Washington, DC

1. WH’s DHS counteroffer
2. House trade drama
3. Fink calls DC summit
4. Americans’ pessimism
5. China to surpass US
6. Somaliland’s Trump offer

PDB: Lawmakers begin viewing unredacted Epstein files

Wright briefs lawmakers on Venezuela … Immigration officials testify before House … WSJ: Trump to repeal major climate finding

Flurry of talks to avoid DHS shutdown

President Donald Trump’s White House countered Democrats’ proposal on immigration enforcement, potentially setting the stage for Congress to avoid a Department of Homeland Security shutdown. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the private offer as “incomplete and insufficient” late Monday. Still, Republicans put a positive spin on the state of play: “Everyone is in communication, having productive dialogue,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., the chair of the DHS funding panel. Another important detail after last week’s public recriminations: No one is leaking details. If lawmakers can’t clinch a deal to keep the department open, Britt said Congress’ upcoming recess should be curtailed. A short-term funding bill takes pressure off the negotiators, so Democrats are not in a mood to entertain a stopgap. “We’re not to that point yet,” centrist Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Semafor.

— Burgess Everett

Tariff rebukes could reach Trump’s desk

The House is expected to vote today on whether to allow its members to start disapproving of Trump’s tariff regime. After House Democrats revealed plans to force votes disapproving of the president’s Canada tariffs as soon as this week, GOP leaders sought to resuscitate their year-long procedural blockade that keeps those resolutions off the floor. The Senate already voted to stop tariffs on Canada and Brazil, and tariff critics are rooting for the House to quit blocking those proposals from getting a vote. Plenty of House Republicans have issues with Trump’s tariffs, but leaders have tucked provisions into House rules for debate on unrelated matters that prevent fast-track anti-tariff votes — effectively shielding members from potentially defying the president. “They’ve been avoiding the vote,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “Might be interesting how it turns out.”

— Burgess Everett and Morgan Chalfant

BlackRock warns on AI ‘bottlenecks’

BlackRock is warning that the steep capital and labor demands of the data-center boom are emerging as one of the country’s “most stubborn bottlenecks” — a challenge that could undermine the US’ position in the global artificial intelligence race if left unaddressed, Semafor’s Rachel Witkowski writes. Chairman and CEO Larry Fink is calling a stakeholder meeting in Washington, DC, next month to push for solutions, which will be attended by Republican and Democratic lawmakers as well as Trump Cabinet officials and leading private sector executives. BlackRock estimates up to $85 trillion in investment will be required over the next 15 years to modernize older systems and build out the new energy security and AI‑era infrastructure coming online. Meeting that demand, the firm says, will also require hundreds of thousands more jobs in evolving trades. Semafor is a media partner for the March 11 summit.

Americans downbeat on quality of life

Fewer Americans than ever see themselves living high-quality lives in five years, according to new Gallup polling. Fewer than six in 10 US adults surveyed last year said they thought their future lives would be close to ideal, representing a record low since Gallup started asking the question two decades ago. The share of Americans who report being satisfied with their current lives is also the second-lowest in the survey’s history — higher only than the percentage recorded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Worries about inflation and affordability have likely driven that pessimism — issues that threaten Republicans as they seek to hold onto full control of Congress in the midterms. This week will bring the health of the US economy further into focus, with new data on US retail sales and inflation, as well as delayed January jobs numbers.

China to supplant US in next decade

China will supplant the US as the dominant economic power in the next decade, according to a survey of roughly 450 geopolitics experts conducted by the Atlantic Council and shared first with Semafor. The results underscore many experts’ doubts about the effectiveness of US trade policy and export controls, as Trump continues his expansive tariff regime. The respondents, who hail from 72 countries, expect the US to be the dominant power only in terms of military capability, according to the survey. Seven in 10 also said China will attempt to forcibly take Taiwan over the next decade, up from 65% a year earlier. That issue will likely be a central point of contention when Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet in April, as the US weighs additional weapons sales to the self-governing island.

— Morgan Chalfant

Somaliland courts Trump

The breakaway state of Somaliland plans to use the momentum from Israel’s recognition of it to press its case to Washington and other major capitals, and is pitching itself to Trump as a strategic, resource-rich partner, Somaliland’s leader told Semafor’s Mohammed Sergie. “The recognition of Somaliland was a historic moment for myself and for my people,” President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdilahi said in Dubai. “More people will pay attention. Somaliland is now used in every language in the world, and so that’s a major impact.” In December, Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland — which has been operating as a de-facto independent state since 1991 — triggering condemnation from the African Union, the European Union, China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.” We are working hard to get more friends and countries,” Abdilahi said. “We have more enemies than before, so everything has to be done discreetly.”

Blindspot: California and Canada

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, curated with help from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: A federal judge ruled California can’t ban federal agents from wearing masks, but it can make them display ID.

What the Right isn’t reading: President Trump threatened to block the opening of a border crossing between Michigan and Ontario until Canada has “fully compensated” the US for “at least one half” of the bridge.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: “More and more Republicans see that it’s not smart for us to be capitulating to Democrats on core issues like taking on illegal immigration,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.

Playbook: “We are all searching the files: for colleagues, competitors, clients,” a well-connected PR operative said of the Epstein documents.

Axios: AI CEOs are increasingly squabbling and trash-talking one another as they race to stay competitive.

WaPo: Republicans’ longstanding deal to overlook President Trump’s more extreme comments and behavior as long as he delivers wins for the party is increasingly being put to the test.

White House

• President Trump told Palm Beach police in 2006 that “everyone” knew Jeffrey Epstein abused girls and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was “evil.” — Miami Herald

Congress

• Congressional Republicans are resisting pressure from the White House to add a ban on Wall Street investors in the housing market to housing bills moving through both chambers. — WSJ
• Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions during a deposition with the House Oversight Committee.

• Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., criticized the DOJ for its redactions of names from Jeffrey Epstein case files after viewing some unredacted files.

Outside the Beltway

• The United Auto Workers did not discipline a union member who heckled President Trump during Trump’s visit to a Michigan Ford plant last month. — Detroit News

Inside the Beltway

• DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asked her department’s inspector general for a list of all ongoing internal probes. — The Hill

Campaigns

• Steve Bullock, Montana’s former Democratic governor, penned an essay in the Democracy Project at NYU Law calling for action at the state and federal level to rein in so-called dark money and corporate spending in politics, identifying the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling as the “predominant factor undermining democratic governance during my time in office.”

Business

• Michael Grimes returned to Morgan Stanley after leaving his stint at the Commerce Department.

Courts

• The Justice Department is looking to do away with Steve Bannon’s conviction for criminal contempt.