Corporate Responses to Minneapolis 1/27/26

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0:35And with Discover, you can get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Bring in show music, please. This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, Minnesota businesses calling for calm in Minneapolis after the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen. Former chairman of Minnesota-based Medtronic, Bill George. This is very negative for every one of their businesses.

1:17The cost of silence and the power of the C-suite in politics. I think it is the tipping point in Minnesota. I think the president, being a businessman, has trouble ignoring all 60 CEOs. From Minneapolis to New York, Mayor Momdani is almost a month into his administration. New Partnership for New York President and CEO Stephen Fulop on the mayor's relationship with Wall Street. If you look at kind of New York City, it's a very fragile environment right now. And I think it's important for us to be engaged. But first, Meta's new deal for fiber optics, antitrust scrutiny on a big media deal, and after two decades of negotiations, India and the European Union have reached a free trade agreement.

2:04Plus, President Trump is threatening higher tariffs for South Korea. Officials in Seoul saying the announcement caught them by surprise. It's Tuesday, January 27, June 11th, 2026. And Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Joe is out today. Meantime, some new news for us overnight. The European Union and India said they have reached a free trade agreement this after nearly two decades of negotiations.

2:45The president of the European Commission calling it the, quote, mother of all deals. It's expected to double EU goods exports to India by 2032 and open up the European market to labor-intensive goods produced by India that were hit hard by President Trump's tariffs, including apparel, jewelry, and footwear. So you can see some of the shifting alliances that we've been talking about coming into play here. President Trump, meantime, is raising tariffs on South Korea, he says, because the country's legislator has not yet approved a trade deal with the United States reached last summer. He posted on Truth Social that the rate in autos, pharmaceuticals, and lumber from South Korea would rise from 15 percent to 25 percent.

3:26Officials in Seoul saying the announcement caught them by surprise. One member of parliament telling reporters the trade minister just met with the U.S. trade rep Jameson Greer in Davos and, quote, didn't hear a word of complaint. Take a look at shares of Hyundai Motor and its subsidiary Kia. They're tumbling after President Trump's post, but paired losses. We're also watching shares of General Motors, which produces about half a million cars in South Korea per year and exports most of those to the United States. And I keep getting hearing these rave reviews about that Kia Telluride. And now it's going to cost more.

4:02Yeah. Prices go up. The chairman of the Senate's Antitrust Committee is raising concerns about the Netflix deal to buy Warner Brothers assets. In a letter, Senator Mike Lee said that the deal appears likely to raise serious antitrust issues, including the risk of substantially lessening competition in streaming markets. Senator Lee also said that he's concerned that the deal could operate in a killer non-acquisition by weakening major competitors while the merger review process is pending. He warned that Netflix could obtain competitively sensitive information under the guise of due diligence.

4:41A subcommittee hearing on this deal is scheduled for next Tuesday. In the meantime, overseas, the FT reports more than a dozen UK politicians and former policymakers are calling on the country's competition watchdog to launch a full review of Netflix's bid. In a letter, the group suggests that the deal, in its words, will, quote, cement an already dominant player in the TV streaming market. We've also got some breaking news from Meta this morning. The tech giant announcing a multi-year agreement with Corning to supply fiber optic cables for its data centers. That partnership is valued up to$6 billion, and it will be used to support U.S.

5:21manufacturing, with a 15 to 20 percent increase in jobs at Corning's North Carolina facilities. Take a look at shares of Meta this morning. They are up by about a quarter percentage point. Shares of Corning, bigger deal for them, they are up by about 3.5 percent on this right now. Now, you can read much more on this story on CNBC.com. And a programming note for you, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks will join us right here tomorrow. We'll talk to him about this and much more. Very interesting on this. My quick read on this is, you know, anytime you look at a deal where they're kind of propping each other up, you think circular deals.

5:55But this sounds really like Corning says, sure, we will give you a lot of the fiber optic cables that you need. But you're going to have to take on some of the risk in terms of making sure you're helping us pay for those things with a$6 billion investment. That's just my quick read on this, but we'll talk more to Wendell Weeks about this tomorrow. And right now, Corning shares. Circularity or not? I don't know if this is circularity as much as it's, yeah, we can build it. There's a huge amount of demand for it, but you're going to have to help us pay for producing the stuff to feed into that demand to make sure that it doesn't disappear overnight.

6:23You're going to be helping us do that. So, again, those shares are moving on that by about four and a half percent. Now, the latest stuff from Minnesota this morning. President Trump posting on Truth Socially yesterday. Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we actually seem to be on a similar wavelength. The president sent border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis and ordered border patrol commander Gregory Bovino out of the state. That pivot coming after Republican lawmakers and other Trump allies raised concerns about losing public support, as those shootings seem to be overshadowing the president's immigration agenda.

7:01In the meantime, Senate Democrats refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security without new safeguards in place. That's raising the odds of a partial government shutdown as Friday's funding deadline approaches. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, the new president and CEO of the Partnership for New York. Stephen Fulop on how the business community he represents is working with Mayor Momdani almost a month in. I think we disagree on the tax policy that he's kind of put out there already. I mean, New York is one of the highest tax places in the country. And if you look at trends on job data here, I think you would see that we're headed in the wrong direction.

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8:30Bitcoin services provided by Block, Inc. Brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app slash legal slash podcast. At Venture Global, we think about what can be done, not what's usually done. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy. It's smart to always have a few financial goals. And a really smart one you can set?

9:15earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can. Get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. You're listening to Squawk Pod today with Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. New York City Mayor Zoran Mondami facing his first test, leading the Big Apple as it faced one of its biggest snowstorms in a decade. Joining us right now to discuss the state of New York City for business is Stephen Fulop.

9:54He's the partnership for New York City's president and CEO. He just took over the helm of that organization last week and joined Squawk Box this morning in his first TV interview on the job. So good morning to you, sir. Good morning. Good to be here. Let's just talk storm for a second. looks like they did pretty well. Give them a good grade. I do. How much credit do you get for that? I was a mayor of Jersey City. I think he did a good job. I think it's tough to step in. You know, there's a bureaucracy in place. So does he get the credit for that in your mind? Does the previous mayor get the credit, the bureaucracy of...

10:28Look, I think being the mayor, he gets blamed for a lot of things unfairly, so he could take credit for this, and I think that's fair game. So the next sort of puzzle piece is he has a whole bunch of objectives. that he's going to be putting forward, putting budget things and a whole lot of other elements to this. And the business community has to have some kind of relationship with the mayor or maybe doesn't. I don't know. What is the current state of that relationship? Look, I think my interaction has been very positive. He's been proactive and listens kind of how that manifests itself. We don't know yet.

11:03We're kind of in uncharted territory. I think this country hasn't seen a socialist in an executive position since probably Bernie Sanders in Burlington, Vermont. So, you know, we listen to what he says. I think we're going through a transition from being kind of an activist to an executive or a legislator to. So what does that mean in practice to you? I think I think that, you know, there's a place for an activist on the outside throwing bombs. There's less accountability. You know, there's a reality to math when you are the mayor or the president or the governor. And I think that there's going to be some transition.

11:37Our job is to be supportive and try to be helpful where we can and disagree where it's necessary. So where can you be helpful in this moment, do you think? And where do you disagree in this? Yeah, I think it's a good point. Look, I think when you have issues like child care, important, right? I think 350 CEOs at the partnership, 500 ,000 employees, many of them provide child care. we have a unique place with regards to an understanding of what works and what doesn't work. So we could be helpful there. I think on technology, on bureaucracy, we could be helpful there. Look, I think we disagree on the tax policy that he's kind of put out there already.

12:14I mean, New York is one of the highest tax places in the country. And if you look at trends on job data here, I think you would see that we're headed in the wrong direction as it relates to New York City, specifically on the job front. How much of a relationship is this going to be, a relationship where there is some give and take? Or do you think that this is going to be a contentious relationship? I don't think anybody's looking for a contentious relationship. I think one thing that the partnership is looking to do is get more assertive in the advocacy space. Last year, they put$10 million into a C4 to be more assertive with regards to policy.

12:48I think the starting point shouldn't be from the business community, just don't hurt us too bad. I mean, that's not a reasonable place to start. So, you know, we're part of the conversation. most of those CEOs get vilified unfairly as it relates to tax policy. They're really talking about the 500 ,000 employees that work directly for them and how to create an environment that's better for them. So I think that they just want to be more part of the conversation. That's going to be dictated by how the mayor kind of approaches them. But more active versus passive. More active for sure. I think that the tone is going to be more active.

13:19I think my background is being more active. And I think it's important for us to be assertive. I mean, if you look at kind of New York City, it's a very fragile environment right now. And I think it's important for us to be engaged. So let me ask you this. Yeah. The mayor, I imagine, if you were sitting here right now, would say, look, we have a budget problem. Yes. In this city in particular. And as a result of the budget problem that we have, we can do one of two things. We can either raise taxes so that to pay for the things that we want. Yeah. Or we can cut services so that we can try to balance the budget.

13:56What do you say to that? Yeah, so I was mayor of Jersey City for 12 years. I have a perspective on this. It's a multi-billion dollar budget. It's the same sort of dynamic. I think the starting point needs to be looking at those zombie programs, looking at things that aren't working on where you can cut. Okay, so what are those things? Because I imagine you're going to be hearing about raising taxes on either the wealthy or corporations. She's like, that's where this is going. Let me say two things on that, right? So if you think about the talking point of the city and the comptroller last week, saying that you have a$2 billion budget gap and a$10 billion next year budget gap, and at the same time you look at Governor Hochul, who's been very pragmatic, very responsible in a tough environment, saying that they're going to be able to achieve a lot of the things they want to achieve without raising taxes.

14:42The question that I would have as a starting point is normally a city and state trend in the same direction. It's very rare that you'll say one saying things are going great or in a better direction and one saying the sky is falling. And so the starting point is you should probably bring some of those CEOs into the conversation. They have billions and billions and billions of dollars in budgets themselves. They could be helpful. So but when you look at the budget right now and you talk about these quote unquote zombie programs, can you identify money that you think should be cut so that you're not getting the tax raise on the other side?

15:13But the short answer is the budget hasn't been introduced yet by the mayor. So I think it would be kind of a little bit premature for me to say what his priorities are and what his priorities aren't. Right. I think that's fair. But I think we can assume that he is going to intend to raise taxes. He has said that. Well, and he believes that there are things that he wants to do in this city. And he believes I look, I'm projecting onto him. One of the reasons I think he was so vocal about trying to make sure that the streets were clean was during this snowstorm was he wanted to be able to say, what you're paying for as a taxpayer is clean streets, we're going to execute.

15:48Because part of the problem is if you're not executing on what you're doing, nobody wants to pay for it. I think people understand that what they're paying for, the question is what are you getting for that value? And when you look at the budget and the amount that it's increased over the last five and ten years, there's questions about that. And the starting point is that the business community needs to be part of that conversation. You said that earlier, and I think that that is a fair place to be. Whether he includes leadership, I can't speak on it after that. How important in your mind is the corporate tax issue versus the wealth tax issue or the millionaire tax issue, meaning on the individual?

16:26The income tax issue. Income tax issue. Well, look, I think both of those are problematic. I think that the starting point for us on both of those is that we are not willing to go down that road. I think that New York City and New York State is already one of the highest taxed environments in the country. And you could see in California, there is a tripwire at some point. There is a place where people say, look, I have options elsewhere. And maybe you're not going to see Bank of New York leave New York tomorrow because it's not. But people will make decisions to relocate jobs elsewhere. So over time, it's death by a thousand paper cuts.

17:01And that does impact the budgets. How much do you think it's on the individual level, though? So I agree with you. Companies, it's hard for J.P. Morgan, which just built a beautiful big building on Park Avenue to move so quickly. That's not going to happen. But that is, I imagine, also what the mayor is banking on. Well, he would probably bank on that. What I think is lost some time in the activist community is, let's say you have 3 ,000 people that are super wealthy here, right? You don't need 1 ,000 of them to leave. You need only a handful to have a massive impact on the budget. And everybody has their own kind of place where they're ultimately going to decide to leave.

17:40But if you have 5, 10, 15, that is a problem because it takes a lot of Stephen Phillips to make up for one of those people. Right. Given that you actually have spent time with budgets, do you think that there's a lot of money lying on the table that could ultimately be cut without hurting the services of the city? I think there generally are efficiencies that can happen with new administrations come in. I think over time, people get comfortable in zombie programs. I think looking at those, I think you need to have fair conversations and be able to mediate between unions and labor and service and obviously the private sector.

18:14I think that if the starting point is that you're on picket lines and you're protesting and you're still in that activist space, it's going to be very, very hard to kind of move the private sector in a place that's constructive. I think you've got to find that balance. And, you know, it's been three weeks, so it's hard to kind of say he's good, he's bad, he's going to be great, he's going to be very poor. We'll see. But, you know, we try to be supportive. One last question just on the affordability issue, because that is a touchpoint for the whole country. But in particular in New York, I think we can all agree, it is not that affordable for just about anybody these days.

18:44And so part of the argument that he's made repeatedly is he wants higher incomes for people. He wants people to be able to afford stuff. And so, you know, if a union is doing the work on the subways, I imagine his his answer is not let me try to cut on cut back on the union. His answer is I need more money from the wealthy and the inequality that's in the city. That's his argument. Yeah, I would go back to what I said at the beginning, that we are an uncharted territory on a socialist mayor. And again, every socialist that has been elected or DSA member has been on the legislative side. So there's very little accountability.

19:22You could throw bombs. We will see how that kind of moves over the next couple months. It's too early to say, and I'm not going to criticize him yet for that. Okay. Stephen, it's great to see you this morning. Appreciate it. You sound like you're prepared to go into battle. Well, I mean, I was mayor for a long time. I kind of have some familiarity with this. I hope so. Still to come on Squawk Pod, Bill George. He's former board member at Target, and he's the former chairman of Minnesota-based Medtronic, a company whose current CEO is one of the 60 Minnesotan executives calling for calm in Minneapolis.

19:55Some people thought it was too soft and wasn't specific enough. I think they had to tread a narrow tightrope between upsetting the White House and the behind-the-scenes negotiations going on and being advocates for significant change. We'll be right back. At Venture Global, we think about what can be done, not what's usually done. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building.

20:39That's Venture Global. that's unstoppable energy it's smart to always have a few financial goals and a really smart one you can set earning cash back on what you buy every day and with Discover you can get this Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year seriously all of it and we trust you to make smart decisions after all you listen to this show See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Game day at my place is kind of a big deal. If I'm grilling, chilling, and watching hoops, my outdoor patio setup better be ready to play. That's where Wayfair wins.

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21:44This is Squawk Pod. You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Joe is off today. After the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis at the hands of an ICE agent, a collection of 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies co-signed a letter calling for calm in their state. Joining us right now is Bill George, Harvard Business School senior fellow and a former chairman of Medtronica, a company whose current chief signed on to that letter. Good morning to you. We've all been trying to make sense of what we've been seeing on screens, on television and social media, but also about the role that business leaders have played historically in terms of speaking out publicly on issues of political and social importance.

22:28Clearly, the world has shifted over the last several years about companies speaking out in these moments. And I'm curious what you think the right call in these these polarized circumstances should be. Well, I think clearly, Andrew, that CEOs did the right thing and putting out a statement. Some people thought it was too soft and wasn't specific enough. I think they had to tread a narrow tightrope between upsetting the White House and the behind-the-scenes negotiations going on and being advocates for significant change. But they got it done. And I think it is the tipping point in Minnesota. I think the president, being a businessman, has trouble ignoring all 60 CEOs of major companies in Minnesota.

23:12Not one failed to sign on. They did take a few extra days to get everyone to sign on. And I think Alex Preddy's murder on last Friday, I think that or Saturday, that kind of turned the tide. And but I think it's had a very positive impact. And you see the president now taking action, not just solely because of this, but he's at least moving and moving home and in and moving Bovino out and some of the other people. And he said he said he had very positive calls with Governor Walz and and Mayor Fry. And I've been in touch, particularly with Pauls and Ellison. So I'm encouraged. What do you think?

23:50Can I ask you something? As someone who knows this state well and knows this city well, what do you think is going on here? Because we do have a number of viewers who continue to point out this continues to be a problem in this particular place. It is a sanctuary city. There is a history of protesting and the like. But what's your sort of, if you take 30 ,000 feet back, looking at all this? Well, the protests have been remarkably peaceful, and there's been a huge community coming out in different areas where people are working together. So they've been quite in contrast, Andrew, to what happened after George Floyd's murder when they typically 11, 12 o 'clock at night, they turn violent.

24:31We've not had any of that. So I think students have been very respected. Look at that one downtown with 40, 50 ,000 people when it was minus 21 degrees. So I find that encouraging. I think this particular group of CEOs is a little more hesitant than some of the ones in the past to really step into these things. And they'd rather work behind the scenes and work through their own contacts rather than coming out publicly. And so what is the right approach here? You know, here I was. We talked about it on television yesterday. I said, you know, this is this is one of those moments that the CEOs have an opportunity.