Washington Edition

This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Every Friday, White House correspondent Akayla Gardner delivers a roundup of the key news and events in politics, policy and economics that you need to know. Sign up here and follow us at @bpolitics. Email our editors here.

Partnerships

The White House is making a statement with what was originally supposed to be President Donald Trump’s first overseas trip: the US is eager to lure more investment from abroad.

In traveling next week to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the president is looking to tap into the billions in the region’s wealth funds. Just this week, the Treasury Department said the administration was working on a way to fast-track screening of foreign investments in the US to ease the process. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already promised $1 trillion or more in investments in the US.

The trip also underscores how much Trump sees Saudi Arabia and the other countries as essential economic and strategic partners, even as he keeps traditional US allies off balance.

Trump Photographer: Bonnie Cash/UPI

It’s on brand for the president, who made Saudi Arabia his first foreign visit during his first term in 2017. (This time, an unexpected trip to Italy for Pope Francis’ funeral makes it his second.)

CNN reported that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a former adviser who has done a slew of business deals with entities in the region, is privately advising Trump ahead of his travel. During Trump’s first term, Kushner helped negotiate the Abraham Accords, landmark pacts that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. Trump is likely looking to build on that and bring Saudi Arabia into the accord.

“There’s a lot of wins for the president to achieve in Saudi Arabia,” Hagar Chemali, a White House national security official in the Obama administration, said on Bloomberg TV’s Balance of Power program. “Pulling the region away from China” will also be an objective of the trip, according to Chemali, along with upping defense trade there.

The trip is taking place as Trump and his administration are engaging in a spate of negotiations as he seeks to restructure global trade, which has put financial markets on edge.

He got agreement on a framework for trade negotiations with the UK yesterday and his advisers have drawn up a list of roughly 20 other nations targeted for talks. Read the scoop from my colleagues Josh Wingrove and Alicia Diaz: US Sets Trade Talk Priority List of Economies Big and Small

The most closest-watched meeting yet takes place this weekend as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer travel to Switzerland for talks with top Chinese officials. Trump earlier today floated an 80% tariff on China (still high but down from 145%) ahead of those talks.

Either way, the president could use some tangible victories after weeks of questions about the direction of the economy under his watch.

Other developments this week:

Stablecoin standoff: Legislation to set up a regulatory framework for stablecoin that is backed by the digital assets industry was blocked by Senate Democrats after Republicans rebuffed their demands to include a provision barring Trump and other senior officials from profiting off of crypto ventures while in office, Bloomberg’s Steven T. Dennis reported. Trump has promoted a memecoin bearing his name and stands to profit from its success, and a Trump family venture has also launched its own stablecoin. A deal still could be reached in the coming weeks.
Court record: Trump has faced at least 328 lawsuits as of May 1 over his expansive use of executive power. Bloomberg’s Zoe Tillman and Christopher Cannon reported that more than 200 orders in 128 cases have stopped Trump’s actions, while judges allowed challenged policies to go forward in 43 cases. There’s been no ruling in more than 140 cases. Their analysis found that his court losses and wins came from a mix of appointees of Democratic and Republican presidents, including some nominated by Trump during his first term.
Tariff uncertainty: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is in no hurry to adjust interest rates while they wait to see what the data shows about the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the economy, Bloomberg’s Jonnelle Marte reported. Powell said the inflationary impact of the duties could be short lived or be more persistent. “Uncertainty about the economic outlook has increased further,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement, and that, “the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen.”

Don’t Miss

Bessent told Congress that his department’s ability to use special accounting maneuvers to stay within the federal debt limit could be exhausted in August.

The Trump administration is probing whether imported aircraft, jet engines and parts represent a threat to national security, a precursor to imposing new tariffs targeting the commercial aerospace industry.

House Republicans are considering increasing taxes on university endowments, a significant threat to some of the nation’s wealthiest schools as Trump seeks to tighten control over American higher education.

Air traffic controllers guiding planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport briefly lost communications and radar displays early today, the second outage in as many weeks.

FAA air traffic control tower at Newark Liberty International Airport. Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg

A federal judge ordered a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University released on bail while she fights possible deportation, ruling that her continued detainment “chills the speech” of noncitizens.

The White House is “actively looking at” whether to suspend the ability of migrants to challenge their detention in court as part of an effort to speed its deportation efforts, senior adviser Stephen Miller said.

Not far from Ellis Island, “Golden Door” for 12 million immigrants, a private prison company is reopening a detention center as a forced stopover for migrants the Trump administration has vowed to deport.

Trump said he would be fine with Republican lawmakers raising taxes on the wealthy, but acknowledged the political challenges of doing so for the party.

Administration officials are crafting executive orders to expedite the approval and construction of nuclear power plants across the US, a bid to meet surging electricity demand.

The House of Representatives is having its own own “conclave” to pick a new chaplain. It's a sign of the political times that the process is taking much longer than choosing a pope.

Worried that Trump’s tariffs might make stuff more expensive? Here’s what to purchase right now, what to skip and what’s a maybe.

Watch & Listen

Today on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power early edition at 1 p.m., host Kailey Leinz interviewed Hagar Chemali, former director for Syria and Lebanon at the National Security Council, about Trump’s trip next week to the Middle East and Israel’s tightening its grip on Gaza.

On the program at 5 p.m., she talks with Republican Representative Darin LaHood about the latest on negotiations over the GOP’s tax cut plan, including the idea of raising the rate on wealthy taxpayers.

On the Odd Lots podcast, Bloomberg’s Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal talk with Sarah LaFleur, founder and CEO of M.M.LaFleur, which makes work clothing for women, about what the past month has actually been like trying to understand and deal with the tariffs, the scramble to secure space on ships before the tariffs hit, and how businesses actually pay the new duties. Listen on iHeart, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Chart of the Day

Any long-time downtown Washington DC worker sees the buzz is still missing in the nation's capital. An index found that office building traffic in the area is down by about one-third from 2019. The Placer.ai office building index analyzes foot traffic data from office and commercial buildings with retail space on the first floor. The index shows that DC was below the national average last month as hybrid work remains prevalent in Washington despite the Trump administration’s drive to get more federal workers back to their offices. New York City has experienced the greatest recovery as many companies are tightening remote work policies. Smaller apartments in the Big Apple may also entice workers to get out of their homes and into the office. — Alex Tanzi

What’s Next

The consumer price index for April will be reported Tuesday.

Data on retail sales for April will be released Wednesday.

The producer price index for April also will be reported Wednesday.

The University of Michigan’s preliminary reading of consumer sentiment for this month will be reported next Friday.

Seen Elsewhere

The US will stop tracking the cost of the nation's most expensive natural disasters, which will make it harder for insurers and scientists to study events like wildfires and storms and their economic consequences, the New York Times reports.
Trump fired the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, who had been recently targeted by a conservative group that accused her of pushing "radical sexual ideologies" on children, the Washington Post reports.