on Thursday, with a trade deal slashes export tariffs for British cars from 27.5 percent to 10 percent, Britain said. The move will apply to 100,000 vehicles from luxury makers like Rolls Royce and Jaguar, billionaire Trump added.”That is a huge and important reduction,” PM Starmer said during a visit to a Jaguar Land Rover factory in the central Midlands area of England.US automakers however said the deal “hurts” companies that have partnered with Canada and Mexico.The British government insisted that the deal to allow in more US agricultural products would not dilute British food standards, amid concerns over chlorinated US chicken and hormones in US beef.It also entirely lifts recently-imposed 25 percent tariffs on British steel and aluminium. World stock markets mostly rose on news of the deal but uncertainty remained over key issues.Trump said that “James Bond has nothing to worry about” from his threatened 100 percent tariffs on foreign movies, but did not spell out how Britain could get a carve out.The deal also failed to mention digital services, with the White House keen to tackle a recent digital services tax imposed by Britain on US tech giants.- ‘Maxed-out’ -Both sides said there would be further negotiations on a fuller deal, but Trump denied overselling the agreement.”This is a maxed-out deal — not like you said it really incorrectly,” he added, answering a reporter’s question on whether he was overstating the breadth of the deal.The deal is a fresh win for Labour leader Starmer after Britain this week struck a free-trade agreement with India, its biggest such deal since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016.Torturous negotiations between London and Washington in the years since the Brexit vote failed to produce a deal until now.But Trump has also been in need of a win after weeks of insisting that countries were lining up to make deals with the United States.Trump told reporters at the White House he was “working on three of them” and that the British deal could act as a template.US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said most countries would still be hit with higher tariffs than the 10 percent baseline “Liberation Day” tariffs, and only the “best” would escape.Top US and Chinese officials are due to meet in Switzerland over the weekend to kickstart trade officials, the first official meeting since Trump’s tariffs plunged the world’s two largest economies into a trade war.