Trump Ramps Up Threats Ahead of Iran Deadline

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0:18President Trump draws criticism from across the political spectrum as he ramps up his threats against Iran. Plus, a growing number of workers are choosing to retire instead of learning how to use AI. The financial cushion of, like, rising home equity, you know, stock market returns, that's given a lot of these older workers comfort in saying, I can decide when I want to, you know, to exit or when I want to retire. And the White House is keeping Kristi Noem's controversial$70 million jet. It's Tuesday, April 7th. I'm Alex Osula for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

1:01President Trump is ramping up threats ahead of his 8 p.m. Eastern deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or else face the bombing of its bridges and power plants. He wrote on social media this morning, quote, A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. WSJ national security reporter Alex Ward says negotiators are pessimistic about a diplomatic solution. Hope is still pretty low that there will be some kind of deal ahead of that deadline. This morning, after Trump's threat to wipe out the whole of Iranian civilization, the Iranians cut direct talks to the Americans.

1:40That happened basically within a few minutes. The Iranians told the mediators, that's Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, that they weren't going to keep talking to the U.S. But they had been talking to the mediators throughout. So there is still time to get some sort of breakthrough or to convince Trump that a diplomatic pathway could work. So at the end of the day, it comes down to, as it usually does, Trump's wins. Does he feel a desire that, you know, he should continue to keep diplomacy going because he thinks he can get some sort of deal that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Or does he worry about the markets and the pushback that he's getting?

2:12or does he feel the Iranians aren't serious, they're not going to make a deal and the U.S. is going to go and start attacking Iranian bridges and power plants? Trump's threats have drawn rebukes from both sides of the aisle. Senator Ron Johnson, a Trump ally, said he didn't support the U.S. bombing Iranian civilian infrastructure. Influential right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson said U.S. officials should resist any potential attempt by Trump to launch mass attacks that would kill Iranian civilians. On the left, House Democratic leadership called for lawmakers to return to Washington immediately to hold a vote to end the Iran war, while dozens of Democratic lawmakers called for Trump to be removed from office.

2:51And United Nations spokesperson Stefan Dujaric said targeting civilian infrastructure violates international law. What is a crime, what is not a crime will have to be determined once something takes place. And we very much hope that none of the threats that were verbalized will actually be implemented. On the ground in Iran, videos and photos posted by state media show Iranians assembled at power plants and forming a human chain along a bridge. Early this morning, the U.S. conducted strikes on more than 50 military targets on Karg Island. Iran's most strategic economic asset.

3:32Major U.S. stock indexes ended the day mixed. The Nasdaq and the S &P 500 closed up about 1%, while the Dow fell roughly 0.2%. U.S. oil futures climbed for a third consecutive session, settling at roughly$113. That's a new 52-week high and the highest settling value since June 2022. Markets reporter Hannah Aaron-Lang says Trump's deadline for Iran has investors on edge. investors are facing down what almost feels like the kind of mother of all taco moments. And taco is this acronym that's been thrown around among investors that stands for Trump always chickens out. Since the war started roughly six weeks ago, monitoring the president's shifting ultimatums and his social media posts has become kind of a part of the job for pros on Wall Street, but also just individual traders.

4:24My colleague talked to this managing director at a crypto market maker who said he's seen a growing number of people betting against oil-linked perpetual futures. This essentially suggests that those traders are betting that Trump will reverse course and cause oil prices to retreat and risk your assets to rebound. So maybe folks might be buying the dip in stocks today, you know, expecting maybe we'll see a rally if Trump reverses course. Coming up, two big numbers that show different reasons Americans are dropping out of the job market. That's after the break.

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5:33By most metrics, the U.S. labor market was on an upswing last month. It saw healthy job growth and a decline in unemployment. But labor force participation has continued to fall. That's the share of the working age population that is either working or looking for work. And it's been falling since the early 2000s. Jean Whalen writes about the U.S. economy for The Wall Street Journal, and she joins me now. Jean, labor force participation fell to 61.9 percent in March. That's its lowest level since 1977 outside the pandemic. What is behind this drop? The biggest factor behind it is the aging population.

6:08This rate has been falling since the early 2000s when the baby boomers started retiring, and they are continuing to retire now. Some of the younger boomers are reaching retirement age. When we have an older population, that means a lower share of people who are participating in the workforce. That's the main factor. There's also been over the last year, of course, President Trump's immigration crackdown, which has lowered immigration rates. There have been some deportations as well, as we all know. And that has cut off a supply of young workers that the economy has grown to depend on. What does that tell us about how the economy is doing and how much it can grow?

6:51So it's important because it does help determine how fast the economy grows. The economy can grow either because more workers are joining it and working or because each worker produces more, which is often called productivity. So when we have a lower share of working age people actually working or looking for work, that means we will have slower economic growth in the long run. At the same time, our productivity has been really fantastic in the last few years in the U.S. Maybe because of AI and other technology in part, we've produced more per worker and our rate of productivity has been above historical averages.

7:32So that has helped keep the economy growing and kind of partially offset the slowdown in the growth of the labor force. That was WSJ economics reporter Jean Whalen. Thanks, Jean. Sure thing. Meanwhile, we've got some other employment data showing a different trend. Older people are leaving the workforce. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the share of Americans over 55 years old in the workforce has slipped to 37.2 percent, the lowest level in more than 20 years. So what's changed? Ray Smith covers career and workplace issues for the journal and is here to discuss. Okay, Ray, what is driving these workers out of the workforce?

8:09Some of it is just basically that they have reached a point where they have enough money to retire. And they've also reached a point where they have seen enough transformation, workplace transformation, through other technologies of the past where AI is sort of the final straw. And so that is one reason why some are deciding to check out now. They don't want to bother with learning a new technology. And so they're deciding maybe this is my time to finally retire, even if I was planning to work a few more years. One person that I talked to for the article who's worked in IT for 40 years, you know, he retired last year at 65.

8:54And he basically told me he was spending 20 hours in training. And that was beyond the 40 hours at work that he was already just doing his work. And he just got frustrated and just felt like, you know what, I'm 65. I'd rather just be on the golf course. I'm going to let the younger guys do this. Obviously, you can't just quit your job because of AI if you don't have the financial wherewithal to live comfortably for the rest of your life. So it really requires a certain level of financial comfort to be able to do something like this. Is there something special about this generation that makes them more able to retire on their own terms?

9:32They did benefit from a healthy stock market. The financial cushion of rising home equity, stock market returns, that's given a lot of these older workers comfort in saying, I can decide when I want to exit or when I want to retire rather than feeling like they have to scramble to keep working in order to have a financial life after they finally decide to retire. And how about for employers? Is this a good thing or a bad thing to have workers around this age retiring? This is really a swirling question. In some cases, boomers have been hanging on to jobs for so long and the older generation have been sort of clinging to jobs because, let's face it, people are living longer, they're healthier.

10:18That's leaving younger workers unable to either get jobs or break into the market or climb up the corporate ladder. So if these people are retiring earlier, it may free up openings for younger employers or younger people looking to break into the market or looking to get promoted. That was journal reporter Ray Smith. Thank you, Ray. Thank you.

10:44Now here with a wrap up of today's business news is Amani Moise, host of What's News in Markets. Intel is teaming up with SpaceX, XAI and Tesla on Elon Musk's TerraFab project in Texas. The chip maker says it'll work with the companies to, quote, design, fabricate and package ultra high performance chips at scale. The partnership is a win for Intel, which has struggled in recent years. Its shares close more than 4 percent higher. Anthropic says it's partnering with Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and others to offer tools that find and patch bugs in their hardware and software. The company is offering a new model called Mythos to about 50 companies and organizations that maintain critical infrastructure.

11:24Security experts have predicted that AI models will discover many software bugs and vulnerabilities. The effort is meant to help companies stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and other threats. And after days of widespread condemnation and blowback from sponsors, Kanye West's planned performance at a London music festival isn't happening after all. The UK government has barred West from entering the country, and event organizer Festival Republic said it was canceling Wireless Festival. West, who is promoting a new album, has been trying to repair his reputation after years of controversies, including racist slurs, calls for anti-Semitic violence, and praise for Adolf Hitler.

12:03And finally, we exclusively report that the White House is keeping the controversial$70 million jet that Kristi Noem leased during her tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security before Trump fired her last month. Officials familiar with the matter say the administration plans to use the plane, which is nicer than most government jets, for travel by select cabinet secretaries and the office of First Lady Melania Trump. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Imani Moise, Anthony Bansi and Alexis Green. Pierre Bien-Aimé was our supervising producer. I'm Alex Osilev for The Wall Street Journal.

12:37We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

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