Trump hails tariff deal with penguin islands

Donald Trump has hailed a ground breaking trade deal with the Heard and McDonald Islands.

The President's trade envoy said that the penguins had proved to be tough negotiators. The US team found the penguins hard to contact and that there were communication barriers to overcome. 'Those penguins have an Ozzie accent - and they drive a hard bargain - and they are terrible at golf,' he joked. 'But we did make a deal.'

The core of the deal is an agreement that American exports of fish to the islands will have zero tariffs. In return, America will allow imports of penguin guano and penguin biscuits to be tariff free 'as long as those black and white frickers don't use Chinese cargo ships.'

Tariffs on steel, solar panels, semiconductors, electric cars, avocados and timber will remain at 25% . None of these items are currently produced by the penguins.

Donald Trump is ecstatic. 'I know how to do deals. This is a great deal for America and a great deal for the penguins. This is the first of many beautiful trade deals. So there is no reason for US markets to yo-yo up and down, making us all seasick, any more.'

image from pixabay

Supermarkets start pretend price war

Britain’s supermarkets are in a war of words about promotions, price cuts and bargains.

The combatants are huffing and puffing about price competition and market share, largely for the benefit of the Competition and Markets Authority. But the likelihood of any actual price cuts is considered very low.

'The supermarkets are speaking to different audiences,' said retail expert and professional bargain hunter Max Price.  ‘They want to tell the government and the competition authorities that they are not in a cartel – which would be illegal. They want to emphasise that retailing is very competitive and that there is no collusion in price setting.

‘The supermarkets are telling retail customers that prices are on their mind and that they are working hard to keep them low.   Even if they aren’t doing any work to keep them low.   Talk about price wars is cheap, gets free publicity, reassures customers and encourages them to spend, which is just what the grocers want.

‘Let’s take a jar of mixed spices as an example.  Customers have no idea what the right price for a jar of mixed spice is.  They don’t know what is in mixed spice, they don’t know where it comes from, and they don’t know if Trump’s tariffs have affected the price or not.  So the big supermarkets can change the price and the consumer has no idea if it’s fair or not.  The only things keeping the big supermarkets in line are the discount chains Aldi and Lidl.  Both are four-letter words, as far as the big stores are concerned.

So you can take all the hot air about price wars with a pinch of salt. Which will cost you anything from one penny to £2.42.

image from pixabay

Media desperately grateful for Toblerone story

The news about the cancellation of dark chocolate Toblerone has been seized upon by media outlets, who are exhausted by a long run of bad news stories about Trump, Gaza, Ukraine, Tariffs, Climate Change, AI threats and Inflation-Recession-Stagflation-Cost-of-Living.

And just in time for Easter, too! How fortunate.

The Krafty Americans, temporarily rebadged as the meaningless Mondeleeez, know how to get good press. After all, they have only cancelled the 360g dark chocolate bar. You’ll still be able to get the ordinary ones, orange ones, caramel ones, white ones, peanut ones and coca-cola flavoured ones. They will still be clogging up airport shops all over the world. And you’ll still be able to get dark chocolate Toblerones in other sizes, including the tiny little ones. You know, the ones that used to be 100g, but are now down to around 60g after removing a few peaks.

You can bet there wouldn’t have been as much coverage if the 360g bar had been cancelled and replaced with a 330g bar.

Yes, decent news stories about anything nice, like chocolate, ice-cream or sunbeams, are in short supply. And the media does often suffer a dip in advertising at Easter. So running a non-threatening news story about a chocolate bar to give Mondeleeez some free publicity seems fair enough.

Other cosy news stories coming soon: 'Creme Eggs to have added vitamins', 'Peace in Ukraine after exchange of Chocolate Oranges' and 'Scunthorpe plant to start making Irn-Bru'.

image from pixabay