Washington Edition

This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Today, White House editor Jordan Fabian looks at the president’s drive to strike trade deals. Sign up here and follow us at @bpolitics. Email our editors here.

Out Front

Some US trade partners say they’re confused about what Donald Trump wants out of negotiations on tariffs. But one thing is clear: the president is determined to be at the center of them.

Trump met with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White House today for the latest round of discussions and appeared eager to play host. He unexpectedly invited reporters into a luncheon to heap praise on the Italian leader and express confidence in reaching a deal with the European Union on tariffs, though he stressed he’s is no rush to do so.

“There will be a trade deal 100%,” he predicted.

Meloni and Trump Photographer: Chris Kleponis/CNP

Meloni is a potential bridge between Trump and the EU. Her politics align with Trump’s — she was the only European leader who attended his inauguration — and today curried favor with the president by saying they share a fight against “woke ideology” and a desire “to make the West great again.”

Their sit-down followed a phone call between Trump and the president of Mexico. Trump even spoke at length yesterday with a Japanese trade negotiator who came to Washington to talk deal terms with the US Treasury chief and trade ambassador.

The approach is no surprise. Trump is a self-styled master negotiator who cemented his reputation in his 1987 book The Art of the Deal. He’s also a transactional leader who prefers to work out problems directly with his foreign counterparts, especially if he sees them as peers in global stature.

That’s proved to be a problem with China, the world’s second-largest economy, which is enmeshed in a high-stakes and escalating tariff fight with Trump. Trump has made it clear he sees the only way for Beijing to cut a deal is to put President Xi Jinping on the phone.

China appears unwilling to do that just yet. In order for talks to proceed, Beijing wants the US to designate a point person to lead negotiations, lay out clear policy goals for the talks and quit any derisive talk about China, Bloomberg News reported earlier this week.

The developments underscore that, whether intentional or not, Trump is waging a trade war that puts him in control and makes the outcome subject to his whims. — Jordan Fabian

Don’t Miss

Trump said he could force out Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, rejecting the notion that the central bank is independent while venting frustration that the Fed hasn’t cut interest rates more.

The Supreme Court said it will hear arguments on Trump’s bid to start enforcing an executive order that would restrict automatic birthright citizenship and upend a longstanding constitutional right.

A US appeals court denied an emergency motion by the Trump administration to halt a federal judge’s effort to facilitate the return of a Maryland man wrongly deported to a prison in his native El Salvador.

The president said the US and Ukraine would sign a deal on critical minerals next Thursday, in a step expected to keep Kyiv in good favor as the White House seeks to broker a quick ceasefire deal with Russia.

CEOs, doctors, lawyers and Wall Street bankers are the likeliest to feel the impact if Trump and Republicans in Congress boost taxes on millionaires. Billionaires, on the other hand, are likely to skate.

The state and local tax deduction — the subject of one of the most contentious fiscal fights in Congress — is a write-off that most Americans will never claim.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is hosting private meetings with the Fed and other bank agencies as he takes a bigger role in streamlining oversight and coordinating plans to ease regulation.

Applications for unemployment benefits in the US fell to the lowest level in two months, consistent with a stable labor market.

Harvard University pushed back against Trump saying the school should lose its tax-exempt status, warning that would endanger its ability to carry out its mission and threaten higher education in America.

With an order to halt work on a wind farm off the coast of New York, the Trump administration dealt the offshore wind industry a damaging blow that puts $28 billion of investment at risk.

Weather analysis tools used by a wide array of businesses and government entities across the US have gone dark after funding for long-running regional climate hubs lapsed.

The Trump administration is offering the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for sale as it seeks to reduce its real estate footprint for a shrinking federal workforce.

Google was found by a federal judge to have illegally monopolized some online advertising technology markets in a blow to a key part of the company’s business.

Watch & Listen

Today on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power early edition at 1 p.m., hosts Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz interviewed Rachel Rizzo from the Atlantic Council's Europe Center about today’s meeting between Trump and Meloni.

On the program at 5 p.m., they talk with Sandi Bragar, chief client officer and partner at Aspirant, about the volatility in financial markets.

On the Big Take podcast, host Sarah Holder sits down with Bloomberg’s Sheridan Prasso to discuss her investigation into why the alleged sexual coercion and other labor abuses at a rubber and palm oil company that supplies some of the world’s top tiremakers has been so hard to stop. Listen on iHeart, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Chart of the Day

The mantra of “cash is king” — having enough of it available for short-term needs — is as relevant as ever, which is seen in US Treasury bill holdings by foreign countries. Since the US presidential election last fall, foreign-holdings of Treasury bills have increased by nearly $146 billion to $1.3 trillion as of February. The rise in short-term dollar-denominated holdings is most acute in Asia, where the accumulation of T-bills rose to $454 billion from $324 billion last October. Of that, holdings by China rose by 85% in four months to $77 billion, according to Treasury data released this week. The most common terms for T-bills are four, eight, 13, 17, 26 and 52 weeks. — Alex Tanzi

What’s Next

US financial markets are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

New home sales for March are set to be released Wednesday.

Sales of existing homes last month will be reported next Thursday.

Durable goods orders for March also will be released next Thursday.

The University of Michigan’s final gauge of consumer sentiment for this month will be released April 25.

The House and Senate are on break until April 28.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index, for March will be reported on April 30.

Seen Elsewhere

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected on a far distant planet signs of a molecule associated with biological activity on Earth, though it’s not enough to be regarded as evidence of life, the Washington Post reports.
Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told a home state audience that she and many colleagues are "afraid" of the consequences of Trump's flurry of executive orders, court battles and budget cuts, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Trump has brought in his "gold guy," a south Florida cabinet maker who's worked on projects at Mar-a-Lago, to add custom gold finishes that the president loves to the Oval Office, according to the Wall Street Journal.