Good morning. The U.S. Department of Commerce has initiated a national security investigation into imports of semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, a move that could lead to new tariffs or other trade restrictions, according to a Federal Register notice published on Wednesday. 

• Background: The investigation comes amid rising U.S.-China tensions over trade and especially semiconductors, with both countries imposing export controls on chip technology in recent years. Earlier this month, China blacklisted 18 U.S. defense firms and imposed export controls on rare earth minerals used in electronics manufacturing.
   
• The scope: The investigation, launched on April 1 under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, will examine the effects on national security of imports of chips, manufacturing equipment and derivative products, including semiconductor substrates and bare wafers, legacy chips, leading-edge chips, microelectronics, and SME components.
   
• Pressure on Nvidia: Meanwhile, an influential Congressional committee released a report on Wednesday, saying that Nvidia-made chips should be subject to stronger export controls as part of a push to block China’s development of artificial intelligence technology that could threaten U.S. security. 
   
• DeepSeek under spotlight: The report, written by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, also accused DeepSeek of building its models with restricted technology.

Export restrictions placed on certain chips manufactured by Nvidia have weighed on other chipmakers, and shares of Broadcom, Qualcomm and others declined Wednesday.

Investment firms are faced with a range of shifting risks, ranging from geopolitics to cybercrime and regulatory risk.

Dow Jones Risk & Compliance will host a webinar on April 29 to discuss these risks with Scott Pomfret, a former chief compliance officer and Securities and Exchange Commission trial attorney. You can register here.

Google faces potential $6.6 billion U.K. antitrust lawsuit over search advertising.

Google is facing a potential 5 billion-pound ($6.62 billion) collective action lawsuit in the U.K. that claims it abused its dominance and overcharged companies for search advertising services.

The claim filed Wednesday–brought by British competition law academic Or Brook represented by law firm Geradin Partners–argues that Alphabet-owned Google abused its dominant position in the digital economy to exclude competitors from the general search and search advertising markets, allowing it to charge higher prices for search ads.

• President Trump signed an executive order launching a national security investigation “to determine whether imports of processed critical minerals and their derivative products threaten to impair national security,” as the U.S. and China battle over rare earth elements used in making everything from semiconductors and smartphones to electric vehicles and jet fighters.
   
• The U.S. has removed Antal Rogan, a senior Hungarian official previously sanctioned for corruption, from the Treasury Department’s blacklist, according to a readout of a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on April 15.
   
• A former fruit farming executive is pushing for information from Maine’s largest public pension about its backing of his now-bankrupt company, putting a spotlight on laws surrounding what private funds must disclose about their investment decisions (requires WSJ Pro subscription).
   
• A federal judge said Wednesday he had found probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt for willfully disregarding an order barring the removal of Venezuelan migrants from the country.

WTO sees fall in trade flows, warns against spreading conflict.

Global trade in goods will fall this year, and the decline could be severe if President Trump presses ahead with suspended tariff hikes and uncertainty about trade policy spreads beyond the U.S., the World Trade Organization said Wednesday.

The Geneva-based dispute resolution body expects exports and imports of goods to fall by 0.2% this year as a result of the tariff rises implemented by April 14, both in the U.S. and in retaliating countries. It had previously forecast growth of 2.7%. The WTO’s economists see a continued if less severe hit in 2026, lowering their growth projection to 2.5% from 2.9%.

• Viral Videos, Trade Tensions Drive U.S. Shoppers to Chinese App
• Global Markets Drop on Fears of Escalating U.S.-China Trade Tensions
• U.S. Tries to Crush China’s AI Ambitions With Chips Crackdown

Powell warns of ‘challenging scenario’ for Fed as trade war rages.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the central bank could have less flexibility to quickly cushion the economy from the fallout of President Trump’s trade war, sending stocks down on Wednesday.

Powell said he saw a “strong likelihood” that consumers would face higher prices and that the economy would see higher unemployment as a result of tariffs in the short run.

• What the Weak Dollar Means for the Global Economy
• What Economists See Ahead—and How They Fared Last Year
• Trump Lashes Out at Powell, Says ‘Termination Cannot Come Fast Enough’

• Fears are growing that a rebel militia is using violence to consolidate control in Darfur, the famine-stricken region of Sudan, threatening a bloody new chapter in the country’s two-year-long civil war.
   
• New Zealand consumer prices rose more than expected in the first quarter, pushing annual inflation higher for the first time in almost three years just as the central bank faces tariff-driven economic uncertainty.

• The Trump administration has requested that the Internal Revenue Service start the process of revoking Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• A major Harley-Davidson shareholder is fighting to shake up the motorcycle maker’s board and quickly replace its chief executive in the face of deteriorating sales.
   
• Plans by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to cut the number of workers at the Agriculture Department won’t disrupt “the timely issuance of important releases,” the agency said Wednesday.
   
• El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele plans to double the size of the maximum-security prison where his government is holding U.S. deportees.

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