📊 China Trip, Reading Recession, and Fed Shift

Beijing pageantry, school strain, and new Fed chair.

May 14, 2026

Greetings! Happy XYZ Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

Forwarded this email? Subscribe to PM Daily below:

SPONSORED SECTION

Sponsor PM Daily! Unlike other free daily newsletters, PM’s ad model works differently: 1. one single sponsor slot per issue; 2. 100% share of voice (SOV) guaranteed; 3. higher return on ad spend (ROAS) from your first placement.

No-brainer, little risk, high upside. Q2 slots are filling up quickly! Reach our rapidly scaling, high-intent, vetted premium audience by replying to this email right now.

🌎 GLOBAL NEWS

🇨🇳 Trump lands in Beijing’s pressure chamber. President Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday. His summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping begins Thursday. The agenda is Iran, trade, artificial intelligence, and American arms sales to Taiwan. China gave Trump a red-carpet welcome after Air Force One landed. Chinese Vice President Han Zheng greeted him at Beijing Capital International Airport. So did Chinese Ambassador to Washington Xie Feng. America’s envoy to Beijing, David Perdue, also attended. The welcome included a military honor guard. Trump said the two countries are the world’s superpowers. The visit comes as inflation and the Iran war weigh on his standing at home. Trump wants trade wins, including Chinese purchases of American soybeans, beef, and aircraft. His administration also wants a Board of Trade to manage disputes. Last year’s tariff war ended in a one-year truce after China used rare-earth controls as leverage. Iran now crowds every meeting. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Trump says Xi does not need to help resolve the conflict, but Beijing’s oil ties make that difficult to believe.

🇪🇺 World Cup fans get a visa-bond reprieve. Foreign World Cup ticket holders from several qualifying countries will avoid a steep American visa bond. The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the requirement for eligible visitors. The bond could have cost as much as $15K. The rule applies to travelers from countries with high visa overstay rates and other security concerns. Fifty countries face the broader bond policy. Five have qualified for the World Cup. They are Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia. Citizens from those countries who bought tickets through FIFA are now exempt. Players, coaches, and some staff were already exempt. The move uses the FIFA Pass system, allowings expedited visa appointments for qualified ticket holders who opted in as of April 15th. Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said the goal is to welcome qualified fans. The tournament begins June 11th. It is co-hosted by America, Canada, and Mexico. The waiver is unusual for an administration otherwise tightening immigration. It also shows how a global sporting event can soften hard policy at the turnstile.

🇺🇸 LOCAL NEWS

📚 America’s reading recession deepens. American students remain stuck in a reading recession. New Education Recovery Scorecard data show the average student is still nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic levels in reading and math. Researchers analyzed test scores for more than 5K districts. The analysis covered third through eighth grade in 38 states. Only five states plus the District of Columbia posted meaningful reading-score growth from 2022 to 2025. The longer slide predates COVID. Reading scores have been falling since 2013 for eighth graders. They have been falling since 2015 for fourth graders. Harvard professor Thomas Kane called the pandemic a mudslide after years of erosion. Modesto, California is an outlier. Its elementary schools have posted consistent reading and math gains. Teacher Nancy Barajas even starts testing days with music and dancing to calm students. Researchers say many improving states shifted toward phonics-based instruction. Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana all ordered schools to teach the science of reading. Math looks stronger, with nearly every state improving since 2022. The lesson is not mysterious. Children cannot skim their way out of a literacy crisis.

🏛️ Senate Republicans grow wary of Iran. Republican resistance to the Iran war is widening in the Senate. Democrats again tried to advance legislation that would halt President Trump’s war. The measure failed 49-50. The vote still showed movement. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against the war for the first time. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky also opposed it again. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said the Senate may soon tell Trump to stop the war. The White House says it does not need congressional authorization. Officials argue hostilities have effectively ended because a ceasefire exists. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers America could resume attacks without new approval. Murkowski questioned that claim. She said troops and warships still deployed to the region make it hard to say hostilities are over. Republican leaders still back the war. Senate Republican John Barrasso said the campaign is pressuring Iran. Other Republicans are uneasy as gas prices rise and elections near. Congress now debates constitutional power and pump pain.

🗂️ MISC

🏦 Warsh inherits the inflation cage. The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chairman today. President Trump’s nominee won a largely party-line 54-45 vote. Warsh is 56. He is a former top Fed official. He will replace Jerome Powell as chair of the world’s most powerful central bank, amidst brutal timing: inflation has topped the Fed’s 2% 5-year target, gasoline prices have surged because of the Iran war, and the Fed’s rate-setting committee just saw its most dissenting votes in more than three decades. Powell plans to stay on the Fed board after leaving the chair role. That could create an unusual competing power center. Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell for not cutting interest rates. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis backed Warsh after a Justice Department probe of Powell was dropped in April. Warsh says he will be independent. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called him too close to Trump. Democrats also criticized Warsh for not fully disclosing wealth of at least $100M. He promised to sell holdings including stakes in Polymarket and SpaceX within 90 days.

📈 Tech drags Wall Street upward anyway. Technology stocks carried Wall Street to fresh records Wednesday. The broader market was less impressed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) rose 0.6%. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.2% to a record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 67 points. Micron Technology Inc. ($MU) rose 4.8%. ON Semiconductor Corporation ($ON) gained 11.1%. NVIDIA Corporation ($NVDA) rose 2.3% and gave the S&P 500 its biggest lift. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang was invited to join President Trump in China. The trip could involve talks over shipping NVIDIA artificial intelligence chips to China. SoftBank Group Corp. ($SFTBY) said annual profit rose nearly fivefold on artificial intelligence investments. Alibaba Group Holding Limited ($BABA) rose 8.2% in American trading after stronger artificial intelligence and cloud growth. Most stocks outside technology fell. Wholesale inflation came in hotter than economists expected. Brent crude settled at $105.63, still far above its prewar level near $70. The 10-year Treasury yield edged up to 4.47%. The market is rising, but the floorboards are complaining.