PCs Go Agentic

0:00Look, when people start to gamify investing, right, so when you think about people being rewarded with balloons and fireworks for trading, which we know is the more you trade, the worse offer you're going to be in the long run. I'm Joe Davis. And I'm Christine Kashkari. And this is season two of Better Vantage by Vanguard, an eight-part video podcast series hosted by custom content from WSJ and Vanguard.

0:24Colombia lurches right as voters back a candidate pledging a major drugs crackdown. This puts the U.S. in a good position to fight drugs here more openly. And it would also provide an ally for the U.S. in whatever actions it takes in Venezuela. Plus, SoftBank leapfrogs Toyota to become Japan's most valuable company. and NVIDIA unveils a next generation of personal computers designed to run AI agents. It's Monday, June 1st. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

1:08The U.S. and Iran have once again exchanged blows, with the U.S. hitting air defense radars and drone sites after Iran shot down an American drone. The weekend flare-up came as the two sides continued discussions to extend a ceasefire and lift blockages in the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump posted on social media this morning that Iran wants to make a deal, but that lawmakers were complicating negotiations. American hardliners and Israel are wary of a deal that fails to secure concrete concessions on Iran's nuclear program or control of the strait. In Colombia, far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Esprea has won the first round of a presidential election held Sunday in a major blow to both the ruling leftist party and establishment conservatives.

1:56The surprise result sets up a high-stakes runoff in a few weeks between the government's far-left candidate Ivan Zapeda and Esprea. Abelardo de la Esprea is a populist. He's an outsider. He's never held public office. That's Juan Ferreira, our editor for South America. Reporting from Bogota, Juan said that the flamboyant far-right lawyer ran an unusual campaign and has a background to match. He's best known here in this country for having represented some pretty well-known underworld figures, which makes him kind of an unusual candidate in a country like this, which has been lately buffeted by drug violence and by narco-trafficking groups.

2:40But what he basically says is that he's going to punish those groups. He actually says he's going to build 10 supermax prisons in Colombia. And he says he's going to stamp out violence and crime as well as corruption. And Juan says that a win for Esprea could mean another close ally for President Trump in Latin America. With Abelardo de la Esprea having taken the most votes and really put himself in a position to win the presidency, I think this means that the United States will have a very close ally. He has expressed admiration for President Trump, as well as for some other right-wing leaders in Latin America who are also close to the U.S., including Najib Ukele in El Salvador and Javier Millet in Argentina.

3:28I think that this puts the U.S. in a good position to fight drugs here more openly. And it would also provide an ally for the U.S. in whatever actions it takes in Venezuela. Since the vote, the Colombian president, along with his candidate, Ivan Cepeda have said they don't accept the results. A month after blocking Meta's acquisition of China-linked AI startup Manus, Beijing is formalizing restrictions on outbound investments in a bid to keep technology and data in the country. We report that a ban on the unauthorized direct export of state-restricted goods, technology, services, and data is already in effect, with a ban on indirect transfers kicking in in July that would bar things like cross-border personnel deployments, training programs, and technical guidance.

4:18Our China Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng has more. China for many years benefited from innovation coming out of the West, and they faced accusations that they were perhaps underhandedly getting their hands on some technology and innovation from the West. Now the shoe's on the other foot, and China is trying to be very careful about how it protects its own intellectual property. And John, we clearly saw that in China unwinding that Meta-Manus deal, and yet that deal was a bit of an outlier. Yeah, look, there haven't been too many deals yet, but I think Beijing anticipates that there are going to be more of these temptations by Chinese technologists, scholars, scientists, entrepreneurs.

4:59I think there's a real sense that as China moves up the curve in terms of innovation, that they have more to protect. You know, it may have some unintended consequences because what it may say, if you're a bright, young Chinese entrepreneur or scientist, technologist, AI engineer, you may decide that this isn't the sort of environment for you. You may try to even get out of China before you have anything that's of any value. because once you have something of value, you may find yourself stuck in China and not able to sell outside.

5:38In markets news, nearly a thousand workers at GM parts supplier American Axle have gone on strike in Michigan. The work stoppage began just after midnight and is set to stall production of axles for GM's Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, as well as for midsize trucks. United Auto Workers president Sean Fain announced the strike last night, saying that pay hadn't recovered since 2008 when workers agreed to slash their wages in order to keep the plant running. Time's up. For 18 years, these members have built you an empire of profit while getting treated like dirt. They've taken wage cuts, benefit cuts.

6:22They poured their souls into this plant. American Axle didn't immediately respond to requests for comment, while a GM spokesman said that the company is monitoring the situation at its supplier. The strike comes as GM had been trying to take advantage of limited pickup production at rival Ford due to an aluminum shortage. New Berkshire Hathaway boss Greg Abel is making one of his first big moves as CEO, splashing out close to$7 billion to buy home builder Taylor Morrison. While Berkshire has been a selective acquirer in recent years, the company is sitting on a record cash pile, last disclosed to total over$380 billion.

7:03SoftBank has ousted Toyota as Japan's most valuable company after its shares soared more than 14 % today. That's on news that the tech investor is plowing more than$50 billion into new data centers in France. It's the continent's largest AI infrastructure investment to date, and comes as French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for more data centers in order to help Europe catch up with the U.S. and China in AI spending. And chipmaker NVIDIA is unveiling the first-ever personal computers designed for running AI agents. The range of laptops and desktops, powered by a newly designed version of its signature AI chips, are being targeted at creators, AI developers and gamers with the company touting their ability to render 3D scenes, generate AI video and run massive LLMs locally.

7:54What becomes of our personal computer in a world of agents? Agents running natively, connected to models, local or in the cloud. Our personal AI, sandboxed for security, running continuously, getting work done. The computers will be available starting this fall. Coming up, the UN is in crisis mode as Washington and Beijing withhold billions in funding. We'll get the latest after the break.

8:53The U.N. is going broke. With its two biggest donors in arrears, the institution is facing insolvency by mid-August. Journal correspondent James Arity has the story, and he joins me now with more. James, as you report, the United States has more than$4 billion currently in overdue bills to the U.N. Walk us through why Washington isn't handing this money over. The Trump administration does not agree fundamentally with what the United Nations is doing and how it is spending Americans' money. The U.S. is the biggest donor to the U.N. traditionally. And by not paying, the Trump administration is trying to put pressure on the world body to cut its expenses and to do less and to be more careful about how it's spending the money.

9:50And the United Nations actually has been cutting its budget by historic proportions. It's reduced its budget for 2026 by 7 percent. It's laid off thousands. It's closed offices. It's pulled peacekeepers back from war zones. and the Trump administration wants more of that. It feels that there's overlap between some of the major agencies in the United Nations. Among the things that they would like to do is AI translation instead of having physical translators there. They would like to see less business class travel by its top officials and a number of other what they call quick wins that could save the UN money.

10:30All right. So that's the situation with the U.S. What's going on with China? Almost half a billion dollars in the hole here. China is compounding the U.N.'s liquidity crisis by holding back its money, slow walking its contributions to the organization. Beijing says it's the number one defender of the United Nations and the multilateral system and is really jabbing at the U.S. right now by even describing itself as the de facto number one financial contributor. But the fact is, China used to pay on time and in full. And while it is probably going to pay in full, it is not paying on time. And that's causing a lot of stress within the organization because China is the number two contributor to the United Nations.

11:17Between the U.S. and China, 42 % of the regular budget comes from just these two countries. And China has seen its share go from 5 % a little more than a decade ago to now a little more than 20%. And the U.S. pays 22 % of the U.N. budget. So China is throwing its weight around now that it's expected to pay more money. And it's withholding money, slowing its payments in order to put pressure on the organization to do things China's way. Got it. Though I am curious where that leaves the argument we had seen expressed in Washington, particularly under the Biden administration, that China was gobbling up influence at international organizations.

11:59Maybe that's still true, but do they just not want to be left holding the bag here if the U.S. just gives up entirely on the U.N.? I think that this is one of the things that is making people in the UN question China's motivation, that if they really do see themselves as the big defender, why are they not paying much more quickly to the UN? Why are they compounding the liquidity crisis that the organization is having? I think that what we're seeing China do to increase its influence is to just be there all the time, to be in all of the meetings in the back halls of the United Nations in order to make sure that the things that China wants politically happen.

12:40Those include visits by the UN Secretary General to Beijing. Those include making sure that Taiwan has no representative at all in the United Nations. And China also does not want to see the UN funding some of the things that it doesn't like, for instance, human rights investigations. So China is there putting pressure in ways that the US is not doing. US is acting with blunt force, No money. China is acting quite subtly. People have described to me that it's playing games, that China is playing budget games with the UN. Finally, James, it's early June. You report the UN could be insolvent by mid-August.

13:19Is there anything the UN can do before then to possibly right the ship? The UN is not a country. It's not a company. A country might be able to borrow money. A company might be able to borrow money. The UN can't do any of that. And it's run by a secretary general, a prominent person. But in fact, what the UN does is actually decided by its 193 member states, its countries. And they are the ones that decide what it's supposed to be doing in terms of cutting budgets and spending money. And because there are 193 countries, they want to spend money. They don't want to cut it back. And so it's a system of, as a senior person at the United Nations described it to me, insanity.

14:01It's a very difficult situation that they feel. faced. By midsummer, they could be insolvent. They could be facing a situation where more cash is supposed to be going out than it's actually coming in. It was Wall Street Journal correspondent James Arity. James, thanks so much for bringing us this story. Thank you. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer, our supervising producer with Sandra Killhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

14:50Thank you.