Good morning. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that Syria was potentially weeks away from a return to full-scale civil war, a scenario the U.S. was seeking to avert when it abruptly reversed course last week on easing sanctions on Damascus.

Background: President Trump announced he was lifting U.S. sanctions last Wednesday and met briefly in Saudi Arabia with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, surprising some Republican lawmakers who are skeptical of Sharaa, a U.S.-designated terrorist who led the overthrow of dictator President Bashar al-Assad last year.

Why the decision was made: Rubio explained to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the decision to offer support to Sharaa came after U.S. officials concluded that Syria was in imminent danger of descending back into something like the bloody factional fighting that engulfed the country for more than a decade until Assad’s fall.

Rubio’s reasoning: The transition government was “maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions—basically the country splitting up,” Rubio said.

Change in stance: The Trump administration had been cool toward Syria’s new leaders—many of whom are from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that cut its past ties with al Qaeda—and urged them to form a more inclusive government. Some senior officials have criticized them as jihadists and are suspicious of their intentions. Since last week’s shift, officials have been reviewing which sanctions they can unilaterally lift, as well as which require congressional approval to remove.

EU moves forward on antitrust cooperation with U.K.

The European Union and U.K. are finalizing a deal that will let both regions’ competition watchdogs work together more closely on the back of a fresh trade and security agreement.

What the deal does: The European Commission said Tuesday that the agreement will give regulators on either side of the English Channel a clear framework for cooperation on competition matters when enforcing EU rules, and sets out that they will flag important antitrust and merger investigations to each other. The deal also allows regulators to coordinate on cross-border probes.

Lawmakers urge action against Huawei’s HarmonyOS.

The U.S. should block the adoption of Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system, the bipartisan heads of a congressional committee said, warning China could use the new software for espionage.

Huawei’s HarmonyOS, which the company designed to run on desktop computers and mobile devices, could contain backdoors and vulnerabilities designed to facilitate spying by China, said John Moolenaar (R., Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D., Ill.), chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

• The U.K. is suspending negotiations for a free-trade agreement with Israel in response to the country’s new military operation in Gaza, and has imposed new sanctions on Israeli settlers, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Tuesday.
   
• The European Union has adopted its latest package of sanctions against Russia, taking aim at Russia’s access to military technology as well as revenue generated from its oil and gas industry and its “shadow fleet” of tankers transporting illicit oil.
   
• A trio of senators is seeking information about Paramount Global’s efforts to settle a lawsuit by President Trump against the company’s CBS News, probing whether the company risks violating a federal bribery statute.
   
• The U.S. has imposed visa restrictions on owners, executives and senior officials of travel agencies based in India for knowingly facilitating illegal immigration, the State Department announced Monday.
   
• Four Democratic senators wrote to SEC Chair Paul Atkins, asking him to promise not to further disable the Consolidated Audit Trail, a market surveillance system, or shut it down altogether, according to Barron’s.
   
• The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday ordered airlines to throttle back flying at Newark Liberty International Airport to help relieve congestion and reduce delays at the airport.
   
• A federal judge told the Trump administration to be prepared to return migrants who lawyers believe were deported to South Sudan and signaled concern the administration had violated a prior court order.

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is now a geopolitical superstar. It comes with risks.

The American president called him “my friend,” Saudi Arabia bought hundreds of thousands of his chips and, in the land of his birth, he was hailed as “the leader of team Taiwan.”

With a visit to Taipei this week, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang capped a whirlwind month of travel that marked him as not just a business tycoon, but one of the world’s most powerful geopolitical forces.

But international fame carries risks too—Huang does business in sensitive regions such as China and the Persian Gulf states.

How Target boycotts affect Black-owned businesses.

Boycotts against Target’s  rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are also hitting Black-owned businesses with products on the retailer’s shelves.

In interviews for the podcast series, some Black entrepreneurs, many of whom had become Target suppliers since its expanded DEI efforts in 2020, said they have seen their sales decline as a result of the boycotts, and they worry their relationship with Target is at risk. Others said that, despite the impact on their bottom line, they agree with the boycotters’ mission and are looking to find other ways to connect with customers.

• Top military officials from the U.S. and its main Asia-Pacific allies warned that the threat of Chinese aggression is rising, pressuring Washington to find ways to work with partners in a region where American resources are greatly stretched.
   
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit back when President Trump warned him he had “no cards” in the Oval Office, saying he was “not playing cards.” In the months since, the Ukrainian leader has softened his approach in an attempt to keep Trump on side. Now, it appears the deck has always been stacked against him.
   
• Mounting pressure from Israel’s allies including the U.S. to wrap up the war in Gaza is confronting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a dilemma: end the conflict and risk the collapse of his government, or plow on and sacrifice international support.
   
• The Dutch government trimmed its stake in lender ABN Amro to below one-third, following in the footsteps of European states that are moving to unload holdings in banks they built during the 2008-09 global financial crisis.
   
• Critical mineral supplies are increasingly concentrated in a handful of countries, with the threat of disruption growing as export bans multiply and diversification efforts face stiff hurdles, according to a report on the sector by the International Energy Agency.
   
• Bloomberg’s financial terminals, an essential platform for professional investors, suffered an outage Wednesday, disrupting trading.
   
• The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation jumped further above the Bank of England’s target in April as businesses raised their prices in response to higher payroll taxes and increased utility charges, an expected move that will nonetheless reinforce the central bank’s caution.
   
• Indonesia’s central bank has resumed its rate-cutting cycle as cooling inflation, slower growth and a steadier rupiah offer room to loosen policy settings.
   
• Japan’s exports to the U.S. fell in April for the first time in four months as the effects of higher tariffs started to kick in.

• President Trump turned the screws on holdout Republicans, warning they would pay a steep political price if they stood in the way of the multitrillion-dollar tax and spending agenda that party leaders want to quickly pass through the narrowly divided chamber.
   
• Venezuela released an imprisoned U.S. Air Force veteran to American officials, a move Caracas hopes could improve bilateral relations and encourage the Trump administration to allow Western oil companies to continue operating.
   
• Google is overhauling its iconic search engine to compete more directly with a wave of artificial-intelligence chatbots that threaten its core business.
   
• Elon Musk says he plans to cut back on political spending, after making huge donations in the 2024 election to boost President Trump.
   
• The world’s technology revolution is leaving Europe behind.

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