WSJ What’s News - Trump Floats Lower China Tariff Ahead of Trade Talks

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

P.M. Edition for May 9. In a social-media post, President Trump said lowering tariffs on Chinese goods to 80% “seems right.” Meanwhile, Beijing moved to enforce restrictions on exports of rare-earth metals before this weekend’s talks in Switzerland. But when it comes to the future of electric motors, that might not matter; WSJ tech columnist Christopher Mims tells us about one startup that’s using iron and steel instead. Plus, Newark Liberty International Airport suffers its second tech outage in two weeks. Victoria Craig hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump floats a reduced 80% tariff on China, while Beijing beefs up its controls on rare earths exports. Plus, customs brokers have suddenly found themselves at the crossroads of a high tariff world. They've kind of become almost like therapists for a lot of companies playing art, crypto ball readers, consultants, accountants, lawyers, wearing numerous hats these days. And a Vermont judge orders the release

of a graduate student detained as the Trump administration singled out students with links to pro-Palestinian activism. It's Friday, May 9th. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Osala. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

A day before U.S.-China trade talks begin in Switzerland, President Trump this morning floated the idea of easing tariff rates on China. In a Truth Social post, he said an 80% tariff on China seems right, but added that decision is up to his Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. If the U.S. does land on such a number, it would be a climb down from the 145% tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese imports earlier this year. An 80% rate, though, would still present hurdles to trade between the world's two biggest economies. Meanwhile, the journal exclusively reports that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tapped his top public security aide to participate in this weekend's trade talks. That's according

to people familiar with the matter. And it signals the importance of the fentanyl issue to bilateral relations. The Trump administration has pushed Beijing to help fix America's drug crisis with more drastic measures to cut off the production and export of chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid. Also today, Chinese authorities pledged to step up their enforcement of limits on the export of rare earth metals. In April, Beijing retaliated against U.S. tariffs with controls on the resources needed for advanced defense systems including missile defense platforms, attack submarines, and F-35 fighter jets.

Those rare earths also serve as magnets in motors and other electronics. So what if you could make those with cheaper materials found within North America? You'd be tariff-proof. One startup, Conifer, is working on electric motors that use steel and rust, that is plain old iron. WSJ Tech columnist Christopher Mims told me on our Tech News briefing podcast about where we might see these newfangled motors.

Their first application's gonna be Vespa-style scooters. Turns out that's a huge market. There's a billion of those in the world. But this could go into vacuum cleaners, it could go into your HVAC system, it could be scaled up, it could go into electric vehicles. So that's a big deal. It just means local supply chains for motors, eventually all over the world. One challenge though, is that because these motors are typically a bit less powerful than the current ones, they really have to be in the wheels.

Turns out that just makes it more efficient. You don't have to transmit the power through a bunch of gears. You can hear more of my conversation with Christopher on Tech News Briefing. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, including where you're listening to this one. In US stocks today, benchmarks were a little changed

ahead of the US-China trade talks this weekend. The Dow fell roughly were a little changed ahead of the U.S.-China trade talks this weekend. The Dow fell roughly three-tenths of a percent, the S&P dropped less than one-tenth of a percent, and the Nasdaq was unchanged. Coming up, if you build it, they will come. That's the hope for many U.S. cities building entire neighborhoods around new sports stadiums. That's after the break. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life.

Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home? Hey, hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home. Hey. Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome.

Learn how to have the conversation at AgreeToAgree.org, brought to you by the Ad Council. The heyday of free trade meant less paperwork and less to do for the customs brokers who handle the logistics of getting goods from one country to another. But tariffs have changed all that, at least for now. WSJ reporter Cajal Viez traveled to Laredo, Texas, America's biggest inland port, to see how anxious importers are bombarding customs brokers with work. Kajal, let's just start really broad. What does a customs broker actually do? So a customs broker is kind of like the unsung middleman in international trade.

They're responsible for making sure companies are paying what they owe in duties to the government when importing or exporting goods. And for the government, they are kind of the first line in terms of revenue collection from taxes or tariffs on imports. And so it was a job that was always on autopilot in many ways. That's all very different now with seemingly off the cuff and very spontaneous changes to US trade policies, the applications of new tariffs. It's become quite a pickle for both companies who are importing goods and these customs brokers who are suddenly in the eye of the hurricane.

So now these customs brokers are in high demand, and one of them told you that it's his company's best year. So what does that actually look like in practice? It's meant really a lot of long hours and really manual work. In an age when we're talking so much about artificial intelligence and automization, it was quite surprising to see how much of the work was people staring at spreadsheets and really facing like 13 hour Dave, this really tedious paperwork effectively.

They've kind of become almost like therapists for a lot of companies playing art, crypto ball readers, consultants, accountants, lawyers wearing numerous hats these days. And this job isn't without risk of course because there are so many changes that happen very quickly. What changes exactly to global trade are these people seeing firsthand? They're seeing how companies are preparing themselves for potential disruptions. So, for example, some custom brokers were telling us about how their clients were rushing to move supplies ahead of expected tariffs announcements. So, we visited one warehouse that had thousands of recreational ATVs, recreational vehicles,

just stores waiting for some kind of clarity. The manufacturer had rushed everything over and just get it in before there was a change to the tariffs policies in the States. In some cases, we've seen people move raw materials from Asia, hold it over in warehouses in the States in kind of a tax-free zone before moving it to manufacturing plants in Mexico. And so the biggest risk for everybody is just making sure that you're paying what's owed, not paying more than what's owed, and just more than anything avoiding fines down the line, which are definitely a risk for many customs brokers.

WSJ reporter Kajal Viaz, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Technology outages continue to plague Newark Liberty International Airport, causing more cancellations and delays. This morning, another 90-second outage took out radar and communications for air traffic controllers. It's the second breakdown there in two weeks. Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlined a plan to overhaul the system. He said it could be completed in three or four years, but would require billions of dollars in funding from Congress. In unrelated news out of Newark, the city's mayor was arrested today. Ross Baraka was accused of trespassing during a protest at an immigration and customs enforcement detention center.

The interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey said the mayor ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security to leave the center. A campaign spokeswoman for Baraka, a Democrat who is running for governor, said she would provide more details when available. A Vermont judge has ordered the Trump administration to release Turkish Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk. The judge said the government did not provide sufficient evidence justifying Ozturk's detention in Louisiana. The only evidence it gave was a pro-Palestinian opinion piece she co-wrote for a student newspaper. Ozturk, who has not been charged with a crime, will need to return for court hearings as

her case proceeds. She is at least the second student freed from custody under the Trump administration. Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter has died at 85. He served on the court from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Souter was nominated by Republican President George H.W. Bush, but he did not tilt the court to the right. Souter preserved abortion rights and became a reliable member of the court's liberal bloc. Sports complexes aren't just for sports fans anymore. To revitalize sleepy downtowns,

many U.S. cities are adopting a mega projects approach that centers on sports arenas. Last week, Washington, D.C.'s commander's football team reached a $3.8 billion deal for a new stadium development that includes not just a place for the team to play, but for fans to stay, eat, shop, and relax. WSJ Real Estate reporter Rebecca Pichotto. The model of building new neighborhoods anchored by stadiums is not necessarily a new real estate blueprint, but it's becoming an increasingly popular formula for American cities to revive their struggling downtowns. In North America alone, there are at least 39 of these major sports anchored mixed use development projects in different stages of planning. And some

project that this could be a trillion dollar market globally. Washington, DC, for example, has been hit by mass federal layoffs and is facing budget cuts of over one billion dollars so some government officials are now branding this latest proposal for a new commander's football stadium as a necessary ingredient to revitalize the city's local economy. Ultimately these developments take such a long time to get done that it might be a decade before people can really know whether something like the Commander Stadium is going to deliver on its economic promises. The American hedge fund Elliott Investment Management is in

talks to buy a stake in an extension of the Turkstream pipeline which carries Russian natural gas to Europe. Earlier this week, the European Union laid out a plan to cut Russian energy imports by 2027. For that reason, and others, people familiar with the matter said, Elliott isn't interested in investing solely in the pipeline, but rather in a broader deal that includes a package of infrastructure assets. They said the deal would also include access to a network of data centers and data cables.

And finally, in case it slipped your mind, a reminder. This Sunday is Mother's Day here in the U.S. For 1-800 flowers, that day is basically the Super Bowl. It takes an entire year for the company to get ready to deliver millions of flowers across the country. And its CEO, Jim McCann, told our retail reporter Sarah Nassauer that he's hanging up his shears and stepping down after this year's holiday.

Sarah explains. The company has not done well the last few years. COVID was this boom time for them, and lots of companies that sort of sell something that's discretionary, right? That demand has dropped off, but they've also had some self-inflicted problems with order management systems. And it's a competitive space. One thing that's interesting about the company is that even though you don't

think of a company named after a 1-800 number as sort of technologically advanced, at the time they were. They were buying these 1-800 numbers and getting online to sell on AOL in the early 90s. And so I think he is conscious of the fact that technology moves and they need to move with it. The 73 year old McCann will still be moving too. He said he would remain chairman and focus on making new AI tools to help customers stay connected with loved ones, for example, by writing personalized poems. And that's what's news for this week. Tomorrow, you can look out for our weekly Markets Wrap-Up, What's News in Markets.

Then for What's News Sunday, we'll have an episode of our Bold Names podcast for you, featuring the CEO of Fandual's parent company talking about the growing business of sports betting and how he's grappling with its potential harms. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi, our supervising producer was Pierre Bianamay, Michael Laval wrote our theme music, Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer, Scott Salloway and Chris Sinsley are our deputy editors, and Philana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio.

I'm Victoria Craig, thanks for listening.