Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. plans a televised briefing after gunfire erupted inside the Senate, according to Bloomberg Politics. Marcos called for calm following the incident.
President Trump is traveling to China for a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping, with U.S.-China relations, Taiwan, and trade at the center of the agenda, according to The Dispatch. Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Sobolik, author of Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance (Naval Institute Press, 2024), joined The Dispatch podcast to preview the talks alongside Dispatch editors Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and Mike Warren.
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Thursday in Beijing to discuss trade and the war in Iran, according to Bloomberg Politics. The White House confirmed the summit, which marks the first direct meeting between the two leaders since the administration escalated tariff pressure on Chinese imports.
President Trump says he will raise a pending $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan directly with President Xi Jinping at their Beijing summit, a concession no previous U.S. president has made and one that departs from commitments Reagan made to Taiwan in 1982, according to CBS News. Said Taiwan Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi: "The U.S. can count on us as much as we can count on the U.S. Do we believe in the U.S. commitment? Yes. They are our reliable partner."
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett went on Bloomberg Open Interest on May 8 to deliver a public message to the Federal Reserve: the April jobs report is not a reason to raise interest rates. Said Hassett: the report "should not make the Federal Reserve want to raise interest rates."
The play here is transparent. Trump's team is using surrogates to jaw-bone the Fed before any rate decision lands — pre-positioning the narrative so that a hike becomes a political act of defiance, not an independent monetary judgment. Hassett also previewed Trump's upcoming trip to China, which means the White House wants loose money and a trade deal simultaneously.
Pressuring an independent central bank through public media appearances is a precedent with a short-term beneficiary (lower rates, goosed markets) and a long-term cost (eroded institutional credibility). The Fed's independence isn't decorative — it's load-bearing.