WSJ What’s News - Cocaine Trade Hits Record High as Smugglers Go Global

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

A.M. Edition for May 5. Warren Buffet marks the calendar for his departure from Berkshire Hathaway, announcing his handpicked successor will take the reins next year. Plus, the ‘Trump factor’ propels another left-leaning leader to a surprise election victory, this time in Australia. And WSJ South America bureau chief Juan Forero explains how production advances and long-distance smuggling vessels are transforming the global cocaine trade. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warren Buffett marks the calendar for his departure from Berkshire Hathaway. Plus, the Trump factor propels another left-leaning leader to a surprise election victory, this time in Australia. And we'll hear from our South America bureau chief in Colombia as global cocaine production hits an all-time high. We're seeing semi-submersibles in the last few years heading to Spain and Portugal and to the South Pacific. So we're talking about 9,000 miles.

These are dangerous trips, but that's how much money is to be made by selling cocaine in some of these countries. It's Monday, May 5th. 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. Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Warren Buffett plans to step down at the end of the year with a 94-year-old handing over the reins to his handpicked successor, Greg Abel.

Abel's selection wasn't a surprise, though the timing of the announcement was, silencing a cavernous arena of investors in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday and triggering a wave of tributes from Wall Street Titans. While Buffett said that Abel would have final say at Berkshire starting next year, he said he didn't plan to disappear from the scene and used his remarks at the company's annual meeting, heard here courtesy of CNBC, to defend the global trade system, criticizing the antagonistic approach being taken in Washington toward America's economic partners. It's a big mistake in my view when you have seven and a half billion people that don't like you

very well and you got 300 million that are crowing in some way about how well they've done." Meanwhile, President Trump is downplaying concerns about the economy, emphasizing that he believes his policies will trigger a historic boom. That forecast, made on NBC's Meet the Press, comes as we report that Trump and his advisors are feeling more confident following a streak of stock market gains in a better-than-expected jobs report on Friday. There are many people on Wall Street who say this is going to be the greatest windfall

ever happened. And that's my question. Remember this. Long term. Is it OK in the short term to have a recession? Look, yeah, everything's okay. What we are, I said, this is a transition period. I think we're going to do fantastically.

Are you worried about a recession? No. While the White House is signaling that it expects some progress to cool trade tensions this week, including by announcing at least one deal with a country seeking to escape higher tariffs, President Trump said yesterday he'd authorized a new 100 percent tariff on films produced overseas. That sent Hollywood executives scrambling to determine how they'd be affected, having received no prior warning about the plan, and because movies aren't physical goods like most items

subject to tariffs. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has returned to power in a surprising landslide election victory for his Labour Party. That comes as just last week, Canadians gave the left-leaning Liberal Party there a fourth term in office, as voters shied away from a Conservative candidate viewed as being too similar to President Trump. And Sydney-based reporter Mike Czerny says a similar dynamic played out in Australia.

Albanese successfully sold an argument to voters that he was a pair of stable hands and best suited to deal with some of this Trump-related disruption. His conservative opponent, Peter Dutton, to many voters, perhaps came off as a little bit too Trump-like. Dutton did support some Trump-like policies like slashing the government workforce and ending working from home for some government employees. And I think in the end, that did put off some centrist voters. slashing the government workforce and ending working from home for some government employees.

And I think in the end, that did put off some centrist voters. And with Trump proving to be a divisive figure for many Australians, Mike explains how Albanese will be looking to manage the country's future alliance with the U.S. Albanese did have to walk a fine line with Trump during the campaign because he's now going to have to work with Trump on trade talks to try to reduce Australia's tariff rate to zero. Australia also plans to buy nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S. and there are some concerns about whether the U.S. has the shipbuilding capacity to make that happen. So Albanese is going to have to figure out a way to make sure that the Trump administration

continues to support that plan. To Europe now, where Ukraine has set it down to Russian jet fighters using sea drones equipped with modified U.S. made missiles in what military officials in Kiev say is the first such attack in the history of warfare. Russia's military hasn't commented on the attack, which the Wall Street Journal wasn't able to verify. With Russia grinding slowly forward on the battlefield and Ukraine struggling with a deficit of arms and manpower, the shootdowns demonstrate how Ukraine is finding ever more enterprising means of weakening Russia's much larger military. In other news driving the agenda this week, oil futures are slipping after the OPEC Plus

group of producers agreed to raise output for June, marking a second consecutive month of production hikes. In response, Goldman Sachs cut its oil price forecast, with the firm now expecting Brent and West Texas Intermediate Crude to average $56 and $52 a barrel next year, respectively. There is no end in sight for the headaches plaguing travelers to and from Newark Liberty International Airport after its leading operator, United, canceled 35 daily round-trip flights after a group of air traffic controllers took leave amid issues with their radar and radios. Several controllers took trauma-related leave after a similar outage

last fall, and the Federal Aviation Administration has at times slowed traffic to Newark as a result of controller staffing issues. Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted a new drug application for an oral formulation of its blockbuster obesity treatment, Wigovie. If approved, it would mark the first so-called GLP-1 drug to be available in pill form amid competition from the likes of Eli Lilly and others. Novo Nordisk said the FDA's deadline to decide on the application will be in the fourth quarter. And it is shaping up to be a busy week in markets, with

services PMIs for April due out this morning and earnings from Ford expected this afternoon. Though the biggest set piece will be the Fed's interest rate decision on Wednesday, with the central bank facing pressure from President Trump to lower rates sooner than the current June forecast. Coming up, potent powder and narco subs are driving a global surge in cocaine smuggling. We'll get the latest from Columbia on the exploding coca trade alarming American officials after the break.

Hey, wouldn't it be great if life came with remote control? and Coca Trade alarming American officials after the break. But pre-diabetes does. With early diagnosis and a few healthy changes, you can stop pre-diabetes before it leads to type 2 diabetes. To learn your risk, take the one-minute test today at doihabprediabetes.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and its pre-diabetes awareness partners. Global cocaine supply has hit an all-time high, and while production has been steadily climbing for the past decade, drug officials are growing increasingly alarmed over the sheer speed of coca growth and new undersea modes of transport as the potent powder reaches

new and faraway markets. Our South America Bureau Chief Juan Ferreiro has been tracking cocaine production in Colombia. Juan, bring us up to speed here. What has shifted in the past few years? What's happened lately is that coca, the leaf used to make cocaine, and cocaine itself has just shot up dramatically to record highs. In Columbia now, the UN says that, and this is in a report from late last year, said that there's 625,000 acres of coca. Now that's about the size of Rhode Island and that is 55% more than in 2000. And there was so much cocaine that year in 2000 that this drug was funding armed groups

that were threatening the very Colombian state. And these American officials say we were really worried that the state would be toppled. Now that was in 2000. Now there's 55% more coca in the country. And that produces, you know, the estimate that the UN gives is about 3,000 tons of cocaine. That cocaine is now not just going to the United States, not just going to Brazil and States, not just going to Brazil

and Western Europe, which have for a long time been sort of the big main consumers, but it's going to places like Argentina, like the Balkans. It goes to Australia, New Zealand. There's always new markets because in a lot of these markets, the amount that is being spent on cocaine just makes it very worthwhile from a business standpoint for drug traffickers. You talk about a lot of this coca cultivation while happening in very remote areas and yet reaching markets around the world. What is the supply chain for this drug like now?

It's not being carried on foot. Some of the supply chain, the way that they're getting the cocaine to some of these markets is the same old, same old cargo vessels, go fast boats, which leave from Columbia and go to Central America and so forth. But I think one of the new trends we're seeing are the semi-submersibles. Now these are submarine-like vessels. They have been around for a long time, you know, but they're far better now. They have better propulsion, they're bigger,

they can carry more cocaine, and they can go a lot farther. So we're seeing semi-submersibles in the last few years heading to Spain and Portugal and so forth. But now we're seeing semi-submersibles in route to the South Pacific. So we're talking about 9,000 miles. It's very far. And of course, these are dangerous trips. But increasingly, we're seeing these semi submersibles head in that direction. That's how much money is to be made by selling cocaine in some of these countries. What does the Colombian government make of all this? If there really is territory the size of Rhode Island being used to cultivate a drug like this, that they can't be unaware of what's going on.

Columbia's government has taken the approach that it wants to steer clear of penalizing farmers and so they are very much opposed to aerial fumigation. They call themselves a progressive government and they have been trying to enter into peace talks with some of these narco trafficking outfits, but that has not worked. And there are many studies and many people who believe that these groups have actually grown far more powerful. So the de facto state in some of these places is an armed group. So this policy hasn't really gone anywhere. And how is this going over in the United States? Obviously, President Trump has made a big deal about the flow of drugs over the southern border.

You know, they're very focused on methamphetamines and fentanyl and so forth. The main focus has been Mexico and has been the border. And so we haven't seen them talk about cocaine. But of course, a big thing with the administration is to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. And cocaine remains a very important drug in the United States. I mean, cocaine is laced with fentanyl in as many as a quarter of the cases of cocaine that has been seized by the DEA and tested shows that it has fentanyl in it, which is

of course an extremely dangerous drug that causes a lot of overdoses and fatalities. That was Wall Street Journal South America bureau chief Juan Ferraro in Bogota, Colombia. Juan, thank you so much for bringing us this story. Thank you. And that's it for what's news for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bulevent. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.