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The Pentagon has reinstated Alibaba, Baidu and BYD to a blacklist of Chinese companies deemed to pose a national security risk to the U.S. after their sudden removal in February. China’s embassy in Washington, DC, condemned the listing of some of the country’s best-known commercial brands as “discriminatory” and an example of the U.S. government “overstretching” the concept of national security. “Chinese companies that do business overseas have been strictly observing laws and regulations of their host countries,” an embassy spokesperson said. “The U.S. should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies.” Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, said there was “no basis” for its inclusion on the blacklist. “Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy,” a company spokesperson said. “We will take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company.”

 

Al Jazeera

Financial Times

The Guardian

Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, and Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, have sent a request to the administration of President Donald Trump urging tighter rules on contract chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to prevent the production of advanced AI chips for overseas subsidiaries of Chinese companies. “If this . . . remains unaddressed, it will significantly undermine every other restriction that the United States has imposed on China’s access to advanced computing capabilities. Export controls that can be bypassed through orders to manufacture chips at the world’s most advanced chip fabrication facility do not provide meaningful protection for U.S. national security or the competitiveness of American industry,” the bipartisan pair wrote.

 

Reuters

A federal judge has vacated President Donald Trump’s policy imposing a $100,000 fee for employers’ H-1B visa applications.  Judge Leo Sorokin said the policy violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution. He found that the payment is a tax that Congress had not delegated to the executive branch. “Every day, thousands of people with H-1B visas serve New Yorkers as doctors, teachers, and other skilled workers,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose state was one of 20 that sued to block the fee. “Today a court put an end to this administration’s illegal attempt to destroy this critical program and the many jobs it makes possible,” James said. The Trump administration said it would appeal the ruling.

 

CNBC

Financial Times

Reuters

The Guardian

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is to file a complaint against Israeli spyware company, NSO Group, for failing to comply with a court order prohibiting the targeting of WhatsApp users. The company said the messaging service had disrupted new spear phishing attempts linked to NSO, an entity ​blacklisted in 2021 by the U.S. government, which said it “developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used this tool to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers.” WhatsApp won a permanent injunction against NSO last year in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; a jury awarded the service over $167m in damages.

 

Ars Technica

Jerusalem Post

Reuters

Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted cryptocurrency founder of collapsed exchange FTX, has officially sought a pardon from President Donald Trump after serving nearly three years of his 25-year sentence. The 34-year-old submitted an application to the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney Office, according to the office’s website, requesting a “pardon after completion of sentence.” In a phone interview with Fox Business, Bankman-Fried said he “absolutely” wanted a pardon from the White House. “It would be obviously, you know, ultimately up to the president, not up to me,” he said.

 

Bloomberg

Financial Times

Politico

A strike at Dauch, a major supplier for General Motors formerly known as American Axle, has entered its second week ​with the two sides still unable to reach a deal, according to a local union official. "Unfortunately, we just walked away from the table. The ​company is trying to play games with words and ​not providing anything productive," Josh Jager, bargaining chairman ⁠for Local 2093, said. “General Motors is closely monitoring the situation involving Dauch Corp. at its Three Rivers, Michigan, plant,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly said in an emailed statement last week. “We are assessing any potential impact while staying closely aligned with our teams.” 

 

Detroit Free Press

Reuters

Corporate finance leaders are grappling with a new challenge as AI providers increasingly shift to usage-based pricing, making costs harder to predict, monitor, and control than traditional software subscriptions. According to a forthcoming KPMG survey, only 26% of companies have a comprehensive view of their AI spending, while 50% report partial visibility and 22% have little or no visibility until bills arrive. The issue is becoming more pressing as businesses expand their use of AI agents and generative AI tools, with some organizations reportedly exhausting annual token and cloud-computing budgets within months. Unlike conventional software licenses, many AI services charge customers based on token consumption, a measure of computing usage. Major providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Salesforce have adopted pricing models that tie costs directly to usage, creating greater flexibility for customers but also shifting financial risk onto them.

 

Wall Street Journal

U.S. banking regulators have told lawmakers they are closely monitoring the rapid growth of private credit and other nonbank financial institutions, warning that limited transparency makes it difficult to assess how bank funding is being used outside the traditional banking system. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said regulators recently launched new data collection efforts to better understand the flow of bank lending into private credit markets. While she stressed that private credit does not currently pose an immediate threat to financial stability, she described the sector as “very opaque” and said regulators need greater visibility into underwriting practices, collateral quality, and risk concentrations. Bank lending to nonbank financial institutions has grown rapidly since 2009, with private credit becoming an increasingly important source of financing as tighter post-financial-crisis banking regulations pushed some lending activity outside the traditional banking sector. Regulators noted concerns following several private credit-related bankruptcies and rising default rates among portfolio companies.

 

American Banker

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s drive to reshape America's food system is facing resistance from both the food industry and within the Trump administration, amid concerns tougher regulations could raise grocery prices. White House officials have slowed key initiatives targeting ultraprocessed foods, food additives and ingredient oversight as inflation and affordability remain political priorities. Food manufacturers, including PepsiCo and WK Kellogg, are lobbying against a patchwork of state-level regulations, warning of higher consumer costs. While the administration has secured voluntary commitments on artificial dyes and advanced chemical-safety reviews, several MAHA-backed measures have missed deadlines. Officials insist new rules are nearing completion, but tensions persist between public health goals and concerns over food affordability.

 

Wall Street Journal

Major U.S. companies have disclosed the scale of their Irish tax payments for the first time under new American reporting requirements, highlighting Ireland’s growing dependence on a small number of multinational technology and pharmaceutical companies for corporate tax revenue. Recent filings show Pfizer paid $1.02bn in Irish corporation tax in 2025, while Meta paid $567m. Other large payments included Johnson & Johnson at $600m, Regeneron at $645m, AbbVie at $431m, and Bristol Myers Squibb at $179m. Eli Lilly reported an Irish tax bill of $6.6bn, double the amount it paid to the U.S. federal government. The disclosures underscore the concentration of Ireland’s tax base among a handful of multinational corporations. Apple, Microsoft, and Eli Lilly are widely regarded as Ireland’s three largest corporate taxpayers, collectively accounting for about 46% of the country’s corporation tax receipts. The revelations have sparked concern among some policymakers and business leaders that the large payments could attract scrutiny from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pursued an “America First” economic agenda and criticized overseas tax arrangements 

 

Irish Times

A longstanding tax provision used by exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is now costing the U.S. Treasury an estimated $48bn per year, with the vast majority of the benefits flowing to the nation’s wealthiest households, according to a new Bloomberg analysis. The tax advantage stems from ETF structures that allow fund managers to remove appreciated securities through “in-kind” transactions without triggering capital gains taxes. The strategy, often executed through so-called “heartbeat” trades, enables ETFs to defer or avoid taxable gains that would typically be passed on to investors in traditional mutual funds. Bloomberg estimates that more than one-third of the tax benefits accrue to the top 1% of U.S. households, who receive average annual tax savings of nearly $13,000, compared with about $23 for middle-income households. The analysis suggests the benefit could grow significantly following recent Securities and Exchange Commission policy changes that allow more mutual fund managers to add ETF share classes and potentially extend these tax advantages to a much larger pool of assets.

 

Bloomberg

American retailers including Levi Strauss, Walmart and Costco are grappling with a surge in costly returns as shoppers taking popular weight-loss drugs rapidly shrink through clothing sizes. Industry data shows exchanges for smaller sizes reached a record high in 2025, while online sellers such as FlexSuits, The Dress Outlet and June Adel report customers increasingly ordering multiple sizes before returning those that no longer fit. The trend is eroding profits through higher shipping, warehousing and markdown costs. Retailers are responding with stricter return policies, higher restocking fees and greater stocks of smaller sizes as GLP-1 drugs reshape consumer buying habits.

 

Wall Street Journal