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The Morning Risk Report: Businesses Assess Impact of Supreme Court Striking Down Trump’s Tariffs

By David Smagalla | Dow Jones Risk Journal

 

Good morning. President Trump still has many trade measures to use as foreign policy levers following a Supreme Court ruling striking down his novel deployment of tariffs as an “emergency” measure.

  • The ruling: The Supreme Court on Friday ruled 6-3 that Trump couldn’t use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law used to impose sanctions on foreign countries, to support his tariff measures. 
     
  • A first move by Trump: In an announcement shortly following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump said the U.S. will impose a 10% global tariff under the Trade Act of 1974, which allows for such tariffs for up to 150 days. The U.S. will also begin new tariff investigations under a different provision of the same law, which could result in more permanent tariffs. In a social-media post on Saturday, Trump said he was raising the global tariff amount to 15%.
     
  • What's Plan B? “It’s sort of like the line in the original ‘Jurassic Park’ movie: ‘Life finds a way,’” Brent Carlson, a principal at trade compliance consulting firm Red Flags Rising Solutions, told Risk Journal's Max Fillion. “If that avenue closes, the administration’s going to find other tools that it can use.”
     
  • Tariffs here to stay? But despite the ruling, many corporate executives are resigned to tariffs, regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, reports Risk Journal's Richard Vanderford.
     
  • Learning to live with it: “I think tariffs are here to stay,” Tom Wilson, chief executive of insurer Allstate, said in January at a conference in New York hosted by The Conference Board. “You just gotta get used to it.”

Also see:

  • Tariff Ruling Sets Off Scramble to Figure Out What Comes Next
  • Tariff Ruling Brings Little Comfort Overseas
  • Court’s Tariff Ruling Puts $133 Billion in State of Limbo
  • Trump Lost on Tariffs, but Trade Will Never Be the Same
  • Tariffs Are a Wild Card for the Economy Again
  • Why Tariffs Aren’t Shrinking the U.S. Trade Deficit
     
 
$133.5 Billion

How much in tariffs U.S. Customs and Border Protection brought in through mid-December under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the law struck down by the Supreme Court on Friday.

 
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Compliance

Michael Selig is chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Photo: Eric Lee/Bloomberg News

Meet the Trump official fighting for prediction markets

Michael Selig oversees a federal agency created to regulate soybean futures. Now he’s helping Americans around the country bet on everything from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions to who will win the latest season of the reality TV show “Survivor.”

Less than two months into the job, the 36-year-old lawyer has come out swinging in favor of prediction markets such as those facilitated by the likes of Kalshi and Polymarket. The chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sees their platforms as a way for society to channel the wisdom of crowds for useful information, offering a check on news media and other gatekeepers.

 

DEI rules that changed corporate boards are vanishing.

Anti-DEI activists are going after diversity policies for corporate boards, but a new analysis finds that companies have largely abandoned those goals already.

S&P 500 companies are adding women and minority directors no faster than they did a decade ago, shortly before diversity, equity and inclusion policies became more common across the corporate world, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of board data.

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  • The White House is ratcheting up pressure on Congress to enact President Trump’s proposed ban on investors buying homes, laying out for the first time what sort of investment firms he plans to target.
     
  • The phantom fleet of sanctioned vessels now numbers 1,300 ships, according to TankerTrackers.com, a ship-tracking website. Here are their last-known positions on or before Feb 10.
     
  • Boutique investment bank Centerview Partners agreed to settle a lawsuit with a former analyst shortly before trial, resolving a case that was set to examine the responsibilities of one of the most grueling jobs in finance.
     
  • Private equity has enjoyed a year of milder antitrust scrutiny under the Trump administration, and a recent court ruling may lighten the industry’s burden even further.
     
  • The U.S. on Friday welcomed India as the newest member of Pax Silica, a group of nations that aims to counter China’s influence in new technology and artificial intelligence.
     
  • Months before Jesse Van Rootselaar became the suspect in the mass shooting that devastated a rural town in British Columbia, Canada, OpenAI considered alerting law enforcement about her interactions with its ChatGPT chatbot, the company said.
     
  • The husband of embattled Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the subject of a complaint reported to police of an alleged sexual assault at Labor Department headquarters, according to people familiar with the matter.
 

“So it’s a loss, then?”

— President Trump at the start of a closed-door White House meeting with governors on Friday, upon hearing that the Supreme Court ruled that his global tariffs were illegal.
 

Risk Journal Podcast

Washington’s oil embargo is raising the risk of a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. Also, trade compliance professionals are in hot demand. James Rundle hosts.

You can listen to new episodes every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon.

 

Risk

Oseguera’s gunmen responded to his death by burning vehicles and blocking roads in Mexico. Photo: Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty

Mexico kills powerful drug kingpin, sparking violent response.

Mexico’s military killed the country’s most powerful drug kingpin, Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, escalating the government’s war against cartels amid pressure from President Trump to curb drug trafficking and sparking a widespread, violent gang response.

Oseguera, a former Mexican police officer, was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which U.S. and Mexican authorities view as the country’s most powerful organized-crime group and the top cocaine smuggler to the U.S. The cartel also controls vast fuel-smuggling schemes and other underworld rackets across Mexico and the U.S., Mexican authorities said.

Response. Oseguera’s gunmen responded to his death by burning cars and trucks and blocking roads in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, as the government deployed security forces across western Mexico.

 

Trump approaches legacy-defining moment on Iran: a deal or war.

President Trump is at a crossroads that could define his legacy: He could sign a deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear program, or launch a war with hard-to-control consequences for the U.S. and the Middle East.

Trump has said he would prefer a strict agreement that stops Tehran from ever being able to develop nuclear weapons—a potentially historic breakthrough. Should Trump instead order an attack, in the hope of coercing the Iranian regime or even bringing it down, he would be risking a major conflict that could envelop the rest of his presidency.

  • The U.S. Military Hardware Pouring Into the Middle East
  • Under Trump Pressure, Iran Finds Its Friends Are of Little Help
  • Iran’s Student Protesters Clash With Regime Loyalists
 
  • In talks about ending the war, Ukraine and Russia have converged on one goal: to avoid angering President Trump by appearing to block peace.
     
  • The arrest of one of China's senior-most generals on Jan. 19 represented the consolidation of absolute power by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, asserting again his primacy over the world’s second-most-powerful military.
     
  • Private-sector activity in the U.S. slowed in February as tariffs drove costs higher for firms, while Europe expanded at a stronger pace than anticipated as a rebound in industry signaled resilience against lingering headwinds.
     
  • Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodríguez is working closely with the U.S. to reopen Venezuela’s oil industry and revive its economy. A Gold Glove Consulting poll found 72% of Venezuelans believe the country is headed in a good direction.
     
  • Cryptocurrency companies and fintech startups dream of breaking into the mainstream financial system. Some think they may have found a shortcut: Buy a bank.
     
  • Canada on Friday approved some newer models of Gulfstream business jets for flying in domestic airspace, about three weeks after President Trump complained about regulatory delays and threatened economic repercussions for the country’s aerospace sector unless rectified.
     
  • North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un kicked off his country’s most important political event in half a decade with confidence, gearing up for an era of military expansion and defiance as a self-declared nuclear power.
 

Data Security

Vodka maker Stoli Group USA cited a cyberattack in its bankruptcy proceedings. Photo: Lev Radin/ZUMA Press

Nation-state hackers hit businesses for commercial edge.

With all eyes on safeguarding U.S. infrastructure, the nation’s top cyber adversaries are increasingly targeting companies to pinch trade secrets, aiming to give their own industries a competitive edge in global markets.

Though not a new strategy, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are accelerating efforts to hack into foreign businesses for commercial and economic gain, said Eric Foster, chief executive of cybersecurity firm Tenex.ai. “These aren’t isolated incidents. This is systematic, well-funded economic warfare,” Foster said.

 

Risk Journal Events

Join us in New York on March 4 for the Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit. Speakers include Kaitlin Asrow, acting superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services; Erika Brown Lee, head of global data privacy legal, Citi; Beth Collins, chief compliance officer, Walmart; Indrani Franchini, chief compliance officer, IBM; and Kevin O’Connor, general counsel, Lockheed Martin.

Request a complimentary invitation here using the code COMPLIMENTARY. Attendance is limited, and all requests are subject to approval.

 

What Else Matters

  • A man was shot and killed Sunday after breaching the secure perimeter at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the Secret Service said.
     
  • President Trump demanded that Netflix kick former national security adviser Susan Rice off its board, adding another political headache to the streaming company’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery’s key entertainment assets.
     
  • A massive winter storm bearing down on the Northeast and mid-Atlantic put states on emergency measures Sunday and upended air travel, with airlines canceling thousands of flights ahead of the arrival of blizzard conditions.
     
  • President Trump said he plans to send a hospital ship to Greenland as part of his continuing effort to exercise control of the island in the Arctic, which he has said is vital for national security and contains mineral riches.
     
  • The blast radius of the Epstein files has toppled C-suite executives, shamed financiers and led to the arrest of a former British royal. Now, school picture day is in the crossfire.
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About Us

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

You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editor David Smagalla at david.smagalla@wsj.com.

 
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