A.M. Edition for May 1. After months of negotiations, several false starts, and a testy White House meeting, the U.S. reaches a deal with Ukraine to give Washington access to the country’s mineral wealth. Jane Lytvynenko has the details from Kyiv. Plus, a Journal report reveals Tesla’s board began searching for Elon Musk’s successor about a month ago. And markets reporter Chelsey Dulaney explains how the rush to get goods to the U.S. ahead of President Trump’s tariffs is distorting global trade and economic data. 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 main topic of this episode?
Companies aren't taking any chances, so they are still scrambling to get everything from Christmas tree ornaments in Germany to Heineken beer. They want to get it to the U.S., potentially avoid some of those tariffs. It's Thursday, May 1st.
I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. After months of negotiations, several false starts and a testy White House meeting, the U.S. has reached a deal with Ukraine to give Washington access to the country's mineral wealth. Reporter Jane Litvinenko is in Kiev this morning.
Jane, when we first reported on the negotiations around this deal back in February, Ukraine's president wasn't happy with some of the terms, namely that Ukraine would be forced to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. aid. Volodymyr Zelensky also wanted security guarantees from the U.S. Where did this final agreement net out?
So one of the biggest concessions the US has agreed to is for Ukraine to not repay past military assistance funds. This is something that Zelensky has said was a red line for him, but it's something that the Trump administration has insisted on. Instead, as far as we understand it, what the deal will include is future assistance funds that go into the American side of the fund here.
And Ukrainian contributions will come from its mineral wealth. It seems like there's no explicit security guarantees from the U.S. side. But what the deal will allow for Ukraine to do is it will allow for Ukraine to purchase American weapons, which are much needed on the battlefield today. Long range weapons are much needed, as well as Patriot air defense systems.
And so part of what this deal opens up is potential for new weapons deliveries from the U.S., which is something that the Ukrainian administration has been really worried about.
In terms of the economic side of this, I mean, are we expecting mining companies to be showing up in Ukraine right away? I mean, the war is still going on. I'm guessing this is kind of a long term thing.
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Chapter 2: What concessions did the U.S. make in the Ukraine deal?
Whether businesses will show up and when businesses will show up is still an open question. The Ukrainian side, there's even an open question in terms of what minerals it has and how many minerals it has. So this deal, as far as we know, is going to focus on new licenses, not existing licenses to mine minerals in Ukraine.
Chapter 3: What are the implications of the minerals deal for Ukraine?
Mineral mining is a really complex project, but Ukraine does have a lot of those crucial minerals that are key in the global markets right now to everything from making cell phones to making vehicles to making batteries. Will American companies move into Ukraine tomorrow? It's unlikely. But there is a reason why this was such a potentially lucrative deal for the U.S.
And the reason for that is because the minerals are quite vast.
This deal had in the past raised a lot of questions about the state of the relationship between Kiev and Washington. We did hear from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last night talking about this deal. I want to play a clip of him, which I thought was somewhat telling.
Today's agreement signals clearly to Russian leadership that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. Jane, what are you hearing there? Is the U.S.
shifting pressure away from Kiev and toward Moscow?
Well, what this shows is the Ukrainian-American relationship has gone a long way from the blow up in the White House to now these positive words. And the meeting in the Vatican, it seems like there's been a real thaw in relations between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Whether Russia will hear the message that Washington is trying to send, that now it's time for them to make a deal, is, of course, an open question. But the announcement of this deal is a diplomatic victory for Ukraine.
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Chapter 4: How does this deal affect U.S.-Ukraine relations?
Reporter Jane Litvinenko is in Kiev. Jane, thank you so much for the update.
Thank you for having me.
Chapter 5: What is the significance of the minerals deal for global markets?
Meanwhile, we exclusively report that the U.S. is planning to massively increase its use of drones by equipping each of its 10 active-duty combat divisions with around 1,000 drones each. Journal national security correspondent Michael Gordon told us that the plan draws on lessons learned in Ukraine, where unmanned aircraft have transformed the battlefield.
This is a major departure for the service. Right now a traditional army division might have a dozen or so long-range surveillance drones. Now what it wants to do is outfit a division at all levels with drones for reconnaissance, for striking targets, and for carrying equipment. This is a five-year plan, which the Army estimates will cost about $36 billion.
They've got the administration on board, and they've identified offsetting cuts. They want to retire some of their older systems and forego the purchase of new ones in order to come up with the sufficient funds to pursue this initiative without asking for an increase in the Army budget.
Coming up, we've got the rest of the day's news, including succession planning at Tesla and why tariff-related economic distortions are only just beginning. Those stories and more after the break.
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We are exclusively reporting that Tesla's board began looking for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk about a month ago. The company had been contending with deteriorating sales and profits, and Musk spending much of his time in Washington. Around that time, board members told Musk he needed to spend more time on Tesla and needed to say so publicly, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Last week, after the company said its first quarter profit had plunged 71 percent, Musk told investors he would soon pivot back to his job at Tesla. The current status of the succession planning couldn't be determined. It's also unclear if Musk was aware of the effort or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning.
Musk didn't respond to requests for comment for the story. A federal judge has slammed Apple for willfully violating her order to make it easier for app developers to sell digital products like games and subscriptions. In 2021, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers ordered Apple to let developers send customers to their own websites to avoid a 30% commission for in-app purchases.
And in response, Apple required developers who use an alternative payment method to pay a different 27% fee. However, Rogers ruled yesterday that fee amounted to anti-competitive conduct and referred the matter to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation.
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Chapter 6: How is the U.S. adapting its military strategy?
Netflix does this, for instance. You can't actually buy a subscription in the Apple App Store from Netflix. You buy it on Netflix's website and then use your login to access the subscription in the Netflix iPhone app. That saves Netflix the huge 30% commission that Apple charges on App Store purchases. Now, Netflix is huge and people know and trust its website.
For the thousands and thousands of other app developers, it might be hard to get consumers to go to a website instead of just clicking buy in the App Store. But now, Apple can't deliberately make this hard for people. So expect lots of developers to start offering cheaper options to buy their products via their own websites.
Turning to trade now, a bid to reject Trump's Liberation Day tariffs fell short in the Senate yesterday, as most Republicans stayed aligned with the White House in spite of growing concerns about the economy.
The measure, championed by Republican Senator Rand Paul, looked to repeal America's broad 10 percent tariffs on most nations, as well as the higher tariffs on China and other, quote, bad actors, by ending the emergency declaration that Trump used to impose the levies.
The administration has argued that persistent trade deficits constitute an emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Meanwhile, the economic impact of Trump's trade policies is becoming increasingly apparent, with the Bank of Japan halving its growth forecasts this morning, saying that it expects Japan's economy to expand just 0.5 percent in the fiscal year ending 2026, sharply lower than the previous 1.1 percent forecast.
At the same time, South Korea's exports rose unexpectedly in April, in spite of concerns over tariffs. Shipments of computer chips and smartphones remain strong. offsetting the decline in auto exports, which took a hit from Trump's levies. And with everyone from the tech industry to toy shops rushing to get goods into the U.S. ahead of tariffs, it's leading to a distortion in economic data.
As we reported yesterday, U.S. imports surged more than 40 percent at an annualized rate in the first quarter, driving down gross domestic product by 0.3 percent. Internal markets reporter Chelsea Delaney told us import front-loading isn't over yet.
There's obviously a lot of negotiations happening right now between the White House and other countries. So it's a bit hard to know exactly what the tariffs could be. But companies aren't taking any chances. They see this as an insurance policy. They want to get it to the U.S., potentially avoid some of those tariffs. This will eventually stop.
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