A.M. Edition for April 18. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Washington has presented Kyiv and Moscow with a framework deal to end their war, but that the clock is ticking for both to act before the U.S. shifts its diplomatic priorities elsewhere. Plus, President Trump signals that China, the EU and Japan could all reach trade deals with Washington. And WSJ Heard on the Street tech columnist Dan Gallagher breaks down Netflix’s latest earnings, in which the streaming giant posted a record profit and showed little sign of being dragged down by tumult in global markets. Luke Vargas 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 is the current status of Ukraine war negotiations?
Those comments followed talks held in Paris yesterday that French officials had hailed as a moment of convergence after feeling cut out of prior negotiations about the future of Ukraine. Rubio, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, senior Ukrainian and European officials attended the talks, and a follow-up meeting could be held in the UK in a matter of days.
Separately, President Trump says a mineral rights deal between the U.S. and Ukraine will be signed next Thursday, though Michael told us the proof will be in the pudding.
This agreement's been promised several times and hasn't quite materialized, but he said it's set for next week, and that would certainly reinforce a possible sense of momentum. We should wait and see what happens in London next week, whether Witkoff, in fact, attends, as the French have indicated he was. There was no confirmation of that on the U.S. end, so that's going to be an important sign.
Chapter 2: How is the U.S. balancing diplomatic efforts with Ukraine and other priorities?
The U.S. is moving ahead with a plan to charge fees on Chinese ships calling at American ports, part of the Trump administration's effort to counter China's dominance in ocean shipping and revive the domestic maritime industry. In a plan released by the U.S. Trade Representative's Office, Chinese owners and operators will be charged $50 a net ton on each U.S.
voyage, while operators of ships built in China will also face a charge starting at $120 per container. USTR's fee plan would come into force in six months, with fees increasing every year over the next three years.
Meanwhile, at the Oval Office, Trump said he's in contact with the highest levels of the Chinese government about a potential deal to reduce tariffs, appearing to confirm that he's talking to Chinese President Xi Jinping himself. He also signaled he might lower tariffs on China from the current 145%.
I think that we will make a deal with China. I think we've had some very good talks, but we will have some very good talks remaining. And, you know, I view it and some people say, oh, Russia, I think we have a lot of time. I think we have plenty of time. But we have very, very good. You saw Japan was here yesterday. We had Italy today. We had a great conversation with the prime ministers.
We've had very good talks yesterday with Mexico, talking with everybody. You know, the problem is it's only so many hours in the day.
Meanwhile, on trade talks with the EU and Japan, Trump said he expects to reach a deal with both before the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs ends. While many markets are shut today, Japanese shares were trading, and Journal Asia finance editor Peter Landers told us that the news provided a bit of a boost for the Nikkei.
The Nikkei stock average closed up 1%, continuing a modest recovery. It's still down about 15% from its peak, has fallen since Trump's inauguration, but it is steadying and recovering a bit on these signs that the trade war may ease. Not many specifics are out there about what the sides are even talking about or what the U.S. is demanding, but
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Chapter 3: What recent developments have occurred in U.S.-China trade talks?
Certainly, Trump is suggesting that at the end of his 90-day negotiating period, there will be some deals.
And as Peter explains, progress on a trade deal bolsters the Bank of Japan's case for hiking interest rates as it looks to tackle higher inflation.
So in Japan in March, inflation was about 3%, depending on which measure you use. And that's above the Bank of Japan's 2% target. And it suggests that the central bank in Japan
does have room to raise rates later this year as it has suggested it plans to do but the tariffs are a bit of a wild card here because right now cars and car parts exports to the u.s are subject to a 25 percent tariff and that could lead to factory closures job losses in japan and that would be deflationary and that's why some analysts in japan think the bank of japan is going to be cautious about raising interest rates
And we've got a pair of developments concerning a man mistakenly sent by the U.S. to a Salvadoran prison, a case that's become a political and legal flashpoint over the Trump administration's deportation efforts.
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Chapter 4: What impact do tariffs have on the U.S. economy and international relations?
Chapter 5: What are the implications of Netflix's record profits amidst global market turmoil?
We need to figure out here now within a matter of days whether this is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on from our perspective. The president feels very strongly about that. He has dedicated a lot of time and energy to this, and there are a lot of things going on in the world right now that we need to be focused on.
So this is important, but there are a lot of other really important things going on that deserve just as much, if not more, attention.
Those comments followed talks held in Paris yesterday that French officials had hailed as a moment of convergence after feeling cut out of prior negotiations about the future of Ukraine. Rubio, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, senior Ukrainian and European officials attended the talks, and a follow-up meeting could be held in the UK in a matter of days.
Separately, President Trump says a mineral rights deal between the U.S. and Ukraine will be signed next Thursday, though Michael told us the proof will be in the pudding.
This agreement's been promised several times and hasn't quite materialized, but he said it's set for next week, and that would certainly reinforce a possible sense of momentum. We should wait and see what happens in London next week, whether Witkoff, in fact, attends, as the French have indicated he was. There was no confirmation of that on the U.S. end, so that's going to be an important sign.
The U.S. is moving ahead with a plan to charge fees on Chinese ships calling at American ports, part of the Trump administration's effort to counter China's dominance in ocean shipping and revive the domestic maritime industry. In a plan released by the U.S. Trade Representative's Office, Chinese owners and operators will be charged $50 a net ton on each U.S.
voyage, while operators of ships built in China will also face a charge starting at $120 per container. USTR's fee plan would come into force in six months, with fees increasing every year over the next three years.
Meanwhile, at the Oval Office, Trump said he's in contact with the highest levels of the Chinese government about a potential deal to reduce tariffs, appearing to confirm that he's talking to Chinese President Xi Jinping himself. He also signaled he might lower tariffs on China from the current 145%.
I think that we will make a deal with China. I think we've had some very good talks, but we will have some very good talks remaining. And, you know, I view it and some people say, oh, Russia, I think we have a lot of time. I think we have plenty of time. But we have very, very good. You saw Japan was here yesterday. We had Italy today. We had a great conversation with the prime ministers.
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Chapter 6: How are U.S. and European relations evolving regarding Ukraine?
We've had very good talks yesterday with Mexico, talking with everybody. You know, the problem is it's only so many hours in the day.
Meanwhile, on trade talks with the EU and Japan, Trump said he expects to reach a deal with both before the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs ends. While many markets are shut today, Japanese shares were trading, and Journal Asia finance editor Peter Landers told us that the news provided a bit of a boost for the Nikkei.
The Nikkei stock average closed up 1%, continuing a modest recovery. It's still down about 15% from its peak, has fallen since Trump's inauguration, but it is steadying and recovering a bit on these signs that the trade war may ease. Not many specifics are out there about what the sides are even talking about or what the U.S. is demanding, but
Certainly, Trump is suggesting that at the end of his 90-day negotiating period, there will be some deals.
And as Peter explains, progress on a trade deal bolsters the Bank of Japan's case for hiking interest rates as it looks to tackle higher inflation.
So in Japan in March, inflation was about 3%, depending on which measure you use. And that's above the Bank of Japan's 2% target. And it suggests that the central bank in Japan
does have room to raise rates later this year as it has suggested it plans to do but the tariffs are a bit of a wild card here because right now cars and car parts exports to the u.s are subject to a 25 percent tariff and that could lead to factory closures job losses in japan and that would be deflationary and that's why some analysts in japan think the bank of japan is going to be cautious about raising interest rates
And we've got a pair of developments concerning a man mistakenly sent by the U.S. to a Salvadoran prison, a case that's become a political and legal flashpoint over the Trump administration's deportation efforts.
On a visit to El Salvador yesterday, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego-Garcia a day after pressing El Salvador's vice president about why he remained imprisoned without evidence of his alleged gang membership. to which Van Hollen was told that it's because the U.S. is paying the country to incarcerate deported migrants. Meanwhile, a U.S.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does the U.S. face in achieving trade deals with allies?
Both the Trump administration and El Salvador's president have said they didn't have the authority to return Abrego Garcia. Coming up, Netflix reports a record profit with no mention of any trade war impact. So can the streamer reach its lofty hopes of a trillion dollar valuation? We'll bring you the answer after the break.
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The markets are closed and it's a holiday weekend for many people. Time to get outside, gather with family, and maybe fire up the world's most popular streaming service to catch up on that show you've been meaning to watch. Dan Gallagher is the Wall Street Journal's heard-on-the-street tech columnist and stayed up late for us to crunch Netflix's Q1 earnings. Earnings that, Dan, didn't disappoint.
We've got record profit here, no signs of fallout from the trade war.
It was a really strong report. Companies like Netflix and Spotify, they're not exposed to these tariffs directly, obviously, because there's not going to be tariffs on a digital subscription service. And they're also historically pretty resilient in recessions, which we're obviously not in a recession yet, but that's obviously a big fear now with what's going on with trades and tariffs.
And so what Netflix showed today is like they're in a really strong position. Even if the world economy gets tighter, they're probably going to still do well.
Take us into a bit more detail here. Netflix has surpassed 300 million subscribers now and crucially are signaling strength to come.
It has. And one interesting thing about the subscribers, this is actually the first quarter that Netflix has actually not reported any subscriber metrics at all. And they've prepared investors for that over the last few years. Their last report had just a little over 300 million. And they did say today that Membership growth did help fuel the revenue growth they reported.
So we know it came up some. We don't know exactly how much. But they're trying to go into this new phase where they get investors to focus on revenue and earnings growth. The earnings is a really interesting story because Netflix now makes over $3.5 billion in operating earnings every quarter.
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