Good morning. A Congressional committee has subpoenaed three Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies, reports Risk Journal's Richard Vanderford, after they failed to respond to a request for information on whether their operations in the U.S. affect national security and Americans’ data privacy.

• The players: China Mobile, the country’s biggest wireless provider, China Telecom and China Unicom ignored the requests for information and now must comply with the subpoenas, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said Thursday.
   
• What’s next: The committee, which is investigating the companies, has demanded answers to the subpoenas by May 7. The committee said it may “consider further steps” if the companies continue to withhold cooperation.
   
• Tensions increasing: The move continued a trend of U.S.-China political tensions spilling over into the corporate arena. The governments of the two countries have steadily taken aim at each other’s enterprises, large and small, through official channels.

At the WSJ CCO Council Summit in London on May 7 attendees will hear about the most significant policy changes under the Trump administration from Jonathan Kewley, who co-chairs the global tech group at law firm Clifford Chance and is a recognized expert in AI, cybersecurity and data.

They will also hear from John Smith, co-head of law firm Morrison & Foerster’s national security practice and a former director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the primary U.S. sanctions enforcement body.

Paramount in talks with FCC over diversity policy concessions for merger.

The Federal Communications Commission has begun discussing with Paramount Global initial steps the company would need to take to secure the agency’s approval of its merger with Skydance Media, according to people close to the discussions.

The FCC’s demands. One action under discussion between the agency and Paramount is a commitment that the company continues to abstain from particular corporate diversity initiatives, the people said. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has urged telecom and media companies to limit their diversity, equity and inclusion policies as a precondition for the agency to consider mergers and acquisitions.

European Commission bans lobbyists vouching for Huawei amid corruption probe.

The European Commission banned officials from meeting with lobbyists acting on behalf of Chinese tech group Huawei Technologies after a bribery scandal rocked Brussels this year.

Huawei lobbyists are being iced out of talks with European Union officials after Belgian authorities began investigating the company and its staff over corruption allegations. The European Parliament banned Huawei staff from its premises, with the commission–the EU’s executive arm–following suit last month.

• The U.K. has removed some restrictions against Syria, including those on the financial and energy sectors, a move it says is intended to help the new Syrian government rebuild the country’s economy.
   
• President Trump suffered a string of defeats in federal courts on Thursday as judges ruled to curtail measures targeting immigration enforcement, voting and diversity initiatives in education.

U.S. needs more power for AI—but critical equipment is pricey and scarce.

The U.S. needs massive amounts of electricity to power the AI race, but it is getting harder to deliver. Investors and developers are putting financing decisions on hold as they try to determine how much more their projects will cost to complete.

Delays abound. About 28% of planned wind, solar and battery projects have been delayed or canceled, according to an Atlas Public Policy analysis of government energy data. That is about 42,000 megawatts of capacity, roughly on par with the existing solar, storage and wind energy in California. Efforts to build natural-gas-fired power plants face similar challenges—wait times for turbines can stretch beyond three years, as can those for large transformers.

Supply shortages loom as U.S. shipments from China plummet.

President Donald Trump’s tariff war is sharply slowing traffic on a major shipping route between China and the U.S., according to Barron's. The pain of a near-standstill in goods shipments could spread from trucking companies to retail shelves in a matter of weeks.

The numbers. Ocean container bookings from China to the U.S. fell 64% in the first week of April compared with the week earlier, according to logistics data platform Vizion. Overall imports to the U.S. also fell 64%. Categories with the most dramatic drops included imports of apparel, fabrics and other textiles, Vizion said in a blog post.

• U.S. Farmers Face Steep Drop in China’s Soybean and Pork Buying

• President Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the mining of the deep sea as part of a broader effort by the White House to secure critical minerals for the U.S.
   
• South Korea’s economy contracted in the first quarter after large-scale wildfires and political turmoil over its president’s impeachment suppressed consumer sentiment and business activities.
   
• Ukraine said Thursday that it failed to strike a deal to restructure $2.6 billion of debt securities, heightening its risk of default, according to WSJ Central Banking. 
   
• President Trump’s latest plea to Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt his attacks on Ukraine highlights the risky premise Trump made in his quest for a quick end to the war—namely, that the Kremlin wants peace.
   
• In a direct response to the biggest and deadliest aerial barrage on Kyiv by Moscow’s forces this year, President Trump made a personal appeal to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop attacks on Ukraine and agree to a peace deal.
   
• Sales of existing homes in March posted their biggest monthly decline in more than two years, after mounting economic uncertainty roiled the housing market at the start of the critical spring selling season.
   
• China aims to implement more growth-supporting measures amid rising challenges from hefty U.S. tariffs.
   
• The Canadian economy faces short-term turbulence due to the fallout from President Trump’s trade policy, including the risk of tariff-fueled inflation, the country’s finance minister said Thursday.
   
• U.K. consumers are growing more pessimistic as they fear the weight of trade tariffs and renewed high inflation, according to a survey released Friday.

• As financial stress mounts, chains like Dollar Tree and Academy that cater to the budget-conscious are seeing more of a new class of shoppers.
   
• Businesses need to prepare for the AI-driven rise of a relentless, always-on economy.
   
• Private-equity firms see opportunity in a sector they once considered too unreliable: advertising.
   
• As tariff wars raise supply-chain uncertainty and green initiatives see a pushback, some renewables-focused companies are forging new relationships, including in the defense industry.
   

• Intel is buckling down for a difficult time ahead as new chief Lip-Bu Tan begins a turnaround effort.
   
• The White House is getting its own investment banker.
   
• PepsiCo relies on soda concentrate from Ireland to make its U.S. drinks. Now, facing tariff costs and plummeting consumer sentiment, the company says it no longer expects its earnings to rise this year.
   
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to get more work out of teenagers to address the state’s labor shortage.
   
• President Trump is targeting Democrats’ main fundraising platform, in an extraordinary effort to challenge the opposing party’s political infrastructure.
   
• The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reinstate its ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, the latest in a string of emergency appeals that seek to save White House initiatives after losses in the lower courts.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Send tips to our reporters Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

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