Finance

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought vowed Friday to press an investigation into renovations at the Federal Reserve building.
“This is about the largesse and the fact that he has systemically mismanaged the Fed,” Vought told CNBC.
The accusations represent another front in Trump’s ongoing campaign against Powell.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought vowed Friday to press an investigation into renovations at the Federal Reserve building, which he called a “palace” where costs are running amok.
In a potential escalation of President Donald Trump’s feud with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Vought told CNBC that an investigation is warranted into whether Powell has been misleading about the $2.5 billion project.

“When you go to the nation’s mall, you see the construction of this palace … upwards of $2.5 billion massive cost overrun, and we want to make sure we have facts as to the largesse and the extent to which it’s overrun,” Vought said during a “Squawk Box” interview. “I think it just points to the fundamental mismanagement of the Fed under the chairman.”

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building during a renovation in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023.
Valerie Plesch | Bloomberg | Getty Images

In a letter issued Thursday, Vought charged that Powell “had grossly mismanaged the Fed” and misled Congress about the price and scope of renovations at the central bank’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Vought said the Fed is over budget on the project and misled a congressional panel in June when he said some of the loftier aspects of the renovation, such as a VIP dining area and rooftop terrace gardens, are not included though they appear in specifications for the redesign.
The accusations represent another front in Trump’s ongoing campaign against Powell. Trump has charged that the central bank leader is playing politics by not lowering interest rates, and has called on Powell to resign.
“The problem with Chairman Powell is he has been late at every turn,” Vought said. “It’s time to lower rates. You have a problem there. But again, this is about the largesse and the fact that he has systemically mismanaged the Fed, and that is evident by what we’re seeing with regard to this monstrosity, this Palace of Versailles, on the National Mall.”

Fed officials declined comment.

New board members overseeing Fed project

The renovation project is under the jurisdiction of the National Capital Planning Commission. In recent days, Trump has appointed three new members to the board, all with direct ties to the White House — Will Scharf, the new chair who also is White House staff secretary, James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff, and Stuart Levenbach, a policy analyst at the OMB.

Arrows pointing outwards

Source: National Capitol Planning Commission

Powell has said politics don’t play a part in Fed rate decisions. He and his colleagues have held the key overnight borrowing rate in place since December, though markets largely expect a cut is on the way not at the Fed’s July meeting, but in September.
A recent Supreme Court ruling stated that presidents can’t fire Fed officials at will. However, the accusations over the building renovations could possibly help Trump build a case to dismiss Powell for cause.
In any event, Powell’s term as chair expires in May 2026, though he can stay on as governor until 2028. Trump nominated Powell for chair during his first term, in November 2017. The Senate confirmed Powell the following February, and former President Joe Biden nominated Powell for a second term that began in 2022.
During the CNBC interview, Vought did not directly address a question as to whether the charges regarding the building renovation are linked to Powell’s position on interest rates.
“This certainly has to do with the fiscal mismanagement of the Fed, of which [interest rates] is one aspect of it,” he said. “We are going to zoom in over the last several days on this. We have new commissioners at the National Capital Planning Commission who are asking very tough questions.”
While the commission oversees the specifications of the process, there are questions over whether the finances are within the OMB’s purview.
The Federal Reserve Act allows the central bank to “maintain, enlarge or remodel” its buildings, and the Fed alone “shall have sole control over such building or buildings and the space therein.”
The Fed is a quasi-governmental agency and receives no direct taxpayer funding. While salaries are set by Congress, the pay comes through the Fed’s self-funding mechanism, largely from interest it receives on its investments.
Under normal circumstances, the Fed remits excess profits to the Treasury. However, in recent years, rising Treasury yields have caused the Fed to operate at a loss as it pays out more interest on its liabilities, such as bank reserves, than it earns on its long-term bond holdings.
Trump has complained that the Fed’s refusal to cut rates is costing the government in terms of the interest it pays on the national debt.

Construction on the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

Goldman is testing an autonomous software engineer from artificial intelligence startup Cognition that is expected to soon join the ranks of the firm’s 12,000 human developers, Goldman tech chief Marco Argenti told CNBC.
The program, named Devin, became known in technology circles last year with Cognition’s claim that it had created the world’s first AI software engineer.
It’s the latest indicator of the dizzying speed in which AI is being adopted in the corporate world.

The newest hire at Goldman Sachs isn’t human.
The bank is testing an autonomous software engineer from artificial intelligence startup Cognition that is expected to soon join the ranks of the firm’s 12,000 human developers, Goldman tech chief Marco Argenti told CNBC.

The program, named Devin, became known in technology circles last year with Cognition’s claim that it had created the world’s first AI software engineer. Demo videos showed the program operating as a full-stack engineer, completing multi-step assignments with minimal intervention.
“We’re going to start augmenting our workforce with Devin, which is going to be like our new employee who’s going to start doing stuff on the behalf of our developers,” Argenti said this week in an interview.
“Initially, we will have hundreds of Devins [and] that might go into the thousands, depending on the use cases,” he said.
It’s the latest indicator of the dizzying speed in which AI is being adopted in the corporate world. Just last year, Wall Street firms including JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were rolling out cognitive assistants based on OpenAI models to get employees acquainted with the technology.
Now, the arrival of agentic AI on Wall Street — referencing programs like Devin that don’t just help humans with tasks like summarizing documents or writing emails, but instead execute complex multi-step jobs like building entire apps — signals a much larger shift, with greater potential rewards.

Tech giants including Microsoft and Alphabet have said AI is already producing about 30% of the code on some projects, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said last month that AI handles as much as 50% of the work at his company.
At Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s top investment banks, this more powerful form of AI has the potential to boost worker productivity by up to three or four times the rate of previous AI tools, according to Argenti.
Devin will be supervised by human employees and will handle jobs that engineers often consider drudgery, like updating internal code to newer programing languages, he said.

Arrows pointing outwards

Devin, an AI software developer, from a startup called Cognition Labs, which is valued at nearly $4 billion and counts Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund among investors.
Courtesy: Goldman Sachs

Goldman is the first major bank to use Devin, according to Cognition, which was founded in late 2023 by a trio of engineers and whose staff is reportedly stocked with champion coders.
In March, the startup doubled its valuation to nearly $4 billion just a year after the release of Devin. The company counts Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, the prominent venture capitalists and Palantir co-founders, among its investors.
Goldman doesn’t own a stake in Cognition, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s investments.

Hybrid workforce

The bank’s move could spark a fresh round of anxiety on Wall Street and beyond about job cuts as a result of AI.
Executives at companies from Amazon to Ford have grown more candid about what AI will mean for hiring plans. Banks around the world will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as they implement AI, Bloomberg’s research arm said in January.
For his part, Argenti — who joined Goldman from Amazon in 2019 — charted out a vision for the near future that he called a “hybrid workforce” where humans and AI coexist.
“It’s really about people and AIs working side by side,” Argenti said. “Engineers are going to be expected to have the ability to really describe problems in a coherent way and turn it into prompts … and then be able to supervise the work of those agents.”
While the role of software developer is one that most lends itself to the type of training, called reinforcement learning, that is used to make AI smarter, other roles at a bank aren’t far off from being automated, according to Argenti.
“Those models are basically just as good as any developer, it’s really cool,” Argenti said. “So I think that will serve as a proof point also to expand it to other places.”

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

The so-called “big beautiful bill” that President Donald Trump signed on July 4 cut taxes for many households.
However, the law didn’t extend an enhanced premium tax credit that has lowered health insurance premiums for millions of Affordable Care Act enrollees in recent years.
The tax break is slated to end after 2025, which is expected to raise premiums by an average 75% and lead about 4 million people to lose health insurance.

Me 3645 Studio | Moment | Getty Images

Republicans gave a roughly $4 trillion tax cut to Americans in the so-called “big beautiful bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law last week, extending several tax provisions slated to expire next year.
However, there was a notable omission: an extension of enhanced premium tax credits, according to health policy experts.

The enhanced credits, in place since 2021, have lowered the cost of health insurance premiums for those who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. (Enrollees can use these to lower their premium costs upfront or claim the credits at tax time.) They’re slated to expire after 2025.
More than 22 million people — about 92% of ACA enrollees — received a federal subsidy this year that reduced their insurance premiums, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.
Those recipients would see “sharp premium increase” on Jan. 1, Cynthia Cox, the group’s ACA program director, said during a webinar on Wednesday.

Average premiums may rise 75%

The average marketplace enrollee saved $705 in 2024 — a 44% reduction in premium costs — because of the enhanced tax credits, according to a November analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Without the credits, average out-of-pocket premiums in 2026 would rise by more than 75%, Larry Levitt, KFF’s executive vice president for health policy, said during the webinar.

Additionally, 4.2 million Americans would become uninsured over the next decade if the enhanced subsidies lapse, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
That growth in the ranks of the uninsured is on top of the nearly 12 million people expected to lose health coverage from over $1 trillion in spending cuts Republicans made to health programs like Medicaid and the ACA to help offset the legislation’s cost.
The spending reduction amounts to the largest rollback of federal healthcare support in history, Levitt said.
“The scale of the change to the healthcare system is staggering,” he said.

How enhanced premium tax credits lowered costs

Premium tax credits were established by the ACA, originally available for people making between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
Enhanced credits became available after former President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, a pandemic-era stimulus package, in 2021.
More from Personal Finance:’YOLO’-buying EVs as $7,500 tax credit endsTrump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ cuts food stamps for millionsTrump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ slashes CFPB funding
The legislation temporarily increased the amount of the premium tax credit and expanded eligibility to households with an annual income over 400% of the federal poverty limit ($103,280 for a family of three in 2025), according to The Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF. The law also capped out-of-pocket premiums for certain plans at 8.5% of income, it said.
Those policies were then extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed in 2022.

Who the subsidy loss would impact most

The enhanced subsidies made insurance more affordable, serving to greatly increase the number of Americans with health insurance, experts said.
ACA enrollment has more than doubled, to roughly 24 million people in 2025 from about 11 million in 2020, according to data tracked by The Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF.

The expiration of enhanced subsidies would impact all recipients of the premium tax credit, but would affect certain groups more than others, health experts said.
For example, the enhancements have been “especially critical” for increasing enrollment among Black and Latino individuals, and have also spurred enrollment among lower-income households, self-employed workers and small business owners, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. More

There’s a pattern in China: companies rush into an industry, then resort to discounts to stay afloat.
“On the surface you’re dominating, but deep inside you’re paying a high price to dominate,” an economist said.
The escalation of tariffs has made Chinese manufacturers more determined to build factories overseas, “potentially generating redundant supply in the coming years,” Goldman Sachs said.

The urban skyline and cityscape in Shanghai China.
Lu Shaoji | Moment | Getty Images

BEIJING — From coffee to cars to real estate, there’s a recurring pattern in China: companies rush into an industry, then resort to discounts to stay afloat. That has economists worried.
Natixis’ study of 2,500 listed Chinese companies reinforce how volume is growing while value is being hurt by deflationary pressure, Alicia Garcia Herrero, the firm’s chief economist for Asia-Pacific, said on a webinar Friday. “You can see it sector by sector, company by company.”

“On the surface you’re dominating, but deep inside you’re paying a high price to dominate,” she said. “You don’t get the revenue needed to continue.”
A reflection of the breadth of impact, consumer prices fell by 0.1% in the first six months of the year from a year ago, while factory-gate producer prices dropped by 2.8%, official data shows. In that time, only seven of 48 producer price sub-categories rose, versus about half of the 37 consumer price components.
That fierce and often unproductive competition is described as “involution” in China. The government has picked up on the term in recent policy documents, calling for efforts to tackle the trend.
While the trend has made tech and products more affordable for the mass market, it has also underscored worries of a vicious cycle that forces businesses to cut more jobs.
“With involution, the Chinese economy feels much colder than the headline growth suggests,” Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie, said in a report Thursday. He pointed out that mainland China-listed “A share” companies expanded their workforces by just 1% in 2024, the slowest on record.

“From a more fundamental perspective, involution is both a feature and a bug of the ‘China model,'” he said. “Massive investment leads to price wars and poor returns for shareholders. But for policymakers, intense competition could help achieve industrial upgrading and self-reliance.” 
China’s push into electric cars has been the most apparent example, with industry giant BYD offering some discounts of nearly 30% or more this year and smartphone company Xiaomi pricing its latest SUV below that of Tesla’s Model Y.
U.S. coffee giant Starbucks has struggled in China with falling sales as it maintains prices of around 30 yuan per cup ($4.20) — while a host of rivals from Luckin Coffee to boutiques sell lattes for as low as 9.9 yuan.
Even in commercial real estate, property owners who have tried to raise prices in Beijing ended up facing higher vacancies, Rayman Zhang, managing director for North China, at property manager JLL, told reporters Thursday. He noted that there’s still insufficient demand — with little expectation for a turnaround in the near future.
China is expected Tuesday to report second-quarter gross domestic product growth of 5.2% from a year ago, according to a Reuters poll. That would be slower than the 5.4% increase in the first quarter, but in line with the national target of around 5% growth for the year.
But the second half of the year will likely reveal a far more stressful picture, warned Jianwei Xu, senior economist for Greater China at Natixis. He was also speaking at Friday’s webinar.
“We are seeing the profits especially for manufacturing companies, are still decreasing,” he said. “There could be more households under stress in [the second half of the year] because it will be more difficult to find a job.”

A different challenge

This isn’t the first time China has dealt with overcapacity, analysts pointed out, referencing excessive capacity in the state-dominated commodities sector about a decade ago. But this time, fewer state-owned companies are involved, making it more difficult for policymakers to act.
“The dominance of private firms in industries with overcapacity tends to complicate the coordination of mergers, even with government guidance,” Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley, and a team said in a report Thursday.
“The economy is also starting from a weaker point, which necessitates more demand-side stimulus to counter the impact of supply reduction,” the report said. “However, the government’s debt level is already high (~100% of GDP), which may constrain its willingness and ability to undertake aggressive fiscal expansion.”
China’s top leaders are expected to maintain the current fiscal stimulus at a high-level Politburo meeting late this month. Beijing in March raised the country’s fiscal deficit for the year to 4% — up from 3% last year.

Weekly analysis and insights from Asia’s largest economy in your inboxSubscribe now

Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 1 led a high-level financial and economic commission meeting that called for more governance of “low price, disorderly competition,” according to a CNBC translation of Chinese state media.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official Qiushi journal on July 1 even outlined several measures that promote standardized government behavior to address involution-style competition, warning of serious economic damage. The article cited high-level government meetings from the last several months. 
“To achieve the growth target, Beijing will have no choice but to launch a major demand stimulus,” Hu said. “Afterwards, the improved domestic demand would ease the price competition among material producers and internet giants. But for manufacturers, it will be a long and painful process to absorb the existing capacity.”

Global spillover

Exacerbating problems with resolving China’s domestic overcapacity is the trade war with the U.S., Goldman Sachs analysts pointed out in a July 1 report.
The U.S. and European Union became more critical of China’s persistent overcapacity issues last year. Both have raised tariffs on Chinese electric cars in particular in an attempt to protect domestic automakers. The U.S. in April also targeted China with higher duties across the board.
The escalation of tariffs has made Chinese manufacturers more determined to build factories overseas, “potentially generating redundant supply in the coming years,” the Goldman report said. The analysts estimated a 0.5% to 14% increase in capacity by the end of 2028, up from the 0.4% to 10% expansion projected a year ago.
And among seven sectors — air conditioners, solar modules, lithium batteries, electric vehicles, power semiconductors, steel and construction machinery — five have more capacity than the entire global demand, the Goldman analysts said. Only ACs, and EVs — just barely — enjoy some market potential.
— CNBC’s Victoria Yeo contributed to this report. More

President Donald Trump’s so-called big beautiful bill ends federal EV tax credits after Sept. 30.
Consumers may rush to buy or lease an electric vehicle before that deadline to get a tax break.
Tesla said now is the time to “YOLO” purchase an EV, referencing the fast-approaching deadline.

Halfpoint Images | Moment | Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s signature on his so-called big beautiful bill was a death blow for tax credits that lowered the cost of electric vehicles.
Those tax credits — worth up to $7,500 and $4,000 for purchases of new and used EVs, respectively — won’t be available after Sept. 30. Another tax break that’s ending lets dealers pass along savings on EV leases.

The credits were supposed to last for another seven years, through 2032.
Analysts think the abrupt end to these federal subsidies will trigger a rush by consumers to buy or lease an EV in coming months.
“This is going to be the summer of the EV,” Ingrid Malmgren, senior policy director at Plug In America, a nonprofit advocating for a quicker transition to electric cars, previously told CNBC.

Automakers have certainly taken notice.
Tesla, the nation’s largest EV maker, has taken to email blasts and social media to spread the word that the federal tax credits are soon disappearing.

“If there ever was a time to yolo your car purchase, it’s now,” the carmaker wrote Tuesday on X. (YOLO means you only live once.)
“Order Soon to Get Your $7,500,” read a separate Tesla newsletter emailed Tuesday.
(Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and former head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, spoke out against the legislation that axed the tax credits, lambasting the trillions of dollars it adds to the national debt.)

‘Sense of urgency’

This is a theme consumers will likely see through the summer, analysts said.
Automakers and dealers will likely “promote a sense of urgency: ‘Buy now, the EV incentive is going away,'” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive.
Another factor that may speed up purchases: Consumers must have the vehicle in their possession by Sept. 30, Malmgren said in an interview after the bill passed.
More from Personal Finance:’Big beautiful bill’ doesn’t eliminate taxes on Social SecurityTax changes under Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ — in one chartTrump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ slashes CFPB funding
In the eyes of the IRS, it won’t be enough that consumers order one by Sept. 30 and take possession later, Malmgren said. They must be driving it off the lot by that deadline, she said.
“Having this deadline so soon, just in a couple months, definitely lights a fire under people’s butts,” Malmgren said. “I expect that people who are kind of thinking about it or on the fence about it may take action now.”
Consumers will likely see some “really good” financial incentives like discounts or financing deals before Sept. 30, on top of the federal tax credits, Valdez Streaty said.
For example, Ford extended a “complimentary home charger and standard installation offer” in the U.S. until Sept. 30, Stacey Ferreira, the automaker’s director of U.S. sales strategy, wrote on the company’s website Tuesday.

‘The training wheels are being taken off’

Maskot | Maskot | Getty Images

The Inflation Reduction Act, which provided historic investments by the U.S. to fight climate change, created, extended or enhanced tax breaks (including the EV credit) meant to reduce the nation’s planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
EVs are “unambiguously better for the climate” than gasoline-powered cars, even when looking across the entire lifecycle of the vehicle, from manufacturing to recycling, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
However, they’re generally more expensive — a primary sticking point for would-be buyers, Valdez Streaty said.
The average transaction price for a new EV in June was about $56,000, before any tax credits or incentives, according to Cox Automotive data. By comparison, the average price for all new vehicles was about $49,000, it said.

Financial incentives have helped bring EVs closer to price parity with traditional cars, and indeed, there’s hardly a price premium for some models, analysts said.
The average EV buyer got financial incentives worth over $8,400 in June, in addition to federal tax credits, Valdez Streaty said. Consumers may also be eligible for subsidies offered by their state or electric utility, Malmgren said.
The end of the federal EV tax credits is like “the training wheels are being taken off” of a nascent technology, Valdez Streaty said. “And those training wheels have helped balance and support EV adoption.”
While EVs are generally more expensive upfront, they may save consumers money over the long term, since recurring charges for maintenance and fuel are generally cheaper, experts said.

What to know before getting an EV

Start soon: EV demand may surge if there’s a rush to buy this summer, and prices may rise if supply is constrained, analysts said. It’s in consumers’ best interest to start sooner rather than later, they said. Ensure your dealer has registered with the IRS to provide a federal tax credit before buying, they said.
Stack tax credits: “Do your research to figure out what credits you’re eligible for,” Valdez Streaty said. Consumers may be able to stack subsidies from the federal government, and their state and utility company, analysts said. “Stacking of EV credits” can be a strong value proposition, especially in areas where gasoline prices are high and electricity rates are low, Valdez Streaty said.

Look at used EVs: “There are a ton of great deals on used EVs,” Malmgren said. “If I were shopping for a vehicle right now, that’s what I’d be looking at.” Used EVs are comparable on price to used gasoline-powered cars, have far fewer maintenance issues, and have strong warranties on their batteries and drive train, she said.
Consider a lease: Buying a new EV comes with various eligibility requirements for the driver and car to qualify for a tax credit. Leasing sidesteps many of them — opening up those federal subsidies to a wider audience, Malmgren said. Check the lease agreement before signing to ensure the price reflects the tax credit.
Opt for upfront tax credit: Consumers should opt to get their tax break upfront as a discount instead of later when filing their annual tax return, Malmgren said. “Given all the uncertainty right now with the administration and IRS, I’d advise against doing the tax credit later,” she said. “Plus you compound your value because that’s money you don’t finance.”

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

The Federal Reserve building is seen before the Federal Reserve board is expected to signal plans to raise interest rates in March as it focuses on fighting inflation, in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 26, 2022.
Joshua Roberts | Reuters

The Federal Reserve is taking another step toward easing regulation for big financial institutions, this time changing the definition for a “well-managed” bank.
Under a proposal put up for comment Thursday, the Fed would allow banks with one “deficient” rating to still be considered well-managed. The ratings run across three criteria: capital, liquidity and governance and controls.

Rules released in 2018 say any deficiencies prevent banks from meeting the management standard, which in turn prevents from them certain activities such as making acquisitions.
“In this way, the proposal would provide greater recognition of a firm’s overall condition in determining well-managed status,” Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said in a statement. “By addressing this mismatch between ratings and overall firm condition, the proposal adopts a pragmatic approach to determining whether a firm is well managed.”
However, the move drew an immediate rebuke from Bowman’s predecessor, Michael Barr, who said the idea would weaken important safeguards.
“The current proposal would fundamentally change the long-established concept of well managed and would introduce greater risk to the banking system,” Barr said in a statement.
Governor Adriana Kugler also signaled apprehension about the move, saying she agrees there are problems with the current system but said there are “risks going too far in the other direction” with the new plan.
The proposal comes just a few weeks after the Fed approved new capital rules for big banks, which also drew objections from Barr and Kugler. More

Deep in Zambia’s Copperbelt province, explorers from Kobold Metals are testing the ground for a new mine shaft. Although the arc of copper running through central Africa was first mapped by Victorian explorers and was mined by a colonial British firm, the search for deposits has been only occasionally fruitful in the years since. Kobold’s discovery is the biggest in a century. Born in California and backed by Bill Gates, the company uses everything from ancient maps to artificial intelligence in order to learn about what lies beneath the ground. Perhaps its biggest idea, though, is an economic model, pioneered at Stanford University, that helps process vast reams of information. It guides where Kobold drills, the most important decision for any miner. More

INDIAN REGULATORS speak with a little more flamboyance than their peers. On July 4th the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) accused Jane Street, a trading firm, of perpetrating a “sinister scheme” of manipulation in the country’s manic options market. In a lengthy document, it concluded that “the integrity of the market, and the faith of millions of small investors and traders, can no longer be held hostage to the machinations of such an untrustworthy actor.” More