China’s Growing Leverage Over the U.S., and How Oil Companies Hit the Jackpot

I mean, as about Valerie Hopkins, yeah, as soon as I get the New York Times. What? It's pretty difficult to report from Russia. Often I'm the only New York Times reporter in the country.

I keep working in Russia because what happens here matters and our audience deserves to get a broad perspective of the world that they live in.

“If you want to make sure we can keep doing this work,”

subscribe to the New York Times. From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, May 14th.

Here's what we're covering.

In Beijing this morning, President Trump was welcomed with a 21-gun salute. As Chinese President Xi Jinping greeted him for the start of their high-stakes summit. A such respect for China, the job you've done, you're a great leader. I say it to everybody, you're a great leader. The meeting marks the first visit to China by a U.S. President in nearly a decade,

and in their opening remarks, both leaders stressed the importance of U.S.-China cooperation. We've gotten along when there were difficulties we worked it out. I would call you and you would call me.

“But hanging over that relationship, and this week's talks,”

are long-standing clashes over trade and Taiwan, as well as a new source of tension, the war in Iran. Iran is China's closest partner in the Middle East, and the country buys about 80% of Iran's oil exports. Since the beginning of the war, China has given Iran intelligence,

plus access to a spy satellite that has tracked the positions of U.S. forces in the region. And just as Trump was flying to China, the times learned from U.S. officials that Chinese companies have been discussing selling weapons to Iran. No Chinese weapons seem to have been used on the battlefield yet, but the American officials say the plan would be to send the weapons via third-party countries

to hide the fact that they're coming from China. Whether President Trump will bring any of that up on this visit, though, and pressure China over its support for Iran, is an open question. He seems eager to keep the U.S. relationship with China stable, rather than stirring up conflict.

And, notably, the war in Iran has actually tied the U.S. more closely to China. That's because China dominates global production of rare earth minerals,

“which are crucial components of U.S. weapons from cruise missiles to fighter jets.”

One former U.S. trade official told the Times, quote, "Every missile fired at Iran makes us that much more dependent in the near term." On China. Meanwhile, now the U.K. Energy Giant BP has just released its latest results,

and it made profits of $3.2 billion in the past three months.

Double this time last year. As the war continues, oil companies have been posting spectacular profits. Shell the latest farm turnouts, it's first quarter results. The report of profits of just under $7 billion. In recent weeks, they've been sharing huge earnings numbers

with the conflict rocking the global energy market. One executive saying the volatility has created opportunities. The Times Global Econ correspondent, Patty Cohen, has been digging into what is behind those sky-high profits. One reason is obvious is, look at much oil prices have gone up.

If you're going to the gas station, if you're looking at your heating bill, whatever you can see that the prices just shot up. But a second reason, which most people probably don't realize, which accounts for a huge portion, particularly of European oil companies, revenues in this first quarter, is because of their trading deaths.

Now, what are the trading deaths? Do they buy sell, and they transport oil, and at a time when prices are very volatile, you can make money by trading. So let me give you an example, total energies, which is a French oil company.

They made essentially a billion dollars in one day by trading oil,

and what they did was they bought up every single cargo of oil that was available in March that could be loaded in May. And just by buying up all of this supply, because they knew there was a shortage coming, they made a billion dollars. The new profits have re-agnited a debate in Europe over weather to impose

a temporary windfall tax on oil and gas companies' sudden jackpot. That money could then be used to help slash consumers' energy bills across the continent. Most EU countries did that in 2022 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine drove oil prices

One French economist told the Times that, in response,

oil giants did things like shift their profits to offshore tax havens. The eyes are 54. The knees are 45. The nomination is confirmed. On Capitol Hill yesterday, the Senate voted in Kevin Warsh as the new chair of the federal reserve. But even as he steps into the new job, there are major concerns in Washington over whether he will maintain the Fed's tradition of independence from the White House.

“Are you going to be the President's human sock puppet?”

Senator, absolutely not. Are you going to be anybody's human sock puppet? No, I'm honored the President. Warsh's confirmation hearings were filled with questions about whether he plans to do the bidding of President Trump, who hand picked him for the job. Trump has spent the last year and a half relentlessly attacking the outgoing Fed chair

Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates like he wanted him to. That threatened to break the longstanding norm of letting the central bank make its own decisions about what's best for the economy. I think that the big question for everyone is just how much runway is Trump going to give his Fed chair pick? Is he going to give him a couple of months to settle in and establish his own credibility? Or is he going to come right out of

the gate and attack him for not being able to deliver the thing that he has kind of made

“clear was the precondition for whoever he was going to give the job to?”

And I think this is really going to come to a head as early as mid-June, which is the first

meaning that Warsh is going to preside over as chair. My colleague Colby Smith, who covers the Fed, says Warsh has repeatedly denied that he'll follow Trump's lead on interest rates. But he has said he wants to shake things up. Colby has more about his plans for what he's called regime change on today's episode of The Daily. In South Carolina, the state's top court overturned the murder convictions against Alex Murdock

yesterday, a surprise reversal in one of the most high profile homicide cases in the country. Murdock was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife and his 22-year-old son. Their deaths on the family's rural hunting estate sparked intense fascination. There are facts that don't add up and bodies tied to this family. And the case set off a wave of true crime documentaries and podcasts. People were fascinated by

the once prominent family now engulfed in accusations of embezzlement and murder. They were implying that law enforcement may have been protecting the Murdoch's from any consequences. At his trial, a jury convicted Murdock in less than three hours. After being shown a video of him at the crime scene where he had originally denied being. Now, though, the state Supreme Court has ruled that a court clerk committed what it

called shocking jury interference. Some jurors said that she would talk to them about Alex Murdock's testimony, including saying that they should not be fooled by him. The clerk has also pleaded guilty to using her government job for personal gain by promoting a book she wrote about the case. The South Carolina Attorney General's Office will now retry Murdock for the killings, which she denies committing. He will remain behind bars, though, because he's also been sentenced

to decades in prison for stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and former clients.

And finally, here are the applause. A historic moment as Jason Collins

becomes the first openly gay athlete to play in any of this country's four major professional sports. Jason Collins, the first active NBA player to come out as gay, died this week at 47 years old. His family said the cause was an aggressive form of brain cancer. I'll say it's like my Jason Collins is seem like a terrific young man. And yeah, I told him I couldn't be brighter. Back in 2013, Collins sparked a national conversation after he wrote an essay

for Sports Illustrated, declaring, quote, "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center, I'm black, and I'm gay." President Obama called him up. He was a guest at the next state of the union,

“and he went on Oprah. Can you imagine the first time you step out with a partner?”

Now, you think you're going to keep that a secret, which is 7 foot 7. It was a time when the gay rights movement was making significant strides, but gay marriage was not yet legal nationwide and not all the reaction was positive. Some wondered if Collins's announcement would end his career. At that point, he played for multiple NBA teams for more than a decade and was a free agent.

While his groundbreaking announcement was celebrated as a major moment for professional sports,

“very few men have followed and Collins's path. Other male athletes have come out only after”

their careers are over. And today there are no openly gay active players in men's pro basketball,

football, hockey, or baseball.

“Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow with the latest and the Friday news quiz.”

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