@drmcnamara
Lecturer of Public Health @ Newcastle University in NE England Chair, Trade & Health Forum, @aphapublichealth.bsky.social Health equity, macroeconomics, international trade, social determinants of health, commercial determinants of health
Cargo container
The US government’s assertive use of import tariffs means the health implications of trade policy can no longer be sidelined.
Trade policy needs greater attention from health researchers and public health experts, say @drmcnamara.bsky.social and Benjamin Hawkins
www.bmj.com/content/392/...
First quick look at the new UK Trade Strategy: zero mention of public health....
And we're live!
Was anyone else waiting for the UK trade strategy to drop at 9:15 only to be met with a website error? Is this... the first non-tariff barrier? 👀 @davidheniguk.bsky.social @samuelmarclowe.bsky.social
The tariff represents a double insult to consumers, assaulting both our taste buds and our pocketbooks www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/o...
Once again, the global economy is being held hostage to the whims of a guy who doesn’t understand how the global economy works.
Trump got what he wanted: everyone to stop gawping at his embarrassing fallout w/ Elon Musk..in the meantime, the world has learned something useful abt who wins in a standoff btwn 2 giant egos, 1 of whom has all the $ & the other of whom has all the exec. power www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Moving chess pieces on the world
"Whether we’re doctors, scientists, or ordinary citizens, we need to be clear sighted—and to engage in whatever forms of resistance to authoritarianism we can find the courage to muster."
@johnlauner.bsky.social on the dissolution of our global political landscape
www.bmj.com/content/389/...
In amongst all the excitement I fear many have missed this outstanding bit of trolling by Friedrich Merz.
The Chancellor gifted Trump a gilded framed copy of his grandfather’s German birth certificate... reminding Americans that Trump is both the child and grandchild of migrants.
‘Stress crisis’ in UK as 5m struggle with financial, health and housing insecurity www.theguardian.com/society/2025... #sdoh
Trump evading the question over whether UK will now accept hormone treated beef
"we're very big, we have a lot of beef"
This deal is completely being used to justify Trump’s mad tariff operation.
So Sky news reports that the UK US trade deal announced today consists of "no physical UK-US trade document" that will be signed.
Trade deal is not a protected term. It really could be anything somehow related to trade. But I did not expect it to be invisible.
Reporters are gathered and waiting for the 10 am WH trade announcement- which is clearly running late. I was told about an hour ago that details in the agreement were still changing, and no information was final until the actual event. So that could explain the hiccup here.
Alas, no. The press is reporting it as a "trade deal" & a "trade agreement" in the headlines, so everyone will believe that it is a legal deal/agreement. Total failure of journalism.
@financialtimes.com @nytimes.com @wsj.com @cnn.com:
you can't spell "tariffs" without "FFS"
China's response:
- additional 34% tariffs on all US imports
- add 11 US companies to list of “unreliable entities”
- limits on exports of seven rare earth elements
- two trade investigations into US exports of medical imaging equipment
- block some US chicken imports and sorghum imports
The potential health impacts of a UK-US free trade agreement goes way beyond chlorinated chicken: www.bmj.com/content/374/.... #sdoh #cdoh
Important point
This is the direct result of the inane fake "formula" they used to calculate tariff rates. It penalizes poor, export-dependent states who cannot afford large volumes of US exports and who have been forced by colonial and postcolonial economic structures into a dependence on primary commodity exports
On the wider determinants of health, people “are yearning for more substantial reform”
www.croakey.org/on-the-wider...
#SDOH #ElectionBudget2025 #AusPol
With ACOSS, Climate Council, TasCOSS & others
What is politics? It involves much more than governments and elections
Here is an introductory post to inform two talks: (1) on evidence for WHO Collaborating Centre for Health in All Policies and Social Determinants of Health, Tampere University, (2) on prevention for Public Health Association…
Here’s a link to the 2016 Hassett/Sullivan paper which also shows that 45% of recessions happen in the first year after an election, linked in part to policy uncertainty. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I'm adding civil service reform to industrial strategy, immigration and regulation as subjects where aggressive government briefing bears no resemblance to what is likely to happen.
As a driver of populism this gap between rhetoric and reality is perfect. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
📣 New Handbook on the Social Determinants of Health edited by @tobabryant.bsky.social 📣
Proud to contribute a chapter on why most SDH frameworks fail to challenge individualized notions of health— and how a global political economy approach overcomes this challenge.
www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/han...
What Trump - and many politicians - don't understand about modern trade is that we've never had so many products and services available, and that's come from technology creating global markets.
He's imposing tariffs as if we're in the 1950s. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
