WSJ What’s News - Why Does a Miami Investor Want to Buy Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline?

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

P.M. Edition for Nov. 22. The Wall Street Journal’s Chris Matthews on the American businessman asking the U.S. for permission to bid on the natural gas pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany. And Journal agriculture business reporter Patrick Thomas discusses how farms are preparing for a possible labor crunch if the Trump Administration follows through on its planned deportation of undocumented migrants. Plus, WSJ economics reporter Harriet Torry explains how Republicans feeling happy about Donald Trump’s election helped raise U.S. consumer sentiment higher. Tracie Hunte hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You let him try violin because you love him. And if you love him that much, love him enough to make sure he's buckled up and in the back seat. Find out more at nhtsa.gov slash the right seat. Brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Ad Council. Republicans feeling good about the economy or driving up U.S. consumer sentiment. And the American farming industry is preparing for the impact of the Trump administration's planned immigration crackdown. The industry would tell you that anytime that there is a shortage of labor, prices will

inevitably go up for consumers. Plus, why a Miami businessman is planning to buy a sabotaged Russian natural gas pipeline. It's Friday, November 22nd. I'm Tracy Hunt for The Wall Street Journal. This is a PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Republicans are feeling a lot perkier about the economy now that Donald Trump is on his way to the White House. Democrats? Less so. According to data released today by the University of Michigan, the index of consumer sentiment in Republican households climbed more than 15 points in

November. In Democratic households, the same index fell by more than 10 points. This release is the first that includes surveys conducted after Election Day. WSJ economics reporter Harriet Taurie joins us now. So Harriet, obviously Republicans are happy that their candidate won the presidential election, but why would that translate to consumers feeling more positively about current economic conditions? That's something that economists have been asking themselves for a long time. There is this general sense that if your party won the White House, you will tend to feel a little bit better about the way things are in the country and the trajectory of the economy. And we really see that in this University of Michigan survey for consumer expectations.

So we have seen these big swings in how people feel about the economy and feel about how their personal prospects are looking in the months and years ahead. Even though sentiment for Republicans was up, it still remained higher among Democrats and Republicans. What would account for that? Around half of the surveys were done before the election and half of the surveys were done after the election. So I guess it just kind of evens out. And the headline index of consumer sentiment was 71.8 in November, which is the balance of those two. So we have Republicans feeling a lot better, Democrats feeling relatively worse. And overall sentiment changed a little bit from October,

it went up a little bit, but not by a lot. Does it really just come down to politics? Well, it's a good question. In some ways, it does. Some of the economists that I spoke to for the story said that there is not a huge amount of evidence that when consumer sentiment goes up, that people will automatically spend more people will say that they have the intention to potentially spend more, you know, like, because they're feeling good about the economy, but actually in effect, there's not that much evidence that they actually do that. And a lot of economists have also said that these surveys appear to be becoming more a reflection of when people are asked by surveyors how they feel about the economy, they tend to give their opinion about the government rather than necessarily what is happening at that precise moment in time.

Harriet Torry is the Wall Street Journal's economics correspondent for the Western U.S. Thank you so much, Harriet. Thank you. Meanwhile, U.S. economic activity also surged following the election of Donald Trump. The S&P Global Flash U.S. Composite PMI, which gauges activity in the manufacturing and services sector, rose to 55.3 in November, up from 54.1 in October. Demand increased sharply over the month, and companies set out a brighter view of their output as interest rates fall and expectations of more supportive business policies from

the incoming Trump administration mount. The services sector continued to be the sole engine of growth, but the manufacturing industry contracted at its slowest rate in four months, suggesting in the months ahead a recovery could be in the cards. U.S. markets ended higher today. The S&P 500 added 0.4 percent, while the Dow was up 1 percent. The Nasdaq rose 0.2 percent.

The three major U.S. indexes each added at least 1.6 percent for the week. We're exclusively reporting that an American investor with a history of dealmaking in Russia has asked the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotage Nord Stream pipeline 2 if it comes up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding. Stephen P. Lynch, a Miami financier, wants to buy the natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany. Chris Matthews leads the Wall Street Journal's US energy coverage and he joins us now. So Chris, how did Nord Stream 2 come to be up for sale? Nord Stream 2 was completed right around the time of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and basically never went into service because of the war. So it was

sitting there and not flowing gas until it was sabotaged and blown up undersea. The owner of Nord Stream 2 is a subsidiary of Gazprom, the giant Russian gas company, and it went into bankruptcy proceeding in Switzerland where the subsidiary is based. Russia is under US sanctions, so Lynch needs special permission to negotiate this deal. What is his argument for why he should be able to buy it? That's right. The owners of Nordstrom 2 are under sanction and he's applied to the Treasury Department

for a license to negotiate with them. His basic argument is that this would be a good thing for the United States to have a U.S. person owning this vital pipeline between Europe and Russia. Of course, it's not flowing any gas. So you might wonder why is it important? His argument is when the war is over and the dust is settled, it will just be too tempting for both the customers in Europe and Russia to resume gas supply. He also makes the case that it could be a chip in peace

negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and he wants to structure the deal and the way the company operates in which certain revenues would go back to Ukraine to help the rebuilding process. Of course, this is all fully hypothetical, but that's the case that he makes. In order to pull off something like this, you have to have serious, serious connections. What are Lynch's ties to Russia? He's operated in Moscow for 20 years. He's made something of a career of buying distressed assets in Russia, which as a US investor is something not easy to do. He definitely has ties to the Russian government.

People who know him dispute that he is in some way working for the interests of Putin, but he definitely has connections. Chris Matthews leads the Wall Street Journal's U.S. energy coverage. A representative of the Treasury Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the State Department declined to comment. Coming up, how the U.S. agriculture industry is working to avert a potential labor crunch following the Trump administration's planned

mass deportation of migrants. That's after the break. The U.S. agriculture industry and workers are bracing for an immigration crackdown when President-elect Trump takes office. America's food supply chain relies on a predominantly immigrant workforce for some of its most challenging jobs. According to the U.S. Labor Department, about two-thirds of U.S. crop farm workers are foreign born and 42 percent are not legally authorized to work in the country. Patrick Thomas is a reporter covering the agriculture business for the Wall Street Journal,

and he joins us now. Patrick, which sectors of the business will be most affected by these raids that Trump has promised? Agriculture is one of the biggest industries that would be affected, and the food industry as well could really feel the effects for a number of different reasons. You think of produce farms and dairies, places that have a number of different reasons. You think of produce farms and dairies, places that have a lot of hard manual labor,

slouching over all day in the fields picking produce or out in a dairies, milking the cows, meatpacking plants, working on the line, cutting up meat have that have long relied on immigrant labor. There's just a very big anxiety going on around a lot of workers right now about if they do come here what's gonna happen to me. It's just a lot of uncertainty and employers are also concerned for their labor force. And what are the employers doing to prepare? Employers are concerned this will tighten the labor pool in general because you have less people in the country or if you have a crackdown on different programs that bring legal immigrants in the country.

That would just shorten the pool of people that these companies recruit from. And that means they're going to have to pay more for labor. And some of them are preparing for that. Some of them are talking about hiring more third-party staffing firms to try and find people, which they'll probably have to pay a premium to do that. So you're seeing companies kind of expect that their labor costs could go up. And the industry would tell you that anytime that there is a shortage of labor, prices will inevitably go up for consumers.

That was WSJ reporter Patrick Thomas. Thank you so much, Patrick. Thanks so much for having me. Amazon is investing an additional $4 billion in Anthropic, doubling its investment in the artificial intelligence startup as it aims to compete in the AI arms race. Amazon is a minority owner of San Francisco-based Anthropic, which

describes itself as an AI safety and research company. Amazon's investment since last year will total eight billion dollars. Amazon, as well as Microsoft, Google, and other tech giants, have been pouring money into AI startups as they look for the next version of OpenAI's chat GBT. News Corp, the owner of the Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI's chat GBT. News Corp, the owner of the journal and Dow Jones Newswires, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. And finally, Mark Benioff is one of the most outspoken names in tech. The billionaire, co-founder and CEO of customer relationship software company Salesforce has been pivoting

the company's focus to artificial intelligence agents to help its clients manage customer service and other needs. But while Benioff is excited about AI, he says he doesn't buy into some of what he calls the false prophecies around the tech right now. Number one, everyone is not going to need their own nuclear power plant to run their data centers. This whole energy fantasy. And number two, that everybody has to start DIYing it and building it themselves. Let's just take these down

one by one. You can hear more from Benioff and his strong opinions about how others are promoting AI on Bold Names, a new interview series in the tech news briefing feed hosted by WSJ's Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins. Episode two drops tomorrow. And that's What's News for this week. Tomorrow you can look out for our weekly markets wrap up, What's News in Markets. Then on Sunday, we'll be looking at how the administration

is trying to secure President Biden's legacy and also what Democrats need to do to find their way back into power. That's in What's News Sunday. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. Michael Laval wrote our theme music. Aisha El-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. I'm Tracy Hunt.

Thanks for listening.