Washington, DC

1. CEO China FOMO
2. Saudis back on board
3. Trump meets Lula
4. Semafor Intelligence
5. Iran war pensions risk

Whirlpool shares ▼ 12% after the company said the Iran war has triggered a “recession-level industry decline.”

White House crafts CEO invite list for China trip

The Trump administration plans to invite CEOs from Nvidia, Apple, Exxon, Boeing, and other big companies to accompany the president on his trip to China next week, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman scoops, citing a person familiar with the matter. The list also includes executives from Qualcomm, Blackstone, Citigroup, and Visa, and is likely to grow as CEOs jockey for invites. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and David Perdue, the US ambassador to China, have been suggesting attendees for the trip, others familiar said. President Donald Trump himself is stoking corporate FOMO with offhand comments to executives he’s met recently, suggesting he’ll see them in Beijing, one of the people said. Still, expectations are low for specific deals beyond soybeans and Boeing jets. The focus, administration officials said, is more on building the relationship between Trump and Xi Jinping.

Trump resolves conflict with Saudis, waits on Iran

Trump smoothed things over with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a series of calls, but he’s still playing phone tag with Iran. Trump had suspended an effort to guide stranded ships out of the Strait of Hormuz after just 36 hours because leaders in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who said they hadn’t been read in on “Project Freedom,” threatened to block the US military from accessing their bases and airspace. Trump and the crown prince spoke by phone before Gulf states announced they wouldn’t enforce the restrictions and Trump may resume the operation. Meanwhile, US and Iranian officials are ironing out through mediators a one-page framework to begin talks to end the war and reopen the strait. Trump is still scheduled to travel to China next week, despite unease among some Chinese officials about holding talks before the war ends.

Trump reveals few details of trade meeting with Lula

Trump’s meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to discuss trade and tariffs “went very well,” the US president said in a Truth Social post this afternoon, adding that representatives from each country will continue discussing “certain key elements.” US-Brazilian relations have been tense during Trump’s second term: Last summer, the White House hit Brazilian products, like beef and coffee, with a 50% tariff and imposed sanctions on a Brazilian judge — moves meant to pressure Brazilian authorities into backing down on criminal proceedings against former President Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally. The meeting today was supposed to be open to the press, but the two leaders spoke in private and took no questions from reporters.

Markets underprice Iran war fallout, executives warn

Global markets are underpricing the fallout from the Iran war — from oil prices, to inflation expectations, to economic growth, according to Semafor Intelligence, an analysis of interviews with more than 300 people at Semafor World Economy in Washington, DC. The war has destabilized a major oil-producing hub and closed a waterway through which huge quantities of raw materials critical to the global economy pass. And yet stock markets are topping record highs and oil prices aren’t reaching nightmare predictions. The market is discounting where we really are at its own peril,” said former Biden adviser Amos Hochstein. Other takeaways from Semafor Intelligence: Global boardrooms are accepting and even embracing Washington’s interventionist industrial policy, and business leaders are growing more worried about Chinese AI models.

Energy war targets retirement funds

So far, the main threat that average Americans seem to have faced from the war in Iran has been higher gasoline prices. But more could be at risk. On Monday, Iran attacked an oil storage terminal in Fujairah, UAE, owned by the energy infrastructure company VTTI, which is jointly owned by UAE state oil company ADNOC, commodities trader Vitol, and private equity firm IFM. IFM’s global infrastructure fund counts some of the largest US public pension funds as investors. Many US pensions have in recent years put a larger share of their assets into the hands of private equity firms, chasing higher returns for retirees. PE, meanwhile, has poured capital into fossil fuel infrastructure. Wars that revolve around energy infrastructure could pose a new material risk to long-term investors, Jim Baker, executive director of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project said.

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Congress

• Sitting Supreme Court justices will testify at a Senate hearing on May 20 about the court’s fiscal year 2027 budget. — Punchbowl

Foreign Policy

• A CIA analysis circulated with White House officials concludes Iran can likely withstand a US blockade for at least three to four months, and intelligence shows the regime has retained about 70% of its missile stockpile. — WaPo
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced further sanctions on Cuba today and the Treasury sanctioned Iraq’s oil minister, accusing him of an alleged scheme to sell Iranian oil by blending it with Iraqi crude.
• President Trump said he would give the European Union until July 4 to approve last year’s trade deal, after threatening higher auto tariffs on the bloc.

Business

• The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are probing at least four oil trades worth $2.6 billion made shortly before major announcements about the war in Iran. — ABC
• Shell CEO Wael Sawan said nearly a billion barrels of oil haven’t been produced since the war in Iran started, a deficit that will require time to correct.

Redistricting

• The Tennessee House approved a plan to eliminate a majority-Black district, the lone Democratic-held congressional seat in the state, after a fierce floor debate in which one Democratic legislator accused Republican colleagues of “seething with racism.” — WaPo

Immigration

• Florida is in talks with the Trump administration to shut down “Alligator Alcatraz,” a high-profile immigration detention facility in the Everglades that has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars to operate. — NYT

Politics

• Ashley St. Clair, MAGA influencer and mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, is torching the right. — WaPo
• An anonymous campaign aide said staff make “thousands” on their own races in prediction markets. — NPR

Courts

• A federal appeals court appears unlikely to allow Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to punish Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., for making a video warning members of the military not to follow illegal orders.

White House

• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced today she had a “perfect and healthy” baby girl named Viviana, “aka Vivi.”

— Pope Leo XIV accepting Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s gift of a crystal football.

Laura McGann, editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor, and Morgan Chalfant, Washington briefing editor

Graph Massara and Lauren Morganbesser, copy editors

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