WSJ What’s News - Why Markets Seem Unfazed by Tariff News

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

A.M. Edition for July 11. The flurry of tariff announcements continue as President Trump threatens to slap 35% tariffs on imports from Canada, however WSJ finance editor Alex Frangos says markets are taking it in its stride. Plus, an initial investigation into last month’s fatal Air India crash focuses on pilot actions. And the appointment of a new CEO for Ben & Jerry’s escalates the dispute between the icecream maker and Unilever. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's regular cold. And then there's the mountains are blue cold. Mountain cold refreshment. Coors light. The chill choice. Celebrate responsibly. Must be legal drinking age. President Trump threatens a 35% tariff on some Canadian goods but markets seem unfazed. Plus a probe into last month's Air India crash is focusing on the pilot. Two fuel control switches, which controls fuel to the engines, were switched off at the time of the crash, which is highly unusual.

And the rift between Unilever and Ben and Jerry's board ramps up. It's Friday, July 11th. I'm Kate Bulevent for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. President Trump has threatened to slap 35 percent tariffs on imports from Canada starting August 1st. A White House official said an exemption would apply to goods that comply with the USMCA trade deal but stressed that could change.

In a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said the tariffs could climb higher if Ottawa retaliates, but that they could lower if Canada stops fentanyl from crossing the border. Canadian officials have repeatedly said very little fentanyl enters the US from Canada, with the country previously announcing plans to boost border security spending by almost one billion dollars to placate Trump. The countries have been involved in talks to lower tariffs ahead of a self-imposed July 21st deadline, which Carney said on X he remains committed to with the new August 1st timeline. The Canadian dollar initially weakened sharply against the US dollar on the news before clawing back some of the losses last

night. It's just such a crazy difference from March and April when markets reacted to every utterance about tariff threats with like maximum volatility and now it's like everyone's just used to it. So, you know, Canadian dollar weakened but less than half a percent, which in currency terms is like a normal day. But we saw that repeated this week with all these letters going out to different countries, the 50% tariff against Brazil over Trump's displeasure over the prosecution of former

President Bolsonaro and Brazilian markets, they moved, but it wasn't crazy. That's journal finance editor Alex Frangos, who says markets are taking the week's flurry of tariff announcements in its stride. We have indexes in the US hitting records, bitcoins at a record. I mean, it's just not that kind of fear about these trade threats. And part of it is the kind of taco trade. Trump always chickens out this feeling that like he talks big, but in the end they'll make some sort of compromise that everyone can live with

But also that even if it is a little bit worse than expected Maybe companies are more resilient than we thought economies are a little bit more resilient than we thought That's a very short-term view. I don't know that everyone shares it, but that's the way the markets interpreting it We're exclusively reporting that an investigation into last month's Air India crash, where 260 people died, is focusing on pilot actions and not on a problem with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. According to people familiar with US officials' early assessments, preliminary findings indicate that switches controlling fuel flow to the jet's two engines were turned off, leading to an apparent loss of thrust shortly after takeoff.

Indian officials have released little information to the public about the investigation, fuelling some frustration among US officials with the pace of the probe, including analysis of the plane's black box. WSJ South Asia correspondent Shan Li has more. So this is a very high-stakes investigation because there's a lot of parties involved. For Boeing they've gone through years of one problem after another with their planes. Most of their 737 max fleet was grounded for nearly two years after two fatal crashes in 2019.

So if it turns out that there was some sort of design flaw in a 787 Dreamliner, it would be a huge, huge problem for the company. But that said, the preliminary findings so far has not shown any sort of design or mechanical problem and the investigators are looking at more pilot action based on what they found with the fuel control switch being turned off. But however these are very early days in the investigation and the conclusions could change over time. India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is expected to issue a preliminary report as soon as today. It didn't respond to a request for comment

on Thursday. as soon as today. It didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Harvard is exploring the creation of a new conservative scholarship center, similar to Stanford's Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration's accusations that it is too liberal. The idea has been circulating at the Ivy League School for several years but has gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has been battling the Trump administration for months over the school's federal funding and autonomy. Broader negotiations between the two are continuing

but have hit repeated snags delaying any settlement. And according to a person familiar with the Trump administration, the creation of a new institute would be considered window dressing and not a meaningful part of their negotiations. Unilever has appointed a new CEO for Ben & Jerry's, escalating its dispute with the Ice Cream Brands independent board. Johan and Semph will take up the role next month, having previously served as managing

director of Ben & Jerry's Europe business. The Ice Cream Brands board and Unilever have fought bitterly for years over the company's social activism, particularly its public stances on Israel and the Palestinian territories. The sides are currently locked in a legal fight over issues including the removal of Ben and Jerry's previous chief executive. Coming up, President Trump found himself in a give-and-take with African leaders this week as the US hopes to secure an immigration deal and those all-important critical minerals. We've got that story after the break. Germany, teriyaki chicken sandwich disappears in Japan and a Biscoff McFlurry blackout in Belgium.

Oh, it's just in. We can now confirm the stolen favorites have resurfaced at McDonald's Canada. The international menu heist. Try them all while you can for a limited time in participating McDonald's in Canada. This week, President Trump met with five heads of state from West Africa at the White House. It was his first major engagement with the continent in the new administration and journal national security reporter Robbie Grammer said a hot button domestic political issue

ended up taking center stage, immigration. Deportation seems to be in the background of almost every foreign policy conversation that the Trump administration is having right now with a lot of countries around the world. There's this aggressive deportation campaign and as part of that, if home countries refuse to take back migrants, the administration is looking for third countries to host these migrants temporarily or even longer. On paper, this conversation was all about security cooperation, commercial ties, part of the administration's drive to reorient US engagement with Africa from what they call trade not aid, get away from aid and development and more toward trade commercial ties.

But behind the scenes, there was this big push by the Trump administration's State Department to go to West African countries before the summit and say, hey, would you agree to take in migrants? Robby said it's not clear if the leaders who visited the White House intend to accept that offer. Their embassies didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But after the Supreme Court cleared the way last month for the US to deport migrants to third countries, they, like heads of state from around the world, find themselves on the receiving end of a new American demand. That ruling really paved the way for this massive new drive

that's taking place behind the scenes. US embassies in various countries asking, will you take third party migrants? And there seems to be a quid pro quo here. Even if it's not written down on paper, there is a sense of, hey, your country might face tariffs. If you take in these third country migrants, that might grease the wheels, so to speak.

And we might be more interested, more amenable to trade deals, to lowering tariffs. Some of the countries in this region are facing very serious problems. They have their own migration flows. Guinea-Bissau has been labeled by the United Nations as a narco state because Latin American cartels have used it as a transit point and key hub to disseminate its drugs elsewhere in the world.

There's this growing threat of Islamist insurgencies in the Sahel region in West Africa. And so there is this bevy of really important and for these countries existential issues that they might want to talk to the United States about. And on top of that, now they have to juggle this political high wire act of do we accept third country migrants? You know, is this the only way to get our foot in the door with the Trump administration? The U.S. may hope to call the shots on migration, but on a different key issue for the U.S., securing access to critical minerals, Africa is trying to call the shots. According to the OECD, nearly half of the continent's 54 countries have restricted or banned raw material exports in the last two years.

Reporter Nicholas Borio said it's a bet that the West's desire to catch up to China's lead in strategic materials could mean more jobs and economic development if they insist that processing and refining take place within their borders. One example we have is Zimbabwe, where the minister says their ultimate objective is to manufacture batteries and solar panels instead of exporting minerals in our form. Other countries, including Guinea, Uganda, Namibia, have also introduced similar rules, while others like Ghana, Rwanda, and Zambia

are expanding processing plants within their borders. So the whole idea is to capture more value from this industry. A pair of Chinese state-owned mining companies operating in Zimbabwe and Ghana appear to be playing by the new rules as they build a lithium processing plant and manganese refinery. But Nicholas says it's an open question whether the localisation gambit will pay off. Creaky infrastructure could test the profitability of new projects. Other investors could end up on the wrong side of local authorities. Canada's Barrick Gold saw Mali take ownership of one of its gold mines in April following a tax dispute and Niger seized a uranium mine from its French majority shareholder after

a dispute on the size of its stake. And along with the risk of foreign investors outright bypassing certain countries or resources slipping into the black market, Nicholas said skilled labour shortages could lead companies that do invest to bring in their own workers to staff plants. Some of the unintended consequences we've seen in the case of Zimbabwe is these rules created a situation where small scale miners had nowhere to keep these minerals, have them processed so they were forced to smuggle them in large quantities across borders. And one other downside risk is that some of these investors may actually end up not giving a lot of jobs to the local people. So they come, invest in processing plants,

donate the value chains, and still end up undercutting some of the local authorities. And we have, in the case of Indonesia, three Chinese invested so much in their manufacturing industry, but again, that very chain is dominated by the Chinese. And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Kate Bulevant for

The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.