WSJ What’s News - The Task Force Taking On American Universities

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

P.M. Edition for April 15. The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is a cross-government group with unprecedented leverage to push for change at elite U.S. universities. WSJ higher education reporter Sara Randazzo tells us about the group, and how universities are responding to it. Plus, Beijing has told Chinese airlines not to place new orders with Boeing, the U.S.’s largest exporter. We hear from WSJ Heard on the Street columnist Jon Sindreu about what this means for Boeing’s business. And big-bank earnings for the first quarter showed that U.S. consumer spending remained resilient, despite economic uncertainty. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beijing is going after Boeing, the US's biggest exporter. But China may have more to lose. This really doesn't seem like an industry where China has a lot to gain by confronting the US. Rather the opposite. It's one of those few areas where the US has quite a lot of leverage. Plus inside the little-known government task force taking on U.S. universities. And big bank earnings show American consumers remain resilient. It's Tuesday, April 15th.

I'm Alex Osala for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. The latest company to get caught up in the escalating trade war between the US and China? Boeing, America's biggest exporter. Beijing has told Chinese airlines not to place new orders for Boeing jets and is requiring carriers to seek approval before taking delivery of aircraft they have already ordered. That's according to people with knowledge of the Chinese regulator's guidance. WSJ herd on the street columnist John Sendrayu joins me now. John, Boeing is coming off a rough couple of years here. How big a hit is this to its business?

Well, it's probably not huge, particularly to its present business. There was an analyst note out that estimates that 27 737s in this inventory were to be delivered to China this year, and some 787s and 777 freighters. And they estimate that it's a hit of around $1.2 billion in cash for Boeing. So it's significant, but it's not massive. And of course, ultimately, Boeing will be able to deliver those aircraft to someone else. But of course it's expensive, it takes time to reconfigure the aircraft for a new client and also the current situation is pretty unstable. We have had for example Virgin Atlantic

saying that they've already seen a hit to transatlantic travel and there is a chance that there'll be a recession, demand for travel will fall off a cliff, and then airlines, they might still want the planes eventually, but they're not going to want them immediately. And again, this is a problem for Boeing because they're trying to get cash through the door immediately. So it's a threat, but it's not existential. What are some companies that could stand to benefit? It's hard to tell.

Immediately, Airbus is the obvious answer. It's the only other big commercial jet maker in the world. China still buys from Airbus, even though it has basically taken in no Boeing planes in recent years, which is the other important context here. A lot of this hit for Boeing has already happened because China, both because it's trying to apply some diplomatic pressure to the US, but also it's trying to promote its own homegrown plane maker, which is Comac, is already not too keen on Boeing and has shifted purchases to Airbus. You would think this will just make that happen more, but we also have to think

about the fact that Airbus cannot increase production that much. So yeah, Airbus tends to gain, but it's not like for like. It's more that China probably will not be able to access as many Western planes as they would like. And what reasons could China have to potentially back down from this? They have a lot of reasons. In fact, I would say this is a bit of a bizarre move on the part of China.

The reason is in most industries, when they have tried to retaliate against the tariffs, China has had a very strong hand. We can think about, for example, Apple and the fact that 90% of the iPhone making capacity is in China. It would have been a massive blow for Apple to have the tariffs that were initially imposed on electronics. And the US, very quickly back down from that, this is not the same. Aerospace is one of the few cases in which China has not yet managed to catch up with the US technologically. They're significantly far behind and US technologically. They're significantly far behind and their attempts to build a homegrown plane making industry are still very dependent on US components. And the US seems to have

a lot of leverage. So it's true that they can score this quick shot at Boeing because Boeing is not going through a good time. But ultimately, this really doesn't seem like an industry where China has a lot to gain by confronting the U.S., rather the opposite. That was WSJ herd on the street columnist, Johnson Drew. Thank you, John. Thank you. U.S. markets edged slightly lower today, erasing earlier gains and signaling that investors are still concerned about President Trump's trade policies. The Dow fell about 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 lost roughly 0.2 percent,

and the Nasdaq stayed mostly flat. American consumers say they're getting worried about the economy and inflation. But so far, they're not acting like it. Today, Bank of America and Citigroup said that consumer spending ticked higher in the first quarter when concerns about tariffs and the economy began to bubble up. Last week, JPMorgan Chase said that credit and debit card spending rose. Executives said that consumers continued to spend in the weeks after the quarter ended, even after President Trump's Liberation Day, when he sharply escalated his tariff threats. JPMorgan noted that some of that spending might have been people making purchases in

advance of price increases from tariffs. For the first quarter, Bank of America and Citigroup joined other big banks in reporting higher profits today that topped analyst expectations. Both banks experienced a surge in trading revenue revenue with investors positioning for Trump's tariffs. Coming up, meet the task force targeting billions of dollars in federal funding to elite universities. That's after the break. As we mentioned in this morning's show, Harvard said it would resist the Trump administration's demands to change its governance structure over campus anti-Semitism concerns. Hours later, the government announced a freeze of more than $2 billion of Harvard's multi-year

grants and contracts. In a post on social media this morning, President Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status. Last month, Columbia University ceded to administration demands in an attempt to restore $400 million in funding cuts, though conversations are ongoing and the return of the funds isn't assured. The actions the Trump administration has taken against elite American universities in recent weeks have shaken these institutions to their core. Behind it is a little-known government group called the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. Sarah Rendazzo, who covers higher education for the journal, is here to tell us more. Sarah, give us the lowdown

on this task force. Who's in it and what is its goal? Soon after the Trump administration came into being, an announcement came out from the Justice Department about this new federal task force to combat anti-Semitism. And it was interesting because it has people from all across the government. There's Health and Human Services, there's the Education Department, there's the Justice Department, and there's even the General Services Administration, which handles procurement for the government. So it's kind of this real multi-agency range of folks who are meeting.

And what we've then learned is that they're really taking a hard line against colleges and universities over what they say was inaction around protests last year over the Hamas-Israel War. So, the stated goal, right, is to combat anti-Semitism, as is the name of the task force. But functionally, what is it doing? Yeah, so functionally, what it's doing is really putting universities on notice, and they've been threatening funding against a bunch of big-name elite schools, and it did start out seemingly focused more on anti-Semitism, but some of the more recent battles, including

what we're seeing with Harvard right now, are going beyond that into broader governance of college campuses and things that many would say are going well beyond just combating anti-Semitism. And so it's really been a push and pull between, hey, we control federal funding to you universities so do what we say or we're going to pull this funding. And some universities saying, okay, we'll make some changes so that we get the funding back and others saying, you know, you can't tell us what to do. How are schools reacting to this? Schools are responding differently to the task force's individual demands.

Columbia somewhat acquiesced to some things, whereas Harvard is kind of taking more of a stand. And I think other schools are trying to honestly just stay out of the crosshairs. There was a list of 10 universities that the task force put out that it was going to have initial school on-campus visits for. I've talked to several schools on that list who say they haven't had any robust conversations yet and they haven't seen them on campus. So the 10 universities on that list I think are more on notice, but then others are just watching it all and just trying to see where it all lands and what it might mean for them. LESLIE KENDRICK And for the schools that are on that list,

are they pursuing legal action? What are they up to? We haven't seen any actual lawsuits yet filed by a university against the administration. We feel like that probably could be coming at some point. We have seen some faculty lawsuits from Columbia and Harvard. And for the ones that are on the list but haven't been fully

in the crosshairs yet, we haven't seen any litigation, but I am sure they are all hands on deck preparing, maybe making some preemptive changes, you know, in terms of putting in better processes around student discipline or how things are dealt with if complaints come in about anti-Semitism and that kind of thing. So no one is just sitting on their hands waiting around, but it's a little hard to see all of what's going on. That was WSJ reporter Sarah Rendazzo. Thanks so much, Sarah. Sure thing. ["The Daily Show"] Many parents in the US save for years

to help pay for their child's college education in Tax Advantage 529 investment accounts. But now years of gains on those accounts may have been wiped out. WSJ personal finance reporter Oyin Adedoyin told our Your Money Briefing podcast what financial professionals suggest those families do. 529 plans have gotten super popular in recent years. There are more than 17 million accounts that hold $525 billion in assets.

And that was just as of the end of last year, which is up from $157 billion in assets. And that was just as of the end of last year, which is up from $157 billion in 2010. So this is both a combination of parents putting regular payments into their 529s, but also gains from the market. And so a lot of those gains are now in jeopardy. Parents are advised by their financial advisors to not freak out, first of all, you know,

take a deep breath, not panic, and just secure as much of their gains as possible. And you can hear more from Oyin in today's Your Money Briefing podcast. Today's episode is part of a week-long series from Your Money Briefing about how market turmoil could hit your wallet, investments, mortgages, taxes, and more. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienemé with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. I'm Alex Osila for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning.

Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next time.