Good morning. President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order targeting Jenner & Block, expanding his campaign of retribution against law firms he perceives as enemies.

• Why? Trump cited the firm’s ties to Andrew Weissmann, who previously served as a top member of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. “He’s a bad guy,” Trump said after signing the order.
   
• The impact: The order strips security clearances from lawyers at the firm, restricts their access to federal buildings, and directs agencies to end any federal contracts with the firm and its clients. Tuesday’s order also explicitly targets pro bono work the firm has taken on to challenge the administration’s policies, saying it “abused its pro bono practice to engage in activities that undermine justice and the interests of the United States.”
   
• Retribution tour: The executive order comes on the heels of previous ones meant to punish major law firms, including Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss over their ties to lawyers who have worked on investigations or cases adverse to Trump. The order against Paul Weiss was later rescinded after the firm cut a deal with the White House.

The Trump administration has put a high priority on stopping drug cartels and transnational crime groups, including pivoting its anti-bribery efforts to focus on these groups.

Join us on April 1 to discuss the implications for risk and compliance programs with Gem Conn, vice president of Risk & Compliance Research at Dow Jones, Alexander Kramer, a partner at Crowell & Moring, and Louis Milione, president of global investigations and regulatory compliance at Guidepost Solutions.

The event will be hosted by Nicholas Elliott, head of communities at Dow Jones Risk & Research. Register here.

Judge orders Boeing to trial on 737 MAX case.

The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against Boeing has ordered a trial, increasing the odds the aerospace giant will have to plead guilty or defend against a charge it already said it committed.

The order came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing had been seeking to withdraw an earlier agreement to plead guilty for deceiving regulators before two deadly crashes of 737 MAX jets.

China releases detained staff of U.S. due-diligence firm Mintz.

China has released all detained employees of U.S. due diligence firm Mintz Group, the company said, marking the end of a two-year saga that unnerved American businesses operating in the country.

New York-based Mintz said all five of its Beijing employees—Chinese nationals—have been released. The detention of Mintz employees after a raid of its offices in Beijing in March 2023 sent shock waves across foreign businesses in the country.

• With new leadership at the Securities and Exchange Commission, cryptocurrency and cybersecurity executives wonder if the financial watchdog might lessen its bite over the next four years. The answer? It’s complicated.
   
• Ticketmaster may have broken U.K. consumer law in the way it sold certain tickets for rock band Oasis’s 2025 tour, the country’s competition regulator said.
   
• The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial is launching a stablecoin, its latest bid to capitalize on a crypto-market revival kindled by the president’s election. Critics said World Liberty’s stablecoin launch poses a major conflict of interest for President Trump.

Trade war explodes across world at pace not seen in decades.

Barriers to open trade are rising across the world at a pace unseen in decades, a cascade of protectionism that harks back to the isolationist fervor that swept the globe in the 1930s and worsened the Great Depression.

Economists and historians say the flurry of recent moves suggest the world could be heading toward the largest, broadest surge in protectionist activity since the U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 touched off a global retreat behind tariff walls that lasted until after World War II.

• Trump’s Tariff War Forces Allies to Choose Resistance or Surrender
• On the Front Line of Trump’s Trade War: Rio Tinto’s New Smelter

Samsung Electronics co-CEO dies, worsening tech firm’s ‘crisis’ moment.

The head of Samsung Electronics’s smartphone and consumer electronics business died from cardiac arrest on Tuesday, jolting the South Korean technology company during a business slide that leaders have called a crisis.

Jong-Hee Han, 63 years old, was appointed co-CEO of Samsung Electronics in December 2021. The company’s other CEO, Jun Young-hyun, oversaw the unit making semiconductors and other tech components. Jun will lead Samsung as solo CEO effective immediately following Han’s death, the company said in a Tuesday filing. 

The Suwon, South Korea-based company has stumbled in recent years, as the tech industry has undergone an artificial-intelligence boom.

• The U.S. said it would help Russia boost agricultural exports and restore its access to payments systems, after the Kremlin demanded the easing of Western sanctions in return for a cease-fire in the Black Sea.
   
• Congressional Republicans may consider capping corporations’ ability to deduct state and local taxes from federal taxable income, and business lobbyists are rallying to fight the potential change, which would raise hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade.
   
• A key consumer survey showed a fall in household sentiment in March, adding to evidence that people are taking a more negative view of the economy.
   
• President Trump wants to secure the minerals the U.S. needs for everything from smartphones to jet fighters by striking deals in Ukraine, Greenland and even Russia. But even if the Trump administration secures more mines for American companies, it may have to send much of the minerals to China—its main geopolitical rival—to be processed.
   
• The European Union said it is limiting the amount of tariff-free steel its member states can import, as part of the bloc’s efforts to protect its steel industry from high exports and U.S. trade barriers.
   
• The login portal of 23andMe’s website went down Monday evening as customers of the DNA-testing company rushed to delete their genetic data after it filed for bankruptcy.
   
• After a long period of pessimism, a number of global financial institutions have turned more upbeat on China’s economic outlook this year even amid concerns around tariffs, citing a stronger-than-expected recovery fueled by Beijing’s stimulus push.
   
• The Bank of Japan may consider monetary tightening if a surge in food prices causes broader and stronger inflation, the central bank governor said Wednesday, adding fuel to expectations for a near-term rate hike.

What is Signal and why were Trump officials using it to plan a military strike?

Signal, the favorite chat app for spies and journalists, got an unusual kind of endorsement this week after U.S. national-security officials were revealed to be using it to share information about a pending U.S. military strike, and mistakenly included a journalist in the chat.

Here’s what you need to know about Signal and the rules governing how federal officials communicate.

• The U.S. is the biggest nuclear power in Europe, but doubts about Washington’s commitment have European leaders questioning their weapons arrangements.
   
• Canadians have long been the top international travelers to the U.S. Now, they are staying home.
   
• Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong met with anxious faculty over the weekend in an effort to generate support, warn of the jeopardy the school faces and play down concerns that the deal the school cut with the government on Friday undermined its academic independence.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at david.smagalla@wsj.com.