Bloomberg Surveillance TV: October 30th, 2025 - podcast episode cover

Bloomberg Surveillance TV: October 30th, 2025

Oct 30, 202531 min
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Episode description

- Stuart Kaiser, Head of Equity Trading Strategy at Citi
- Leland Miller, CEO of China Beige Book
- Sonal Desai, CIO for Fixed Income at Franklin Templeton
- US Energy Secretary Chris Wright

Stuart Kaiser, Head of Equity Trading Strategy at Citi, talks big tech earnings and the Fed's path forward following Wednesday's rate cut. Leland Miller, CEO of China Beige Book, discusses the state of US-China trade relations after President Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. Sonal Desai, CIO for Fixed Income at Franklin Templeton, reacts to Fed Chair Jerome Powell's commentary leaving a December rate cut in doubt. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright breaks down the logistics of a potential US-China energy deal.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Ferrow, along with Lisa Bromwitz and Amerie Hordern. Join us each day for insight from the best in markets, economics, and geopolitics from our global headquarters in New York City. We are live on Bloomberg Television weekday mornings from six to nine am Eastern. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business app.

Speaker 3

Stocks hovering your record highs as investors wait more magnificent seven earnings. Stuart Heiser City Group writing this, the early reactions to earnings have been mixed. We remain positive US equity Beta with a quality tilt and preference for AI power generations. Stuart joins us. Now, so great to see you, good morning, Thank you for being here. I'm glad the Polar bears didn't meet you. I'm just curious going forward.

What's your takeaway is? Are you still all in on power generation despite the fact that investors seem a little bit cautious about spending more than revenues are growing.

Speaker 4

Yeah, we're still very positive on that story, and I think you're going to get a lot of political headlines next week with Election Day coming up that puts even more focus on utility prices. To be completely honest with you, all the capex numbers that Emory mentioned, a lot of

that is going straight into data center build out. I mean, one of the Meta data centers in Louisiana costs twenty seven billion dollars, which for New Yorkers that's three tunnels under the Hudson River, so an astounding amount of money. So yeah, we're still there. Look, there are obviously risks to that, you know, just one headline that these chips need know less power that we thought would be very destructive for that trade, like we saw with deep Seat

back in January. But for now, we do think it's the best sharp ratio way to kind of have that.

Speaker 5

AI drain on.

Speaker 3

And frankly, the best example of this is Caterpillar. The fact that those shares pop and most since two thousand and nine on energy not necessarily bulldozers. I'm just curious what you're expecting to learn from Amazon and Apple and whether that could feed into the story or that these earnings are irrelevant to you based on the capex spend that we've already heard the likes of Microsoft and Alphabet and.

Speaker 5

Meta, I mean, definitely not irrelevant.

Speaker 4

I think Amazon in particular, because you're going to get you know a little bit of a site into AWS, but also consumer spending, so I think Amazon will be quite interesting. I think Apple surprised people a little bit, you know, just just giving the uptake on the iPhone, but definitely important. Last night was a little more important, and that's how it was priced. You know, Amazon earning something after that would be very important.

Speaker 6

Again, do you think the bar is just too high consider what we saw from Meta?

Speaker 5

Yeah, you know, Meta is interesting.

Speaker 4

I think there's some view that they're they're operating cash flows are starting to converge with their capex spend, and the question is how are they going to finance that? And the discussion of how do you finance all this build out is a very big one. I think I think Oracle was issuing about forty billion in death this week, so yeah, it's you know, there is a question here, I think about how this is going to be financed, you know, medium to long term, and certainly the Meta stuff.

It looks like, you know, they're all in and as they should be. I think you know, you both mentioned the amount of spending. I think it's because these companies view this as exextential. They feel that they have to win the AI tright.

Speaker 6

You mentioned energy though, Could the energy story keep up to spend or they'll be a pause just because we don't have the resources to power this.

Speaker 5

That's a good question.

Speaker 4

I mean, instead of Caterpillar bulldozers, maybe you give your kids Caterpillar turbines.

Speaker 5

I don't know, but yes, there's an issue with that.

Speaker 7

I think.

Speaker 5

Look when Oracle report a month.

Speaker 4

And a half ago or some of that was the big commentary was amazing revenue forecasts, they might not have the chips or the electricity to actually get there. So, you know, our folks on the ai I side think you may have to start almost like carving out hyperscalers and have them paying a premium for power, because it does seem like your ability to compete and also your ability to get access to the chips is linked to your proof of concept on the energy side of it.

Speaker 5

So yeah, it could be that we're earlier innings to your.

Speaker 4

Point because of bottlenecks as opposed to anything else.

Speaker 3

Power Lion is, the energy trade, is the AI trade, and the idea of.

Speaker 1

Rates going lower.

Speaker 3

How much was yesterday's shock that maybe this wasn't an all in FED with respect to a Deeszember rate cut potentially the first sign of a real problem for this trade.

Speaker 4

It hasn't been up until now because these companies have amazing palance sheets and are generating so much cash. I think the fact that Oracle is issuing a lot of debt and these numbers are becoming so big it could be a little bit more of an issue going forward.

Speaker 5

But the fact is these are you know, these.

Speaker 4

Are some of the strongest balance sheets on the planet from a lot of these large captachs. I don't think rates is going to impact them too much because frankly, they're willing to self finance this stuff at levels that a lot of people wouldn't finance them at because they view that spend is so important.

Speaker 3

Right, So then why is it important at all whether the FED cuts in December or not, Because you're talking about how it doesn't affect the biggest trade out there, which has been fueling GDP, has been fueling economic growth. It doesn't necessarily affect the fact that we see credit conditions that a lot of people, for all intentsive purposes, have.

Speaker 1

Been calling extraordinary loose.

Speaker 3

And you've already seen the momentum trade. Yes, have hiccups, but do really well. So does it really matter if the FED cuts in December.

Speaker 5

It's a very bullish way to look at markets.

Speaker 4

I would say if FED cuts don't matter for equities, look, I think it would matter more if we had more data in the sense that if you could confirm the labor market was continuing to slow down and they actually wanted to get back to neutral, in that case, it would matter more. We're in a bit of a data vacuum.

I think the issue in the market's going to have a little bit with the FMC yesterday is really trying to understand the reaction function here for then in December, because you know Chrishn earlier mentioned this, you know they had.

Speaker 5

A base case.

Speaker 4

If you look at the data that's come in since that base case, the inflation data was fairly friendly. They themselves have stated down to side risk to the labor market from the shutdown. That combination of data wouldn't suggest that you don't cut in December. So I think the question here is is what is your reaction function, what are you going to be looking at, and how are you weighing the dual mandate risk?

Speaker 6

So the market now start to care about the shutdown because it may impact whether or not the FED.

Speaker 4

Can move, you know, potentially, the market seems very uninterested in shutdown politics at this point. Look, I think coming into this meeting, you say, if we go into the FED blind, there could be.

Speaker 5

Some risks there.

Speaker 4

The market kind of priced that out. The issue with the next one is they update the SEP, which is another level detail they're going to have to provide, and frankly, your data at that point could be two or three months old, depending because it's going to you know, if they reopen, you can get two month old labor data out pretty quick. They haven't collected anything on either inflation or labor market data now for two months, so it's not like they can just you know, push a button

and get the inflation print. They could go into that December meeting with a lot less information than we hoped, but yeah, it doesn't I think you're going to need to see more paychecks miss for the market to really care to be honest with you.

Speaker 3

At this point, though, people are trying to look at what they do have, which is corporate earnings. And we've seen pretty varied earnings. Right, there's a Chipotle story. I keep coming back to what I sound like a broken record. No, I'm not obsessed with Chipotle, but there is this feeling they are eating the margins insert your pun here, because they cannot pass along any price increases that are commensurate

with the costs that are increasing on their end. And they're talking about real weakness, particularly in lower income consumers, at the same time that you're seeing higher end products in particular, our first class airline tickets for example, do really well. So, yes, it's the case shaped economy. At what point is that weakness going to start bleeding into the credit cracks, the cockroaches, whatever you want to call it that some people have been trying.

Speaker 1

To suss out.

Speaker 5

Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker 4

I would say, first class plane tickets, you must have been doing very well.

Speaker 1

I'm not checking out myself to carry on.

Speaker 5

It's it can be an issue.

Speaker 4

But look, this has been almost like a slow motion you know, car crash on the labor side, right, I feel we've been talking about weakness in the labor market for eighteen or eighteen or twenty four months, and yeah, there are pockets of risk even you know Walmart's last earnings, you know they discussed that, you know, tariffs are going

to be an issue in coming quarters. So yeah, there is a build into this and we we what we might start, we might see is the impact from tariffs, but it's it's very slow and kind of methodical how

it bleeds in. I do think, you know, retailer earnings later in the quarter are going to be going to be very important because you know, the front half of earning has been you know, buyased towards larger cap stocks with a lot of exposure to capital markets and a lot of exposure to the AI theme, and those have generally come in well. But look that the market seems pretty happy to whistle by that cemetery, as they say, and until ven marks.

Speaker 1

Are going to rally, I think stay with us.

Speaker 6

More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after.

Speaker 3

This Leland Miller China base book writing this, the US has in fact offer deeper concessions to secure this truth once those details emerged this deal, we'll look far more one sided in China's favor and perhaps also less likely to hold Leland joins US.

Speaker 1

Now Leland, Why do you say that.

Speaker 3

What concessions do you see the US offering China to secure this deal that seem lopsided?

Speaker 8

Well, I think this is the beginning of the deal, not the end of the deal.

Speaker 9

So I think what we saw at the the you know, in the last twelve hours, was a successful start. You know, the President agreed to pull back tariffs in return for the Chinese agreeing to pull back where Earth their new rare Earth export control regime. You know, people may not be happy with the a lot of people may not be happy with the shipping fees being postponed, but in general,

the low hanging fruit was addressed. What you didn't see was something that I think a lot of China Hawks were scared that they would wake up to, which is a whole bunch of export controls pulled back in some sort of quid pro quo.

Speaker 8

But again, President Trump announced.

Speaker 9

That he is heading to heading to China early next year, and there will be more concessions, and there will be more back and forth, and there will be a broader deal there that they're working on right now. So we're working on the margins of the deal, and as we get closer to the core, I think that's when things are going to a bit more controversial.

Speaker 6

Lew And what about AI chips because the President had said that they would discuss Blackwell, then he said they didn't discuss Blackwell, but they discussed other chips, and it's now for China to talk about that with in video. Where does this stand.

Speaker 9

I think what the President came to understand over the last you know, twenty four hours or so is that this is by far the most controversial aspect of any trade deal. When you start incorporating export control rollbacks are which are done for national security purposes as part of a trade deal where you're just trying to get China to buy more commodities, this becomes very, very problematic. And so I think what the President realized is that it is teaming to do a little bit more uh research

on on what made sense here. Obviously that there's a you know, this is this is this is a very big issue. But you know, if the President is trying to build up, you know, a broader deal, this was the These are the low hanging branches, and then I think as they work towards the technology side, that's when things are to get more controversial.

Speaker 6

What about TikTok as well, we heard there's going to be some sort of deal regarding TikTok, and all that we heard from the Chinese Commerce Ministry is that they will keep talking.

Speaker 9

Yeah, I think there's a general sense that the Chinese side is not completely against any TikTok deal, but I think that they're holding their cards as close to the chest for as long as possible. Uh, and so you know, they can get the maximum maximum concessions possible. You know, keep in mind, if we would just announce every concession right now and then President Trump announced a trip to China and April, there'd be this whole scramble to try

to understand what that's for. So I think some of the some of the things that people were talking about being released right now are actually being pushed back a number of months. And well, I think both sides are trying to see what the other side is willing to give before they have a final framework.

Speaker 6

So it's a Dave tant for about a year. But that doesn't mean this relationship cannot escalate. With any sort of truth that comes out of the White House, What would your message be to investors that think, potentially they could ignore this relationship for the next twelve months.

Speaker 9

I think, look, an agreement to not do something for a year only holds as long as the Chinese decide they're not going to do something they don't feel like they've been provoked or something else. There's an issue that one of your truths doesn't mean one of your truths. It means a truth until one of the sides the sides that truce doesn't work anymore. But the larger point is, I think on tariffs, so the President's moved back tariffs by ten percent, so you have a headline rate of

fifty seven percent. That sound going down to forty seven or so. That sounds high. You've got an effective rate around thirty percent. So I think the larger picture here is they've gone down enough that they're getting very close to what competitor producers are actually being charged in the twenties, you know, Vietnam and the Mexicos and.

Speaker 8

Other Southeast Asian countries.

Speaker 9

If they get too close, all the de risking work that the president has done will start going the other direction, there will not be an incentive to move your supply chains out of China, so they're gonna have to look at that very closely. They're about at the end of what they could do in terms of terraff productions on China without reversing the president's terraf regime that he fought very hard to put in place.

Speaker 3

Well, and the optics of this trip have been pretty powerful, the idea of a Southeast Asia tour in Malaysia and inking some of the deals and the niceties between the likes of the Tie and the Vietnamese and the other leaders in the region, Japan as well.

Speaker 1

What do you make of that?

Speaker 3

Do you think that that does give the US closer allies in Southeast Asia? They gave it more clout, more ammunition heading into these meetings with China.

Speaker 9

Certainly, the more the United States interacts with its allies and partners in Asia, the more leverage have with China, and the smarter policy will be because you'll be able to de risk your supply chains outside of things that give China leverage points on your economy. So it's good politics, it's good economics. I think it's very helpful. You know,

you look at what happened with the critical minerals. That Chinese released a very powerful export control regime that exerted dominance over the supply chains of the world in terms of rare earths and critical minerals. The US has immediately responded and tried to go out and have partnerships with Australia, with Southeast Asian countries. You know. So I think that what China did was quite momentous, but at the same time it has lit a fire under the United States

to try to do something to fix the problem. Well.

Speaker 3

And one thing that China page book does so well as you track real time economic activity going on in China, there's been this stagnation that we've talked about on employment rate for youth, very high, and a real question about how much the economic backdrop is going to push Jijinping to the table to try to make sure that the relationship with the United States in front of the rest

of the world isn't severed. How well are they doing rebalancing their aman to more of a consumption less of just simply an output based economic model.

Speaker 9

The contours of your question are really important because if you were asking how their economic performance is doing. I would say it's doing well enough for she, it's doing well enough. And so I don't think that they feel any pressure to come to the table with the United States.

Speaker 8

But if your question is, have they been you know.

Speaker 9

Creating this this this wave of you know, this shift from investment to consumption, which they've been promising the last ten years, No, there's absolutely no sign of that whatsoever. And I don't think you will see that. What you've see how the Chinese government is sort of resistance to this. It's been we got to produce more, we have to export more. We you know, we have to continue to

use manufacturing and industry as our growth driver. That is running into a buzzsaw, which is which is global trade friction. So you know, the Chinese have talked a lot about a consumption, They've done very little on consumption. So I think that's something to watch in the future. But you know, rather than listening to what they say, I would urge

everyone to watch what they do. And I think that's going to be very important because if they do not create the mechanisms to spur up more domestic demand in China, than these trade frictions will never go away. It's not a Trump thing, it's a China thing.

Speaker 1

Stay with us.

Speaker 6

More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after.

Speaker 3

This fetchair j Powell giving no guarantees that the Central Bank will deliver a third consecutive rate cut in December. Sanal Desiah Franklin Templeton, writing this, it's telling that Powell quickly shifted to the emphasis to December. It was a clever move to distract from the fact that the economic outlook did not really justify yesterday's cut, Sana joins us. Now, Sanal, I always love hearing your takes as they are different

from what everyone else is talking about. Why do you think it is interesting that they did cut rates this meeting when it was completely expected and baked in two market expectations, given the fact that his rhetoric was a bit hawkish and casting doubt on December.

Speaker 10

So thanks Lisa for always fun being here. But here's the thing.

Speaker 11

What I'm what I'm saying here is certainly the market expected it, and the fair guided us towards rate cut, so of course they were going to cut. But that's a heck of a response if you're asked, why did you cut well because you expected us to cut. That's really not very convincing. What I was talking about really is that the underlying data, much the way that power is telegraphing, that December is not a done deal. Quite frankly, yesterday's cut should not have been a done deal either.

Speaker 10

And what I mean by this.

Speaker 11

Is that several people have pointed to benign inflation.

Speaker 10

I would actually beg to differ.

Speaker 11

Since the middle of twenty twenty three now, inflation hasn't really come down very much.

Speaker 10

We've been at about three percent and.

Speaker 11

It's been over two years now that inflation has been stuck at around three percent. Yes, we're down by zero point three percent since then, so inflation isn't actually actively coming down coming down the speed at wag inflation is coming down, it's glacial. In terms of the labor market, there aren't very good signs which indicate that the labor market is doing poorly. Powell indicated he talked a lot about the supply issues.

Speaker 10

That's absolutely correct. I fully concur with this.

Speaker 11

There was a Dallas Fed paper which talked about thirty k as being the new break even.

Speaker 10

Based on current ADP.

Speaker 11

Rolling four week numbers, we're looking at fifty to fifty five k for this last month.

Speaker 10

So, if anything, the labor market's doing rather well.

Speaker 3

So at this point you think that it might have been a mistake for them to cut rates by twenty five basis points.

Speaker 1

Where do you see it showing up going forward? Right now?

Speaker 3

Markets are not expressing concern. If anything, they're responding more. It's the lack of a December rate cut, and you're not saying the move that we saw last year when they cut rates, and you saw long End yeld's rise in response.

Speaker 10

So I actually do I wouldn't go as far as this is within what I would consider the margin of errol.

Speaker 11

If they took it to three percent, I think it would be inst Given the current state of the economy, I think three point seventy five four I think it should be four. They've cut to three point seventy five. It's not catastrophic in terms of why the market has not responded in the same way.

Speaker 10

I think with complete you can make the.

Speaker 7

Argument, very strong argument that whatever else you think about last year's ratecards, those four rate cards came against the backdrop of meaningfully higher inflation and lower unemployment and somewhat stronger growth.

Speaker 10

So it was a.

Speaker 11

Particularly odd time to deliver the size and number of rate cards they did. Nonetheless, if we look at where we are today, the FED is standing on the cusp of a first quota, which potentially is going to see tailwinds for both GDP and for infation, small tailwinds coming from say, tariffs on the inflation front and from the GDP front. We finally start seeing the impact of the Beautiful Bill on taxes, and I think that that's something which the Fed must take into account as we look forward.

So I don't think that the December rate cut is a foregone conclusion. And I think potentially if they cut in December, it's a pretty risky thing to do in front or what we know is going to happen in Q one.

Speaker 6

What do you need to see between now and December to then in your mind think okay, they should be and we'll be cutting.

Speaker 11

I think it would basically be that weakness of the labor market, so we should And really, yes, it does depend on getting some data, and I know we've got problems getting the data given that the government is still shut down, But there are other higher frequency indicators we can look at. We also have earnings reports which continue to come down.

Speaker 12

If the mass of those earnings reports starts moving in the direction of pointing to a significantly weaker consumer and here I would be looking in particular in areas such as airlines, you know, the consumer dependent pieces of the economy which actually continue to show strength. And so if we started seeing a massive data moving in that direction, sure, I also actually do understand why if.

Speaker 10

They don't have more.

Speaker 11

Meaningful data showing significant weakness, they would err on the side of not cutting rather than cutting, because we do know that those AsSalt tax deductions are going to go up in the beginning of next year. Childher child's tax credits are going to go up. A lot of the pieces of the big beautiful bill which are not being discussed today, actually go into play as we start off

in the next year. So I'm not sure where the gloom about the economy comes from, because we get fiscal tailwinds pretty early in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3

So no, just quickly here, We've got about a minute meta just to put out this announcement that they're announcing six part dollars bond sale following their earning support yesterday. It follows what we saw from Oracle last week is almost forty billion dollars of debt being sold. I'm just wondering if that makes you concerned about the investment grade space given the glood of AI related supply coming to the fore.

Speaker 11

I don't think where I'd go as far as seeing we are concerned. The fact that the market is currently absorbing it, spreads are very tight.

Speaker 10

It probably makes.

Speaker 13

Sense for these companies to issue, But I would say that overall, we're starting from a position where credit as price pretty close to profection, not much spoke to error.

Speaker 1

Stay with us.

Speaker 6

More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after this.

Speaker 3

President Trump teasing an energy deal with China after both countries reach a tariff and rare Earth agreement, joining US now. I am so pleased to say, as US Energy Secretary Chris right from Toronto where he is in the G seven meetings with other world leaders talking about energy and what can be done to build out US Energy Secretary, thank you so much for being with us. I want to start with this deal that President Trump was hinting at with China, talking.

Speaker 1

About Alaska oil.

Speaker 3

What details can you provide us with what contours of this transaction?

Speaker 1

Do you expect to come to light.

Speaker 14

Look, China is by far the world's largest importer of oil and importer of natural gas. The US is by far the world's largest exporter of natural gas and by far the world's largest producer of oil. So there's so much space for mutually beneficial deals between the US and China. Alaska was mentioned in that deal Dialogue's enormous reserves on

the Alaskan Slope. They've been strangled by the Biden administration and Alaskan production has been in decline, but lots of room for that production to grow, lots of room to bring natural gas from the North slope of Alaska and bring that to all of our allies along the East Asian ram or frankly anywhere in the world. But President

Trump is just a master negotiator. He finds out what is it that's critical to the Chinese, what is it that's critical to the United States, and finds that sweet spot of a deal that works for both countries.

Speaker 6

Could potentially the United States fill a gap if China decides to buy less energy from Russia, especially since the US government sanctioned Royceneft and Luke Oil.

Speaker 14

Absolutely absolutely today the US produces fifty percent more oil than Russia or Saudi Arabia, and it just puts not just the United States, but the world in a better position. Can we squish out half of Russian oil exports and still have a roughly balanced oil market? Absolutely we can.

Speaker 5

Have you been in.

Speaker 6

Touch as well with your counterparts in South Korea? The President coming back on this strip, talked about the tariff rate in South Korea and the plan for them to buy oil and gas in vast quantities part of that trade deal.

Speaker 14

Yes, I've been in dialogues with the Korean staff since I arrived in the office. You know, Korea is a great industrial nation, also short on energy resources but long on other assets. So yeah, lots of room for United States to grow our role in supplying natural gas, oil, and frankly nuclear technology to South Korea.

Speaker 6

I bring this up because it sounds like, are you preparing some sort of trip to the Asia Pacific if you have to meet with your Chinese counterparts and your South Korean counterparts for the United States to send more energy to that part.

Speaker 1

Of the world.

Speaker 5

Oh, I go wherever the President tells me.

Speaker 14

But yes, I would be going to Asian in a few weeks, and heck, I may be going sooner than that. You know, I'll get debriefed from all the dialogues and all what must be done promptly in the follow up. Could be heading there very shortly, but I don't know about that right now. But of course Asia is the center of the world economy after the United States. So yeah, that's a critical alliances, critical partnerships, and critical oil demand sources.

Speaker 3

Mister secretary, I feel like we should have a map here of all the places where you've got trips planned, because I suspect that you're going to be heading to Grece soon too. And the old idea of how much the US is exporting in terms of energy to the European region, especially as they reduce reliance on Russia. Can you tell us anything about how that relationship is developing.

Speaker 14

Actually, it's been great dialogues. I think the European nations. The war in Ukraine really crystallized. Yes, it wasn't a good idea to have all of our key energy supply coming from Russia, largest supplier of oil to them, largest supplier of natural gas to them, largest supplier of coal to Europe, and the United States has slid in to displace Russia as the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe.

We can do the same thing with oil, and I think we're today the second largest supplier of coal to Europe, So I think there's mutual agreement on both sides.

Speaker 5

There.

Speaker 14

Certainly there's some regulations in Europe cs Triple D, which is just a way overreach in the regulatory regime that's going to make it sticky to ramp up energy movement as fast as we'd like. But we're in constant dialogue to fix those problems. I'm excited about the future relationship between the European nations and the United States. It's always been good, but I think it's going to grow a lot.

Speaker 1

Mister Secretary.

Speaker 3

A lot of people come on the show talk about their concerns about higher energy prices in the United States. They talk about artificial intelligence, the power demands, the inability to really provide the energy that would be required to expand at the pace that a lot of AI giants are talking about.

Speaker 1

How do you plan to mitigate that?

Speaker 3

Is there a level at which power prices get so expensive that the United States will reduce some of the exports to the rest of the world.

Speaker 14

Well, they are actually different factors that control them. Like our large exports of natural gas today are actually still relatively modest compared to the amount of gas we produce, and we can easily produce vastly more natural gas today. So power prices. The problem isn't the price of natural gas. The problem is the infrastructure, generation facilities, transmission lines. The Biden administration for four years, forced the closure of a lot of coal plants, a few gas plants, prevented the

building of new coal and natural gas power plants. They said, they built a lot of unreliable, intermittent electricity that's spread all over the country that takes more transmission assets. All of that goes into the rate base and has pushed up prices. Frankly, it's part of the reason why President Trump got elected.

Speaker 5

So we're having to reverse all those things.

Speaker 14

Stop the closure of coal plants, make it easier to build new natural gas plants, make new sources that want to come on be successful commercially, not dependent upon subsidies, and not require massive new transmission investments that all just go on to the rate payers. So we're doing a lot of things. At FIRK, we had a big announcement last Thursday. I probably can't go into here, but specifically aimed at artificial intelligence, how we can speed new firm

generation without driving up the price of electricity. I share the American consumers' worries about the recent rises in price of electricity over the last four years, and I'm working seven days a week to stop those price rises and enable the United States to lead in artificial intelligence.

Speaker 6

We've seen one of the most significant significant announcements from this administration when it comes to nuclear The government is planning this partnership eighty billion dollars for nuclear reactors with a Canadian company, Westinghouse. Who will develop them?

Speaker 1

And where?

Speaker 6

Can you give us more details about this?

Speaker 14

Oh? I would call Westinghouse an American company. It's a legacy American company and it's majority owned.

Speaker 5

By the Americans.

Speaker 14

It has a Canadian partner in Camico, but it's an American company. This is a plan to partner across the country at a few different locations to build, as you saw in the announcement, gave dollar amounts, but a large amount of power. Think of order ten gigawatts of new electric generating production capacity, and to do it in a

way that's efficient. So instead of one here and one starting a few years later, we want to stage in the construction of these plants to most efficiently use construction workers, assembler's fabrication, so that we lower the cost of nuclear generation restand up the supply chain in the United States. This is quite an exciting project and more details will come out as we fill in, as we fill in

those dots. But the President Trump promised to relaunch nuclear energy Unlesia, nuclear renaissance in the United States.

Speaker 5

This is a big part of that.

Speaker 6

Effort, and just I wanted to get your take on a reversal we've seen from Bill Gates, someone who's long talked about climate change. He's sort of pivoting his stance and according to his staff, you recently met with him, did you have a hand in how now he's talking about energy.

Speaker 14

I've had multiple great dialogues with Bill Gates over the last last year, at multiple times and at some length of course, he's a very thoughtful, successful entrepreneur, and climate change is a real thing.

Speaker 5

It's a real challenge.

Speaker 14

It's just not remotely close to the world's top challenge. And the problem is by putting it the top challenge. The ineffective things governments have done have raised the price of energy, lowered the reliability of the energy system, and they've stood in the way of efforts to combat hunger, food insecurity, energy security, education, and all the other global challenges.

So yeah, Bill and I have had great dialogues. He's done fabulous stuff in public health around the world, and I'm thrilled to see him talk in a more candid way about this issue.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Survendments podcast, bringing you the best in markets, economics, antient politics. You can watch the show live on Bloomberg TV weekday mornings from six am to nine am Eastern. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business out

Speaker 13

Mm hmm

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