Speaker 1: News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm
Speaker 1: Brian Curtis in Los Angeles. The Biden administration is said
Speaker 1: to be discussing raising tariffs on some Chinese goods, including
Speaker 1: electric vehicles. The Wall Street Journal reports it's an attempt
Speaker 1: to bolster the US clean energy industry against cheaper Chinese exports.
Speaker 1: The Israeli military says it has uncovered a major Hamas
Speaker 1: command center in the heart of Gaza City. The military
Speaker 1: says it's a serious blow to Hamas pressure is growing
Speaker 1: on Israel to scale back the offensive. Secretary of State
Speaker 1: Anthony Blincoln says the US expects to see Israel move
Speaker 1: to lower the intensity of the operation with.
Speaker 2: A smaller number of forces. That's really focused in on
Speaker 2: dealing with the leadership of Hamas, the tunnel network, and
Speaker 2: a few other critical things. And as that happens, I
Speaker 2: think you'll see as well, the harmed to civilians also
Speaker 2: decrease significantly.
Speaker 1: B Lincoln did not mention a timeline for the shift.
Speaker 1: Chinese President Hijinping told US President Biden that Beijing will
Speaker 1: reunify Taiwan with mainland China, but he said that timing
Speaker 1: had not yet been decided that's according to NBC, the
Speaker 1: conversation took place during the recent summit in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: We get more with Bloomberg's Kailey lines.
Speaker 3: As really underscores how difficult the Taiwan issue is for
Speaker 3: this administration, which still technically abides by the one China policy,
Speaker 3: tries to exercise strategic ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan.
Speaker 3: But President Biden has also been on the record saying
Speaker 3: that the US would come to Taiwan's defense if attacked. Attack,
Speaker 3: of course, would implicate that it is actually attempt to
Speaker 3: take it by force. But still this idea that China
Speaker 3: does intend to actually bring Taiwan back more solidly into
Speaker 3: the fold. It creates a problem for the US that
Speaker 3: is really trying to be supportive of democracy in Taiwan,
Speaker 3: but is really reluctant to weigh in on the independence question.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Kyley lines Donald Trump's legal team is urging the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to hold off on intervening in his election
Speaker 1: obstruction case. Bloomberg's At Baxter has the story.
Speaker 4: This is the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith,
Speaker 4: saying Trump conspire to overturn the twenty twenty election. Smith
Speaker 4: requested the consideration of Trump's immunity claim, seeking to ensure
Speaker 4: the trial can start on March fourth. Trump's lawyers are
Speaker 4: arguing there has not been identification of a compelling reason
Speaker 4: for thet's extraordinary haste he proposes. Trump has long said
Speaker 4: he wants the cases put off until after the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four election. This is the first Trump criminal case
Speaker 4: to hit the Supreme Court, and the court could rule
Speaker 4: as early as this week whether it will hear it,
Speaker 4: ed Baxter Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Meantime, President Biden said that Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro is
Speaker 1: honoring promises to adopt political reforms. That's as the US
Speaker 1: announced the prisoner's swap deal with the South American country.
Speaker 1: Biden said Maduro is so far keeping his commitment on
Speaker 1: a free election. Venezuela freed ten Americans and handed over
Speaker 1: an infamous US defense contractor. That contractor is nicknamed Fat Leonard.
Speaker 1: It's all in exchange for a close ally and a
Speaker 1: financier of Maduro. US consumer confidence rose in December by
Speaker 1: the most since early twenty twenty one. The Conference Board
Speaker 1: says Americans are growing more upbeat about the economy and
Speaker 1: the labor market. Even so, the board's chief economist Stana
Speaker 1: Peterson says, there are still concerns.
Speaker 5: We actually ask consumers for right ends, and the write
Speaker 5: ends still continue to complain about inflation, both food and energy.
Speaker 5: Their concerns about politics were a little less intense, but
Speaker 5: they are concerned about interest rates. But interestingly, in December,
Speaker 5: the number thinking that interest rates were going to continue
Speaker 5: to rise of the next year actually lessen. So it's
Speaker 5: still inflation. I still think that's the big story for consumers.
Speaker 1: More on that, the conference board to outlook for high
Speaker 1: prices did improve. Expected inflation a year ahead fell to
Speaker 1: the lowest level since late twenty twenty. Micron Technology, the
Speaker 1: largest US maker of memory semiconductors, says second quarter revenue
Speaker 1: will be five point one to five point five billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That was stronger than the analyst estimate of four point
Speaker 1: nine to nine billion. CEO Sanjay Merotra says there's a
Speaker 1: strong demand for the expensive memory that is used in
Speaker 1: data centers. We get more from Bloomberg's Ian King.
Speaker 6: That is certainly the message that the CEO wants to
Speaker 6: get across that you know a certain type of data
Speaker 6: center demand, and that's related to AI that these big
Speaker 6: and video based systems that we need need a lot
Speaker 6: of memory. That's great, and that's very profitable, and they're
Speaker 6: in fact sold out of that. And what he also
Speaker 6: said was, look, you know, smartphones, PCs. We're not talking
Speaker 6: about huge expansions here, but at least things are getting
Speaker 6: better after a couple of really brutal years.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's ian king Micron shares traded up four point eight
Speaker 1: percent in late trading. And that's news when you wanted
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg News. Now I Brien Curtis, this is Bloomberg