WSJ What’s News - ‘Honest and Accurate’: Trump Names His Pick for Labor Data Body

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

A.M. Edition for Aug 12. After firing its former head, Trump says the Heritage Foundation’s current chief economist, E.J. Antoni, will ensure accuracy in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data. Plus, ahead of Friday’s summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, WSJ correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov explains why peace in Ukraine doesn’t seem to be a priority for Moscow. And WSJ reporter Clarence Leong details China’s massive new shipbuilding plans. Azhar Sukri hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump announces his pick for the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Plus, with the Trump-Putin summit just days away, Ukraine's fate seems as uncertain as ever. Putin's goal has always been the same since this war began. He wants a puppet regime in Ukraine, if not the outright annexation of all of Ukraine. And so he doesn't see President Zelensky of Ukraine as a legitimate leader, and therefore he refuses to meet with him. we look at how Chinese ships are set to dominate the world's seas and ports. It's Tuesday, August the 12th. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal.

Here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. President Trump has said he plans to nominate the chief economist at the Conservative Heritage Foundation to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As we mentioned on yesterday's show, E.J. Anthony is a long-time critic of the agency's handling of jobs data. The position requires Senate confirmation. Trump fired the agency's head following a weak jobs report earlier this month,

claiming that the agency's economic data was, quote, rigged. Here's our deputy finance editor, Quentin Webb. There is a kind of bigger picture here, which is that actually response rates for all of the surveys that the BLF and other agencies used to collect data have gone down a lot, So you could say there are some genuine questions there about the reliability of the data. On the other hand, he is also clearly, you know, a partisan figure. And for many people, that is problematic.

They say that the BLS should be led by someone who isn't beholden to any particular political position. This data is seen as a kind of global gold standard. People trust US data very deeply. And the data helps inform all kinds of decision making from the Federal Reserve's decision. about interest rates to the pricing of various instruments. So once you start to pull away at that foundation, that could be very problematic for global markets. Well, after the July Jobs report raised some questions about the overall health of the economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will give investors another snapshot today. July's consumer price index is due at 8.30 a.m.

Eastern Time. Economists polled by the Wall Street journals say prices likely rose 2.8% in the 12 months through July. The core reading, which excludes food and energy prices, is expected to come in at 3.1% year over year, slightly hotter than June's 2.9% rate. On this week's episode of WSJ's take on the week, co-host Telis Demos reflected on how investors are grappling with the prospect of less reliable economic data in the future. The last reading was a little hot. It was 2.7% kind of inching toward 3% that I think starts to spook everyone. We'll see what the next report says. Also, the producer price index, which kind of is a measure of wholesale prices.

Similarly, that has not been too hot. It's been running in the sort of 2%. So, again, not seeing necessarily the inflation there. And then we have business inventories, which I think that's why I think people will be interested in because the narrative about what's happened with tariffs is that everybody bought up stuff earlier in the year, worrying that the price of it might go up later. and so now everyone's sitting on a big inventory pile. But what's interesting from a market point of view, though, is despite the, I would say,

you know, very dramatic discussions we're having about the economy and data, the market has been, you know, it went down a little bit after the jobs report. It went kind of back up. I think we're sort of still in the neighborhood of all-time highs for the S&P. And there are certainly some stocks that the market still seems to love. And we will have full coverage and analysis. of today's U.S. data on our live blog on WS.J.com. Just three days out from a major summit between President Trump and Putin in Alaska,

Russian media are reporting on potential energy and infrastructure deals with the U.S. There's even talk of a possible future Trump Tower, Moscow. Lasting peace in Ukraine, however, does not seem to be a priority for Moscow, as the journal's Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trophymelf explains. Peace in Ukraine is realistic if President Putin decides that it's in his interest to end the war. And right now he doesn't seem to be interested in that because he thinks that on one hand he is winning on the battlefield, with the Russian army advancing. And on the other hand, he is not paying any price for that diplomatically because President Trump,

after so many threats, has let his deadline for secondary sanctions on Russia laps without consequence. And Yarrow says that talks around future business deals with the US cement a new era for Putin. For Putin, really, it's a win-win situation. If he manages to get concessions from the Trump administration on Ukraine to give up land, great. If he can settle a war in his own terms, he'll be fantastic news for Russia. But even if he doesn't, that's still a major geopolitical victory for Putin, you know. For the last three and a half years, he's been a pariah, he's been isolated in the world state. And now all of a sudden, he gets to get what Russia always desired, a meeting on equal terms with the United States,

where Putin can really posture as a global statesman who is deciding the fate of the world together with his equal, President Trump. Russia's proposal for a ceasefire includes taking control of large parts of eastern Ukraine, a non-starter for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. While not invited to the summit, he and European leaders, have briefed U.S. officials on an alternate proposal that they hope can kickstart peace talks. Coming up, China is creating the world's biggest shipbuilder as Beijing takes its rivalry with the U.S. to the seas. That story and more after the break. The U.S. and China may have extended their trade truce, but a new battlefront is emerging on the seas.

This week, the $16 billion merger of two Chinese companies will create the world's largest shipbuilder. Combined, the two firms, China State Shipbuilding and China Shipbuilding Industry, accounted for almost 17% of the global market last year. The US, meanwhile, is looking for a path back into the business. President Trump wants to revive American shipbuilding, though those plans have hit snags recently. And as journal reporter Clarence Lyong writes, that rivalry is acting as a spur for Beijing to boost its capacity.

Clarence, give us an idea of just how dominant Chinese shipbuilding is on a global scale. Beijing has for decades wanted to build up a dominant and world-leading shipbuilding industry. And given its top-down governance model, it has pulled that off. Nowadays, Chinese built ships account for more than half of the global tarnish. And according to data last year, that share was 55% compared with less than 0.05% for the US. And so there's this huge gap. And the US Navy also has data showing that China possesses 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the US. And we know that Trump wants to revive shipbuilding in the US.

It's a flagship policy. Explain to us why it's so strategically important. Yes. a lot of trade happens between countries, and they all rely on these massive cargo vessels to transport the goods. And it keeps the modern world functioning. At the same time, shipbuilding is also a strategically important industry, because during times of war, commercial vessels will also probably have to play the role of supplying the operations on the front line, for example, And so that's when having a massive shipbuilding capacity will come in very handy, especially if the conflict drags out.

And China realizes this. And so this is why they have poured so much resources into building out this dominant shipbuilding industry that it currently has. And as we talk about it in this trade war, albeit in a current truce with the US, what is the significance of that for the shipbuilding industry? Yes, well, perhaps there are two main significance here. The first one is that, as you said, the U.S. is in the trade war with China, and President Trump also wants to revive American shipbuilding. And he knows that by doing that, part of the way to do it will be to target Chinese-built ships. And so he has threatened to charge a hefty port fee on Chinese-built ships that call at U.S. ports. and that has had the effect of deterring ship owners to place new orders with Chinese shipyards. And the second significance is that while we have the U.S. targeting Chinese-made ships,

that obviously also has the effect of potentially giving a lift to shipbuilding nations that are friendlier to the U.S., including Japan and South Korea. And both countries have seen an opening after Trump targeted Chinese-built ships. But through this merger, China is hoping to give its leading shipbuilder a boost, combining the two leading shipbuilders so that it can benefit from scale and in that way hope to retain its dominant position as well as to fend off a challenge coming from its East Asian neighbors. Journal reporter Clarence Lyon, thank you so much. Thank you.

General Electric and United Nuclear have agreed to a clean-up of uranium mine waste at sites in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation. The Justice Department said yesterday that the deal, estimated at $63 million, requires the companies to excavate and remove about 1 million cubic yards of uranium mine waste from the Navajo Nation site. The cleanup is expected to take more than a decade to complete. and photography company Eastman Kodak is warning that it may not be able to pay its current debt obligations as it tries to find savings by ending its retirement pension plan. Kodak reported a loss of $26 million for the April to June period down from a profit of the same amount for that period last year. Once a household name in cameras and film, Kodak said it doesn't have committed financing

all available liquidity to meet debts coming due within 12 months. Its stock was down more than 6% in off-hours trading. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bark. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

Thank you.