A.M. Edition for May 23. While the court said President Trump can remove independent agency leaders, the ruling found the Federal Reserve is unique, providing some relieft o investors. Plus, major U.S. banks are exploring whether to team up to issue a joint stablecoin. And as BYD beats out Tesla in European sales for the first time ever, we look at how China has been building up its high-tech industries with WSJ’s Brian Spegele. Azhar Sukri hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What did the Supreme Court rule regarding President Trump's power over the Federal Reserve?
Every step in the process now within the Chinese ecosystem is increasingly dominated by Chinese companies. That is something that is very frustrating for the US government in particular. And at the same time, the Chinese government is not apologizing for this at all.
It's Friday, May the 23rd. I'm Azhar Sukri for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News? The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The Supreme Court has ruled that President Trump can remove leaders of independent government agencies, but crucially not the Federal Reserve.
And while the ruling doesn't explicitly prevent Trump from firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell or any other member of the Central Bank, the Journal's Chelsea Delaney says it does provide some relief to market participants worried about the Fed's independence.
Chapter 2: How does the ruling affect investor confidence in the Fed?
Trumps Threats in recent months to fire the Fed chair have really shaken investors. We did see a big sell-off when he was making those threats in April. He's walked them back, but there probably was still an overhang of anxiety among investors about whether the Fed would be able to maintain this independence.
So this order definitely will ease some of those concerns, but US markets are on really shaky ground right now. And as well, A man charged with murdering two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., told investigators he, quote, did it for Palestine and Gaza.
Verteidigungsdokumente, die gestern unveröffentlicht wurden, zeigen, dass Elias Rodriguez, 31 Jahre alt, von Chicago, wo er wohnt, vor dieser Woche geflohen ist. Die Befragungen gegen Rodriguez bewegen eine mögliche Todesverletzung. Die Befragungen der Trump-Administration bewegen gestern Morgen
The Department of Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office said the school acted with, quote, deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment of Jewish students, unquote, since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. A Columbia spokesperson said the school takes these issues seriously and will work with the government to address them.
We are exclusively reporting that major US banks are exploring whether to team up to issue a joint stablecoin. Conversations are in the early stages but have involved payment companies co-owned by the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo among others. Journal reporter Angus Berwick says that by potentially issuing a digital coin pegged to a real world currency,
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Chapter 3: What are major US banks planning in the cryptocurrency space?
Stablecoins have been this huge success story over the last few years. They've become very useful for people moving money internationally, particularly when there are still significant frictions within the traditional banking system. Was die Banken sehen, ist, dass dieses Stablecoin-Business-Modell an einem Punkt anfangen könnte, sich selbst zu entfrischen.
Sie fühlen sich auch ermutigt, dass es Stablecoin-Legislation gibt, die sich gerade durch den Kongress bewegen. Und ich denke, dass die großen Banken jetzt sehen, dass es ein guter Moment ist, um versuchen zu reklamieren, einige dieser neuen Ökonomie.
Chapter 4: Why are stablecoins becoming popular among banks?
This comes as President Trump reaffirmed his commitment to making the US a crypto capital by hosting owners of his meme coin for a gala dinner last night. Government watchdog groups have said the dinner could potentially violate federal rules against soliciting gifts.
According to Inca Digital, a blockchain analytics firm, some 148 million dollars worth of Trump coin was purchased by investors to win spots at the dinner. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt denied that his dinner would trigger any ethics violations because, "...all the president's assets are in a blind trust, which is managed by his children."
Shares of Chinese drugmaker Jiangsu Hongri Pharmaceuticals soared more than 30% on their Hong Kong debut today, marking one of the city's largest initial public offerings so far this year. The red-hot IPO market in Hong Kong is largely being driven by Chinese firms seeking secondary listings.
In the first quarter of the year, listings in the financial hub quadrupled from a year ago to 18.7 billion Hong Kong dollars. Teslas Sales continue to slump in Europe with Chinese automaker BYD outselling Elon Musks EV maker for the first time last month. Our European Autos Reporter Stephen Wilmot says it's both a sign of Teslas unpopularity and BYDs rapid expansion in Europe.
Tesla hat einen sehr schlechten Anfang des Jahres. Es hat mit Elon Musk, dem Hauptexekutiven, politische Interventionen in Europa zu tun. Er unterstützt die AfD-Partei in Deutschland, den größten EV-Markt in der Regel. Es gibt auch die Sache mit dem Modell Y-Switchover, der die Produktion auf der Pflanze in Brandenburg beeinflusst hat.
But then the other thing is the rise of Chinese car makers and particularly BYD despite tariffs. It's paying almost 30% tariff on imports to the European Union these days, but it's still growing very strongly. One caveat to that is that Tesla's monthly data is quite volatile, tends to oversupply in certain months and undersupply in others.
So it might be a different ranking next month than the month after.
Coming up, China has been shoring up advanced technologies long before the trade war began. We look at just how resilient Beijing is after the break. Washington and Beijing may have agreed to a truce in their trade war, but China has for years been busy building a great wall of economic self-sufficiency around itself.
Even before President Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese imports during his first term. China had already identified several high-tech areas where it wanted to become less reliant on the outside world. Those efforts have only grown in recent years and, as senior correspondent Brian Spiegel writes, continue to accelerate under Trump 2.0. And Brian joins us now.
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Chapter 5: What challenges is Tesla facing in the European market?
Sie müssen Futter importieren. Und sie arbeiten so hart wie sie können, um ihre Belastung auf Futter-Importe zu verringern. Aber am Ende des Tages wird es sehr schwierig sein, dieses Niveau zu zerstören. Auf der anderen Seite, sollten sie das tun?
Länder, die sich seit vielen, vielen Jahrhunderten in der Geschichte zurückkehren, handeln für einen Grund, weil es unmöglich ist, in jeder Industrie, in jedem Schritt des Prozesses, immer eine konkrete Vorteile zu haben. Auch für ein Powerhouse wie China ist es ökonomisch sehr, sehr schwierig, das zu tun und das abzulehnen.
Ich denke also, eine der Dinge, die es sehr wertvoll ist, ist, dass sie, als sie die Selbstsuffizienz übernehmen, sich fragen, ob das für China ökonomisch Sinn macht. Und trotz dessen, dass wir jeden Tag Prozesse auf dem Boden sehen, in ihrer Fähigkeit, technologische Selbstreliance zu haben, At the same time, the economy is not necessarily benefiting from it.
It's not necessarily leading to better economic performance in China.
So let me just pick you up on that last point. What are some of the downsides for China in this self-sufficiency drive?
The reality is that there's a lot of waste. When you earmark certain sectors, as the central government does, saying we are going to become self-reliant in these sectors, and then the state-run financial institutions are effectively mandated to go out and lend to these sectors, you get a lot of redundancy.
hundreds of billions of dollars could rush into a sector over the course of a number of years. And, you know, I think of one economist I was speaking to for this article, they made a point that, yes, you can grow rice in a California desert if you spend enough money, but it doesn't necessarily make it good economic policy.
So that misallocation of capital is something we really need to consider as we think about the long-term health of the Chinese economy related to this effort.
Journal-Senior-Korrespondent Brian Spiegel, thank you so much.
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Chapter 6: How is China's tech industry growing despite trade tensions?
And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bullivant and Daniel Bark. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Azhar Sukri for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.