Ceasefire On 'Life Support'; High Stakes Trump-Xi Meeting

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2:01and Iran has reached a precarious moment. President Trump says he has rejected Tehran's latest peace proposal, and the truce is, in his words, unbelievably weak. I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved one has approximately a one percent chance of living. President Trump spoke in the Oval Office at an event with medical professionals. We get more from Bloomberg's Jumana Bersechi in Dubai. He also went on to describe the Iranian counterproposal as a, quote, piece of garbage. Probably, you know, a bit of an exaggeration there. But at the same time, he also seemed to insinuate that the Iranians are planning on handing over the nuclear dust.

2:46That is, of course, we've not heard any indication from the Iranian side that that is the case. But then he went on to say that a diplomatic solution is still in sight. So multiple different narratives coming out from President Trump during the course of that press conference yesterday. Bloomberg's Jumana Bersetchi reports Iran demanded a lifting of the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions relief in its latest counterproposal while maintaining some control over the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump is not indicating whether he will resume military attacks on Iran, but he told Fox News he could revive a plan to escort ships through the strait known as Project Freedom.

3:19Well, Nathan, to help ease the burden of higher prices at the Palm, President Trump said he is seeking to suspend the federal 18.4 cent a gallon tax on gasoline. According to independent budget analysts, that would cost the federal government about three and a half billion dollars a month in lost gasoline and diesel tax revenue. The president's proposal would require an act of Congress. And Karen, the war will be the backdrop of President Trump's trip to China, but several other topics will be on the agenda as well, including Taiwan. Bloomberg's Amy Morris reports from Washington. The White House says deals spanning aerospace, energy, and agriculture industries are expected from the president's meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

4:01And Trump says he'll also discuss whether the U.S. should continue arms sales to Taiwan. Well, I'm going to have that discussion with President Xi. President Xi would like us not to. Trump's comments could ruffle feathers in Congress, where a bipartisan group of senators urged the president to advance a$14 billion arms package for Taiwan. In Washington, Amy Morris, Bloomberg Radio. Great, Amy. Thank you. Well, several Wall Street titans will be accompanying the president on his China trip. One notable absence, though, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang. While more than a dozen other top executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla's Elon Musk, made the cut for the business delegation, A White House official says Wong was not among those invited.

4:43Wong's absence may be a potential setback for him in his bid to sell NVIDIA's AI chips to China. Karen, the mayor of an affluent Los Angeles suburb, has resigned after agreeing to plead guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China. Eileen Wong admitted to posting pro-China propaganda at the direction of Chinese government officials. Wong was the mayor of Arcadia. That's a city of about 55 ,000, about 15 miles northeast of downtown L.A. Well, let's go to politics overseas. Nathan, Keir Starmer is facing growing pressure to step down as Britain's prime minister. Let's go live to London and get the very latest with Bloomberg's James Wilcock.

5:20Good morning, James. Karen, Nathan, this increasingly looks like Keir Starmer's endgame. 20 % of his Labour Party MPs have now publicly called on the UK leader to go. Bloomberg understands last night some of Starmer's closest cabinet allies told him to set out his exit plans. He has gathered his cabinet in the past hour in No. 10 Downing Street and told them he intends to stay on. Now we wait to see what their verdict on his leadership is. In London, James Woolcock, Bloomberg Radio. All right, James, thank you. Now the latest on that cruise ship struck by a deadly Hantavirus outbreak. All the passengers who were aboard the MV Hantius have disembarked and boarded planes to more than 20 countries to be quarantined.

5:59Fifteen Americans who were exposed to the disease are being isolated at the University of Nebraska. One is infected and being treated in a biocontainment unit. Another who developed symptoms but has not tested positive is at Emory University in Atlanta. President Trump says he is hopeful the virus can be contained. I hope it's fine. All I can do is everything that a president can do, which is actually somewhat limited. But it seems like it is not easy to spread. President Trump, again, speaking from the Oval Office. Three cruise passengers died. Six others with confirmed or suspected cases are being quarantined.

6:37Health officials say this is the first Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. Let's turn to the markets now, Nathan, where South Korea's KOSPI index shed more than$300 billion in value in just 97 minutes today. The sharp sell-off followed a proposal from a top South Korean policymaker to introduce a so-called citizen's dividend using taxes on AI profits. The Kospi, which at one point was down 5%, closed down more than 2%.

7:06Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr. Michael, good morning. Good morning, Karen. A terrifying scene near Harvard University Monday afternoon. A shooting near Boston has left two people with life-threatening injuries. The gunfire erupting in Cambridge sent pedestrians running for cover and drivers swerving to avoid the bullets near Memorial Drive and River Street. Middlesex District Attorney Marion Ryan says the suspected gunman, Tyler Brown, began shooting into traffic with an assault-style rifle.

7:41And he was actively firing in an erratic fashion at various vehicles along the road. In the course of doing that, two males in vehicles separately were struck by gunfire. D.A. Ryan says Brown was stopped when he was shot by a Massachusetts state trooper and a Marine veteran who stepped in to stop the shooter. Brown was placed under arrest and taken to a hospital. The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily extended an order that maintains nationwide access to the abortion pill Mifepristone by mail and through telehealth visits. A lower federal appeals court ruling prohibited health providers from dispensing the abortion pill by mail.

8:24women's health expert and chief medical officer for HERS, Dr. Jessica Shepard. Physicians use this medication more than just for abortion and for women who actually need to have a pregnancy and have a pregnancy loss and need to find a way to have that taken care of medically. These are the types of medications that we've used for decades. Activists say nearly one third of the abortions in the U.S. each year are done through telehealth. President Trump will visit Walter Reed Military Medical Center on May 26th for his annual dental and medical evaluations. According to a White House statement, this will include the president's routine annual dental and medical assessments as part of his regular preventative health care.

9:07Global News 24 hours a day and whenever you want it. With Bloomberg News Now, I'm Michael Barr and this is Bloomberg. Karen. Thanks, Michael. Time now for our Bloomberg Sports Update. And for that, we bring in John Stash Hour. Thanks, Karen. The Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA playoffs yet to win on the road, yet to lose at home. The Cavs beat Detroit 112-103. They scored the first 23 points in the second half. That series is tied at two. Another series sweep for Oklahoma City. The Thunder beat the Lakers 115-110 in what may have been the final game of LeBron James' career. The full NFL schedule comes out Thursday night, but the NFL announced that week one Sunday night game will be Dallas at the Giants.

9:48That's your Bloomberg Sports Update. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this.

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12:09Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. JPMorgan Chase and Company. Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio. Nationwide on Sirius XM. And around the world on Bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg Business App. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager. on massive life support. That's how President Trump's describing the ceasefire with Iran after getting its response to the latest U.S. peace offer.

12:50Unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now. The president says he didn't even bother to finish reading Iran's counterproposal. He spoke from the Oval Office. Joining us this morning from Dubai is Bloomberg Middle East correspondent Abir Abu Omar. Abir, what's the president objecting to here? Why did he reject the proposal? Good morning. Good morning, Nathan. So look, I mean, the president did reject the offer that came from Iran over the weekend, calling it, as you've just heard, or as you just mentioned, quote, a piece of garbage, and saying that the ceasefire that was agreed upon on April 8th is on massive life support.

13:29Now, what it comes down to is the fact that the resolution that Iran had put through, or the proposal that Iran had put through in response to what President Trump had given them, which is a gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz over the next month, is Iran has asked for what the U.S. has previously called maximalist demands, right? So that includes the fact that Iran wants to delay nuclear talks, that Iran wants its oil sales unsanctioned, and that it wants its assets abroad to be unfrozen. That is something that the U.S. has not agreed on, something that President Trump has called a piece of garbage, as we have mentioned earlier.

14:09Obviously, all of this has led to Brent crude doing what Brent crude has been doing over the past 70 days or so, which is climbing above one hundred and seven dollars at this point due to this impasse between the United States and Iran. Well, what are the potential next steps here, Abir? We heard the president tell Fox News that he might consider the Project Freedom escort service through the Strait of Hormuz that he put in place for just a day last week. If that were to happen, what impact would that have? So, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, he fell short, first of all, to Fox News, but by signaling that a resumption of military attacks on Iran is not something that the U.S.

14:55is looking for right now, that a diplomatic solution is still very possible. That is something he also said. So not totally negative on that front as well. And he did suggest that a revival of the U.S. Navy escorting ships down the Strait of Hormuz is possible. That is, as you have mentioned Project Freedom that came into effect last Monday and was paused very shortly afterwards. So that may suggest a few ships here and there going through the Strait of Hormuz. Now that Project Freedom, as it was called, only happened for a day or so. So we couldn't really see a full impact of what could have happened out of it.

15:32But look, shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remains pretty much at a standstill as of today. A fraction of ships, a fraction of LNG and oil shipments are going through the Strait of Hormuz. And it really, really is at the heart of this conflict. If Iran and the U.S. were to come to a resolution suggesting or including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz over the next month or so, that could be the first glimpse of light that we see towards the end or a resolution to this conflict that's been going on for more than 10 weeks at this point. With the lack of a resolution here, we still see on the schedule from the White House, a beer, President Trump headed to Beijing for the summit with China's Xi Jinping.

16:17How much of a shadow is Iran going to cast over that summit? We've got just about a minute left. Yeah, look, I mean, that is one thing that I mentioned this morning. President Trump's long-awaited meeting with President Xi Jinping is happening towards the end of this week. Now, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Ali, actually had met with his Chinese counterpart. And we understand from that meeting that China did come out and urge a resolution. So we understand that, you know, Iran, the conflict in the Middle East could take a chunk of the meeting between the two, especially as the economic damage that was left on China, its inflation levels, because of the energy disruptions that we're seeing out of the region, really take a toll on the economy there.

17:00So that conflict or this conflict in the region and the impact of it has left this relationship between the U.S. and China even in more tatters than before. So it's possibly going to be at front and center in that meeting happening later this week, Nathan. This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed by 6 a.m. Eastern each morning on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen. You can also listen live each morning starting at 5 a.m. Wall Street time on Bloomberg 1130 in New York, Bloomberg 99.1 in Washington, Bloomberg 92.9 in Boston, and nationwide on Sirius XM Channel 121.

17:44Plus, listen coast-to-coast on the Bloomberg Business app now with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto interfaces. And don't forget to subscribe to Bloomberg News Now. It's the latest news whenever you want it, in five minutes or less. Search Bloomberg News Now on your favorite podcast platform to stay informed all day long. I'm Karen Moscow. And I'm Nathan Hager. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak.

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