WSJ What’s News - First American Pope Elected to Lead Catholic Church

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

P.M. Edition for May 8. Who is Robert Francis Prevost, the Catholic Church’s 267th pontiff? WSJ reporter Drew Hinshaw answers that question from Vatican City. Plus: the U.S. agrees to a new trade deal with the U.K.—while the European Union draws up a list of American tariff targets. WSJ’s Kim Mackrael has the details from Brussels. And, the Federal Aviation Administration could modernize the nation’s air-traffic control system in the next few years, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says Congress needs to front the funding. Victoria Craig hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Canada Life. Insurance. Investments. Advice. President Trump announces his first new trade deal with the UK. That's as U.S. negotiations with China are set to kick off this weekend. How businesses in both countries are coping with existing tariffs. For a lot of Chinese manufacturers that mainly export to the U.S. and for American businesses

that heavily rely on Chinese imports into this country, it really has been a chaotic time. And Peace be with you all. Those were the first public remarks from the first American pope. It's Thursday, May 8th. 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. We begin in the Oval Office today. You all set to go? Ready when you are. Okay, we're ready. We have the Prime Minister on the phone. And we have a nice hookup. With British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the phone and flanked by members of his own administration, President Trump announced the outlines of a new trade agreement between the two countries.

Today's agreement with the U.K. is the first in a series of agreements on trade that my administration has been negotiating over the past four weeks. With this deal, the U.K. joins the United States in affirming that reciprocity and fairness is an essential and vital principle of international trade. Most UK goods will still be subject to the global 10% tariff the US imposed on all countries

last month, but some products will be exempted and auto tariffs against British cars will fall from 25% to 10%. The UK also committed to importing more American goods, including Boeing planes and cutting tariffs on US beef and ethanol. Starmer called the deal a fantastic one that would boost trade, create jobs, and open market access. Meanwhile, the European Union took a step toward trade conflict with the US, releasing a list of about $107 billion worth of American products that could be subject to fresh tariffs if talks fail. Airplanes are on that list, which would be bad for Boeing, the U.S.'s

biggest exporter. Other targets include cars, car parts, health and agriculture products, and alcoholic beverages like American whiskey. There's been no final decision about what products would be hit or the level of tariffs that could be imposed. WSJ reporter Kim McCrail joins me now from Brussels. Kim, what would it take for the EU to actually impose these tariffs? Yeah, so they really are not looking at doing this in the near term. This is something they want to have on hand in case they get to that point. They'll probably be making an assessment closer to the end of the 90-day pause on the higher reciprocal tariffs. If they get to that point. They'll probably be making an assessment closer to the end of the 90-day pause on the higher reciprocal tariffs. If they get to the point at the end

of those three months where it seems clear there's no deal that the EU considers to be fair, forthcoming, then that's a point when they would consider the US tariffs to be somewhat more permanent thing or are we still actually making progress on negotiations? Yeah. And the EU said today that they're considering the possibility that these tariffs might actually not be temporary. They may be permanent, depending on how the talks go. So how are the talks going?

What are the negotiations like at this point? The talks are ongoing. What we're hearing from them are that the EU has come up with a few different offers or suggestions of things that it could do. They've said, here are some products we could probably buy more of. And the examples they've given are liquefied natural gas and soybeans. They've also said one thing we could do

is we could all lower our industrial tariffs to zero. Neither of those are things that it appears the Trump administration has really picked up in a way that it moves the negotiations forward substantially. And these EU negotiations come against a backdrop where the US has agreed to a trade deal with the UK, though one economist told the Journal that the US imports almost nine times as many goods from the EU. Kim, does that deal make it any more likely that the EU will come to an agreement with the US? It's a bit early to say what this will mean for the EU, but the early feedback that

I've heard so far is that first of all, you have to consider that these are very differently sized economies. So the fact that the UK was able to come up with a deal with the US, much smaller economy compared with the EU's 27 member states, also a unified economy and is always balancing multiple interests in a way that can be a little more complicated than a country like the UK. The other thing is some European officials, they look at this and they say, well, maybe there is something we could learn from what worked for the UK, but not necessarily that this is a template for a European deal.

Kim McRaele, a reporter for us in Brussels. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. And we have more on the world of trade. As we mentioned on this morning's show, talks between Washington and Beijing began this week. But for now, the effects of President Trump's 145% tariffs on China are hitting business people on both sides of the Pacific who have built their livelihoods

on globalized supply chains. WSJ reporter Natasha Khan has been digging into this and she joins me now. Natasha, what are businesses in China and the U.S. dealing with now because of these tariffs? For a lot of Chinese manufacturers that mainly export to the U.S. and for American businesses that heavily rely

on Chinese imports into this country, it really has been a chaotic time. As we report this week, there's scenes across China of factories stopping work, of supplies stuck in factories or stuck at ports. In one example, we have one person who tried to offload shipment of clothing by live streaming at the port just to get rid of some of the stock that now has nowhere to go. Now, in the States, we've also spoken to importers

that, once they learned of the 145% tariff, basically have stopped or canceled or paused orders. It really has been a trying time for many people that have built their livelihoods on this US-China supply chain. And this isn't limited just to small and medium sized companies on either side. It's big box retailers like Walmart, Target, Costco you mentioned in the story, and big companies like Toymaker Hasbro that have also been affected.

So how are those companies coping with this kind of uncertainty? We dug into some of the data and China is the source of 74% of imported toys and games in the US, and 87% of Christmas decorations, not including candles and natural Christmas trees. And almost all of the US fireworks are imported from China. So Hasbro, for example, really mentioning that they're having a lot of different talks with retailers.

Half of their U.S. toys and games are made in China. Obviously it takes time to shift your supply chain. There's definitely been lots more efforts to try to see where they can quickly move the supply chains, either in the short term or maybe for the long term to other jurisdictions, but it isn't something that they can do overnight. If they do find an alternative, it might not be fast enough or maybe there's no capacity because everybody is competing for the same manufacturers in other countries.

And you mentioned the holiday season, which is a little bit hard to grapple with in May. Yes. But you know you have this great anecdote at the very top of your story about a few thousand inflatable snowmen that are sitting in China with nowhere to go. How are tariffs in May affecting the holiday season already? In the last few weeks, actually, is a time in which retailers typically place their orders for the fall or for the holidays at the end of the year. And typically, this manufacturer sells to an American toy maker here.

And that American toy maker would sell to QVC for their holiday programming. Now, QVC froze the shipment after the tariffs were announced. That's what we're seeing not just in the snowmen sector, but in a lot of other industries that rely on Chinese-made goods. Business reporter Natasha Kan, thanks so much for your insight. Thank you. On Wall Street today, stocks extended their rise after President Trump detailed that UK trade deal and expressed high hopes for the talks with China.

The Dow and S&P 500 both rose roughly half a percent. The Nasdaq gained just over one percent. Coming up, what do we know about the first American Pope? That's after the break. You've got unlimited access to music. But time? Now that's limited. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard gets you unlimited PC Optima points,

free grocery delivery, and time back for what matters. Save time and earn $1,100 in average value each year. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit PCFinancial.ca for details. Value is for illustrative purposes only. Celebration in Vatican City today as Pope Leo XIV appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica. American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became the 267th leader of the global Catholic Church

and the first American to take the role in Christianity's 2,000-year history. Drew Hinshaw is a senior reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and he joins me now from just outside the Vatican. Drew, what was the scene like today at the Vatican? Well, white smoke goes up, and the whole crowd is waiting there for an hour with bated breath, people clapping, singing hymns. And all of a sudden the name comes out, Roberto Francesco, and everyone's kind of confused and they look at each other. And I'm standing next to these two Italian elderly, Italian women who go, Americano? Americano? And then a bunch of

Americans are cheering and people are digesting the fact that for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, it is being led by someone from the United States. And that's what's so interesting about this story, isn't it? Because conventional wisdom had been that a cardinal from the US was basically unelectable due to America's position as a global power player. So how significant is his nationality in all of this?

Well, this is a cardinal who could stand on two grounds. He, of course, is American. But he also spent his life in Latin America, in Peru. He was close to Francis, and he was someone who could unify the Latin American bloc, the United States bloc. And he's chosen the name Leo XIV. Tell us the significance of that, starting with Leo XIII. So, Leo XIII was a pope during the Industrial Revolution. And he spoke up for workers' rights, and he spoke out against authoritarian regimes. He hasn't said what his logic is,

but it's a little bit of a hint and a signal that he sees his role as continuing that legacy of Leo XIII. And that's very typical of popes, to name themselves after a previous pope, whose legacy they admire, or in Pope Francis to name themselves after a previous pope, whose legacy they admire, or in Pope Francis' case, after a saint and whose tradition he was following. And what do we know, Drew, about this pope's rise through the Catholic Church, his views, and maybe even a sense of what his priorities will be as pope? He was very careful not to take a strong stand either way for some of the issues that have been quite divisive within the Catholic Church, such as blessings for

same-sex couples or the celibacy of the priesthood. He didn't take strong stances on those issues. At the same time, if you were alive in 2016, you remembered it when Pope Francis said that a Christian doesn't build walls and this was a rebuke to then-c then candidate Trump. Leo XIV said something to the effect of that Christians build bridges and that he wants to be a bridge builder. Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter for The Wall Street Journal just outside the Vatican for us. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, Victoria. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said today that the Trump administration could revamp the US's air traffic control system in three to four years if Congress approves billions of dollars in

funding. The Transportation Department outlined a plan to replace antiquated radar, telecommunications equipment, surveillance systems, and air traffic control towers and other facilities. Duffy didn't outline how much the proposed overhaul would cost. A coalition of industry and labor groups said a minimum of $31 billion in emergency funding should be appropriated over the next three years. In other administration news, President Trump dropped his controversial nominee for the top federal prosecutor in Washington today. Ed Martin had begun to position himself as a leader in Trump's retribution campaign

against perceived enemies and adversaries. The withdrawal of his nomination comes after several Republican senators signaled they couldn't support him. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem installed a new FEMA director after ousting Cameron Hamilton from the role. In a hearing yesterday, Hamilton told lawmakers he did not support the elimination of the U.S. Disaster Response Agency, which the Trump administration has advocated. David Richardson, a senior official at DHS, will be taking over the agency. And we exclusively report that Coinbase has agreed to buy Daribit, the world's biggest Bitcoin and Ether options trading platform. The $2.9 billion deal is the latest in a flurry of crypto deal making. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon.

Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi. Our supervising producer was Pierre Bienamé. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.