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Good morning, I maybe Morris and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today.
We begin with the tragedy near Baltimore. It is no longer a search and rescue operation. It is now search and recover after yesterday's collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. A road crew was working on the bridge at the time of the collapse. Now two of them have been rescued, six remain unaccounted for. The area remains blocked off to traffic, which means a major artery around the city of Baltimore is also blocked off. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is asking for people to be patient.
They're going to be detours.
This is going to be a long road. But when we think.
About the realities of what those families are going through versus us have it this spend a little bit more time in traffic we can't even compare.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott says the search is the priority, but he also recognizes the economic ripple effect this will have on his city.
Well Lamy, the business that contracted the road work as Broner Builder's company attorney Jeffrey Pritzker explains it's possible the crew never heard any warnings.
Where they were working on the bridge was right in the center span of the bridge, so it's quite possible that they heard nothing and had no idea what happened until it happened.
Attorney Jeffrey Pritzker. Maryland Governor Wes Moore says the loss of the bridge and the loss of life is heartbreaking.
When I first got the phone call in the middle of the night saying the Key bridge is gone one, it takes your breath away and then immediately start thinking about.
These families and Governor Moore says the work will continue to find those who are still missing. The next phase of the recovery process begins this morning.
The one point six mile long bridge collapsed in just a matter of seconds. The catastrophic consequences are set to stretch out for weeks. President Biden says the government needs to step up.
That's my intention that federal governor will pay for the entire cost to reconstructing that bridge.
I expect the Congress to support my effort.
Facing months of uncertainty, Baltimore and Maryland both have declared a state of emergency.
Well, I mean, the aftermath of the bridges collapse throws another spotlight on the fragile nature of global supply chains. Brendan Murray leads to our global trade coverage for Bloomberg.
The Port of Baltimore has closed indefinitely. They're they're going to have, you know, weeks or months of salvage operations to clean up the site. All that cargo is going to have to go somewhere else, places like Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia. The big ships will have to go to New York and New Jersey. So there's going to be a period where supply chains have these wrinkles
that need to be ironed out. It's going to be it's going to mean delays for people and businesses for their for their parts and their products, and it's going to possibly mean some some higher costs in the short.
Term bloom Brendon Murray says about thirty five thousand people use the bridge every day. The American Trucking Association says the annual value of goods going over is about twenty eight billion dollars, And.
Of course we will continue to follow the latest developments on the bridge collapse right here on Bloomberg Radio. Now, let's turn to political news. Robert F. Kennedy Junior has picked Nicole Shanahan to be his vice presidential pick and his independent White House bid that's trying to appeal to voters disaffected by a rematch of the twenty twenty election. The thirty eight year old Shanahan is a California lawyer and a philanthropist who has never held elected office.
Meanwhile, Amy, the Republican presidential candidate, is also making headlines. Donald Trump will need to be careful with this rhetoric during his trial concerning alleged payments to Stormy Daniels and Bloomberg's Nancy Lyons reports.
Now that in April fifteenth, start date has been set for Donald Trump's trial on alleged hush money payments. The judges out with some ground roles for the former president. Judge wanmer Shan has issued a gag order banning Trump for making statements about witnesses, lawyers, or jurors involved in the trial. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs sought the order because of Trump's quote longstanding history of verbal attacks. The trial marks the first criminal prosecution of a former American
president in Washington. I'm Nancy Lyons Bloomberg Radio.
Thank you, Nancy. It was a volatile first day of trading for former Trump. Former president Donald Trump's social media startup, Trump Media and Technology Group gained sixteen percent in its first trading day as a public company, and surged as much as fifty nine percent at one point. The most high profile blank check deal in years added billions to Trump's fortune, at least on paper. Shares are up ten percent in early trading this morning.
Well in the currency market, amy the yen has touched its lowest level versus the dollar since nineteen to ninety. Japan has stepped closer to currency intervention with its strongest warning yet. The country's finance minister ramped up his hints a possible action. Looking at the yen right now, it's little changed against the dollar in the end, at one fifty one point four to nine.
In geopolitical news, Chinese President Xi Jinping has met with US business executives hoping to restore confidence in Beijing. Bloomberg Daybreak Asia anchor Brian Curtis as more from Hong.
Kong shinwas as president. She met with representatives from US business, strategic, and academic communities. China's hoping to shore up confidence submit a slow down in foreign investment. Investment fell to a thirty year low last year. Tensions with the US have risen in recent weeks. China said it filed a complaint to the WTO over US EV subsidies, and the US and UK accused Chinese hackers of targeting politicians and companies. China is now ramping up outreach to foreign investors, hoping
to kick start the slumping economy in Hong Kong. Brian Curtis Bloomberg.
Radio, Hi, Brian, thank you now to a discussion on the broader economy with black Rock CEO Larry Fink. Fink talked about his annual letter yesterday with Bloomberg's David Weston, warning that the US is facing a looming retirement crisis and says a high level effort is needed to address it. Fink added that America's unsustainable debt servicing bill could lead to a period of stagnation.
The cost of financing our deficits are going to erode more and more of our disposable income. As a country, and I do believe there we're getting to a point where our public debt is going to start up, crowding out private capital, and we're going to have structurally higher interest rates.
Black Rock CEO Larry Fink added he's frightened by the US public debt situation, but says a US debt crisis is not inevitable. And you can catch our entire conversation with Larry Fink on the Bloomberg Talks podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts. And it's time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that we'rejoined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr. Michael, good Morning, Good.
Morning, Karen is really. Prime Minister Benjamin at Yahoo's says his government will not accept Tamas's delusional conditions for a ceasefire in Gaza. The militant group has rejected the latest truce proposal because it wants an end to the war and Israel's full withdrawal from the Gaza strip. Natanyahu also rebuked a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire
in Gaza. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller pushed back on claims that amasa's most recent rejection of a ceasefire framework agreement resulted from the US abstention vote in the UN.
That response was prepared before the UN Security Council vote, not after it.
Yesterday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin welcomed Israeli Defense Minister Joav Gallant to the Pentagon, where the two talked about US Israeli security cooperations and the ongoing efforts to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza. A vigil will be held tonight at Massapequa Park in the hometown for the NYPD officer who was shot and killed this week. Officer Jonathan Dillar, who was thirty one, was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Queens. Diller, who was with the force for three years,
had a wife and a toddler's son. Diller and another officer approached a car that was parked illegally at a bus stop. Authority say one of the two men who were in the car, thirty four year old Guy Rivera, pulled out a gun and shot Diller in the torso. Official say Diller's partner then fired and shot Rivera in the back. New York Mayor Eric Adams says the city has a recidivism problem.
These two individuals, one of the men had been arrested on a gun charge in April twenty twenty three. To the driver, he has more than twenty prize, the other as an equal amount of prize.
Mayor Adams also says the city has to deal with mental health issues and random acts of violence. Today, New YORK'SA holds its final vote on acting what would be the US's first large scale congestion pricing system. The plan would charge most drivers a fee of at least fifteen dollars to drive south of sixtieth Street in Manhattan. The program is set to begin in June, but that could change depending on the outcome of lawsuits in New York
and New Jersey. Supporters say you will reduce carbon emissions, speed up bus service and emergency response times, and raise funds for public transportation. Former NYC Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz is in favor of the plan.
I know a number of cities are keeping their eye on New York. If you can get through all the log jams, all the bureaucracy, all the politics of New York, city. And you can get this done in New York, you could do it elsewhere.
Critics say there should be a commitment to improve mass transit service. Global news twenty four hours a day and whenever you want it with the Bloomberg News. Now, Michael Barr, this is Bloomberg.
Karen sor right, Michael, thank you.
Time now for the Bloomberg Sports Update, brought to you by Tri State Audi. Here's John stash Hour, John, Good morning, Good morning Karen.
Winding down the NHL regular season. The race is on for the President's Trophy home ice in the playoffs. Seven teams separated by just three points, and the team that right now is a top the league, the Rangers. They hosted the Flyers scoreless first period. Philly led two to one after two, and then seven goals were scored in the third. Rangers had three different leads. The game went to overtime.
Fox tangles the blue line, leaves it.
Back for tro check back to Fox, Fox rips a shot up score.
Adam foxing overtime, and the Rangers won a wild game, six to five, one one hundred points.
They clitch a playoff berth for the third.
Consecutive Yearny ESPN Fox, scoring thirty six seconds into ot Deable's trying to make the playoffs. They won in Toronto's sixty three, took over first place in their division four to three win at Florida double overtime. In the NBA, the Lakers, playing without Lebron James, came from nineteen down and one in Milwaukee for Anthony Davis thirty four points twenty three rebounds. The Warriors won by twenty one at Miami. Dallas won by thirty six at Sacramento, fiftieth winn of
the season for Oklahoma City Man. He felt Indiana State would have made the NCAA tournament settled for the niit now thirty one and six after a quarterfinal win over Cincinnati. Georgia won by two at Ohio State. Seaton Hall has its NIT quarterfinal game tonight at home against UNLV. Major rule changes to kickoffs in the NFL all look very different. The kicker will now stand in his own thirty five yard line. His ten teammates will be twenty five yards ahead.
At least seven of the receiving players will be just five yards from them. It's an effort to make the kickoff again be part of the sport. Most of them had not been returned. Baseball starts tomorrow, and free agent pitcher Jordan Montgomery has finally found a job. He signed with Arizona. John Stanshedward Bloomberg Sports.
Coast to Coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM, and around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak.
And returning to our top story this morning, the key bridge in Baltimore, struck by a cargo ship, collapsed in just seconds yesterday. The consequences, though, will likely stretch out four weeks. We are joined now by Bloomberg's trade expert Brendan Murray. Brendan, thanks for taking the time with us. What is the latest now?
Sure?
So tragically, the officials locally have said that they're calling off the search and rescue for the six missing workers who are on the bridge filling potholes when the ship struck the bridge. So they're recovery, they're looking for they're recovering the victims at this stage. So a rather somber day starting here on Wednesday. In the meantime, all this cargo that was supposed to come in and out of
Baltimore has to go somewhere else. So we're seeing ships diverting to ports in Virginia and North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and New York. So all that cargo is going to be slower to get where it's going, and it will need truck or a train to pick it up in another location that it wasn't expecting. So expect a bit of a tangled mess in the weeks ahead.
Let's get into that a little bit and talk about some of those ports you mentioned, South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and other ports. Are they going to be able to handle all of the extra traffic that they're about to get?
From what they tell us, they're not running at full capacity right now. The US economy is fairly solid, but it's not gangbusters, so some of them tell us they're running it about seventy or eighty percent capacity. So yeah, they can handle this extra this extra cargo flowing in their direction, but it'll take They can't do it immediately, so it could we could see ships sitting outside these ports for a few days perhaps, and we'll see how
they're able to orbit. The big issue is Baltimore is a big car port for imports and exports, and not every not every trade gateway along the Eastern Seaboard can handle cars. So we'll have to wait and see how the how the auto companies deal with these the disruptions to their supply chains.
Right, they handle cars, construction equipment, farm equipment, and I wonder if that's where we might see the most impact, because it seems like there would be more isolated industries as opposed to industries as a whole.
Yeah, it's not a lot of sort of consumer facing goods that flow through Baltimore. It's things that are kind of in the you know, go to the industrial heartland. Construction equipment, farm equipment, you know, and those kinds of things.
You know, the spring construction season kind of heats up in a month or two, you know, will there be enough equipment, Will some of that equipment and the materials needed for home building and office construction be you know, be as readily available as it might might have been. Farmers are going to start, you know, planting crops in a few months. Are they going to have you know, the equipment that they need the new tractor or combine?
You know that that would normally flow through Baltimore. So some we're not expecting a widespread economic headwind from this, but it could create some isolated headaches.
And briefly, Brendan, it wasn't long ago we experienced the firsthand the fragile nature of the global supply chains, very briefly thirty seconds. How is this going to factor into that?
Well, we're going to get another test of the resilience of supply chains along the East Coast. Basically, it will it will mean trucks. You know, there's going to be a lot of traffic around Baltimore for the foreseeable future. That highway, that beltway around Baltimore is now gone, so all that traffic is going to have to move somewhere else.
So I think we're just going to have to see how the companies involved in logistics and supply chains can flex with this shock, and hopefully it the fallout won't be too widespread or too painful.
You are listening to Bloomberg Daybreak today, your morning brief on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond.
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Listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app, Sirius Xmthiheartradio app, and on Bloomberg dot Com. I'm Amy Morris.
And I'm Karen Moscow. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak