Good morning. The White House has entered talks with Iran over a new nuclear deal, relying on a traditional strength: the promise of sanctions relief and access to some of roughly $100 billion in frozen assets.

Yet, that leverage is waning. Tehran has blunted the U.S. sanctions campaign in recent years by successfully using China’s financial architecture—built on the yuan—that operates beyond Washington’s reach.

• Parallel system: More of the world’s illicit activity to evade sanctions is being handled in yuan, as China builds an alternative financial system aimed at weakening Washington’s power to dictate world affairs.
   
• Shutting out Washington: The dominance of the U.S. dollar, currently used in roughly 80% of international trade finance, has historically given Washington a big advantage in policing global business. Most international transactions denominated in U.S. dollars must be settled by American banks, giving Washington the ability to monitor them—and cut off users’ dollars if necessary, crippling their operations. But when U.S. adversaries use yuan to run their businesses, the transactions don’t enter the U.S.-led banking system, neutering Washington’s powers.
   
• Bye-bye dollar, hello yuan: In late April, for example, the U.S. escalated its “Economic Fury” campaign against Iran, sanctioning a major Chinese refinery it said bought billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil. The refiner, Hengli Petrochemical, said its supplier had guaranteed the oil wasn’t Iranian. But Hengli also put the U.S. on notice. Future oil purchases, Hengli said, would be settled in yuan instead of U.S. dollars—making it harder for outsiders to track the flows.

Chemours to pay $450 million to settle ‘forever chemicals’ allegations.

Chemours agreed to pay $450 million to settle allegations it used “forever chemicals” in its products.

The chemicals manufacturer will pay a civil penalty of $22.5 million for alleged violations and invest in pollution control, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Treasury to oversee distributing frozen Iran funds, Bessent says.

Risk Journal reports: U.S. Treasury staff will oversee the distribution of previously frozen Iranian funds released as part of ongoing peace talks with Tehran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said (free link).

The funds will likely come out of Qatar initially, Bessent said during a Wednesday interview on CNBC. The U.S. is currently working with Qatar to make available to Iran some $6 billion held by Doha for humanitarian spending, people familiar with the matter said.

• Canadian officials said two major Arctic projects are under consideration as national priorities. Such a listing, officials said, would streamline and consolidate the regulatory process.
   
• The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft.

Big banks ace an easier annual stress test.

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and a collection of their peers all passed the Federal Reserve’s annual stress tests, a widely expected outcome after regulators last year began disclosing the exam’s scenarios and models in advance.

The Fed on Wednesday said that big banks were equipped to weather severe economic headwinds. After putting banks through a hypothetical situation where a severe global recession leads to significant declines in commercial real estate and house prices and rising unemployment, bank capital fell only slightly, staying well above the minimum level at which the Fed considers banks to be safe.

Trump, frustrated with high gas prices, channels Biden’s criticism of Big Oil.

President Trump is pulling from a familiar Democratic playbook as he wrestles with sticky gasoline prices: blaming Big Oil.

People close to the oil industry said they expected the friction with the Trump administration to dissipate relatively quickly—though they acknowledged the administration has been less than predictable. Price-gouging investigations leveled at oil companies have been tried several times before, and have come up empty-handed, they said.

• Europeans have doubled down on frugality in recent years—another economic headache for the continent. Consumers’ reluctance to spend is a key reason why Europe has lagged behind the U.S.
   
• It’s no longer just vibes; socialists in Britain and elsewhere want to nationalize the means of production.
   
• A new campaign by Chinese coast-guard vessels to exercise authority over foreign commercial ships on the Pacific side of Taiwan’s main island drew a round of rebukes Wednesday from the U.S. and other Western countries.
   
• Rescue teams worked through the night to locate people trapped under the rubble after two powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela, toppling buildings in the capital Caracas and leaving hundreds of casualties.

• Life insurers aren’t just investors in private credit. They’re major lenders, too.
   
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday formally ended its hantavirus response, nearly two months after an outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic.
   
• Amazon.com’s Zoox unveiled a redesigned robotaxi that’s built for large-scale production.
   
• The activities of AI agents inside OpenAI, Google and Anthropic offer a glimpse of what white-collar workers can expect in their own jobs.
   
• The Trump administration is in a standoff with a Democratic lawmaker who is blocking a proposed $750 million sale of jet engines to Turkey over concerns about the country’s ties to Russia.

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