The Morning Risk Report: Trump's Employment Bias Fighter Has DEI in Her Crosshairs By Mengqi Sun

Good morning. President Trump's pick to protect workers from discrimination says she wants to take on the bias she sees in diversity, equity and inclusion programs .

Taking into account a worker's race, ethnicity or sex when offering opportunities in the workplace isn't legal, regardless of a company's intentions, Andrea Lucas, the new acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said in a recent interview. Businesses' programs during the Biden administration could lead to legal action, she said.

New initiative: Under Lucas, who worked as an employment lawyer before serving as an EEOC commissioner, the EEOC is also launching a crackdown on what it calls anti-American bias in the workplace, a practice of companies showing a preference for foreigners over Americans.

DEI wave: Protests erupted nationwide in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd while in police custody, spurring many U.S. companies to revamp their human resources policy to lean into DEI, with some carving out special training programs for minority employees and others setting explicit targets for new hires. Target, for example, in 2020 said it would focus on the "career progression and advancement" of Black team members, a pledge it has since walked back. Nike in 2021 set a 35% workforce target for racial and ethnic minorities. Software company Salesforce set a goal of having half its staff identify as being from an "underrepresented group."

Flight from DEI: As head of the agency tasked with protecting workers from bias, Lucas has the power to go after the practice in workplaces around the country, and could help accelerate a corporate flight from DEI already under way. She said it should be obvious that, for example, businesses can't consider race in employment decisions. Compliance

Trump's crypto advisers weigh paths to a national stockpile.

President Trump wants to build a federal cryptocurrency reserve . His subordinates are starting by counting up crypto the government already holds.

The president said Sunday he wanted bitcoin, ether and three smaller tokens in a stockpile similar to the country's gold reserve. That addressed one debate in the industry over whether such a stockpile should only hold bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, or include more volatile assets.

New GOP Bill Aims to End 'Debanking' of Crypto Companies and Conservatives

Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to delay foreign-aid payouts.

A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's emergency request to pause foreign-aid funding , refusing to suspend a lower court order that required the government to pay contractors nearly $2 billion for work they already have performed.

A federal judge on Wednesday extended a freeze on the Trump administration's changes to research funding through the National Institutes of Health, in the latest legal setback for the president's efforts to slash government spending.

U.K. antitrust officials said they wouldn't launch a formal investigation into Microsoft's ties with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, a victory for the tech giant in its bid to justify the partnership to regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

A dispute over a microscopic enzyme is threatening Merck & Co. plans to sell a new version of Keytruda, the cancer drug that generates nearly half of the company's sales.

Lawyers challenging the Department of Government Efficiency have seized on President Trump's Tuesday shout-out to Elon Musk in his congressional address as evidence that the administration is misleading judges about the tech mogul's authority. Newsletter Extra

SEC 'not walking away' from crypto enforcement despite Trump-era shift, enforcement official says.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is moving forward with some of its crypto-asset-related fraud cases, the deputy enforcement head for the agency said, though she declined to say whether the SEC would continue pursuing cases over cryptocurrency companies' failure to properly register.

"We are not walking away," said Antonia Apps, the SEC's acting deputy director of enforcement. Apps was speaking on a panel at the American Bar Association's White Collar Crime Institute in Miami on Wednesday.

President Trump received significant support from the crypto industry during his campaign. Since Trump's inauguration, the SEC has signaled greater openness to digital assets, creating a new crypto task force. It has also moved to drop cases against Coinbase and Consensys Software over those firms' alleged failure to properly register, and sought to pause a case against Binance .

Apps said the SEC's enforcement division is moving forward with investigations and litigation in the crypto asset space "where we see fraud." She declined to say whether the agency would continue to focus on cases where the sole allegation of misconduct centered on a failure to register with the SEC, a popular genre of case under former SEC head Gary Gensler.

"Unfortunately, I think a lot of this is going to be wait and see how it plays out," Apps said.

-Richard Vanderford

Risk

Trump's tariff war puts CEOs on the front lines.

As Trump's trade war reverberated through corner offices and conferences over the past 24 hours, chief executives find themselves on the front lines , debating whether to quickly pass through higher prices to consumers or bide their time in case their sectors get special dispensation from the White House.

Meanwhile, automakers will get a one-month reprieve from tariffs on Mexico and Canada for cars that comply with a free-trade agreement between those two nations and the U.S., the White House said Wednesday.

From Dolls to Games, Toy Industry Frets About Tariff Impact on Costs, Prices Tariff Whiplash Spooks U.S. Consumers

Canada and Mexico rally around their flags and punch back on tariffs.

The U.S. has long exerted an almost gravitational pull on its neighbors. Canada's automobile industry is hardwired to that of the U.S. and people flit back and forth across the border to shop, visit or commute to work.

Large tracts of northern Mexico are populated by factories supplying the vast market a short distance across the border. Border towns including Ciudad Juárez and Reynosa still follow the U.S. clock while the rest of the country uses standard time year-round.

But now there is a growing feeling that things have radically changed in the U.S. Both Canada and Mexico are wondering how-and whether they can-shift their orbit to avoid any further whiplash from President Trump's imposition of 25% tariffs on goods imported from the neighbors.

Canada Files Formal Complaint to WTO Over U.S. Tariffs A significant shift is under way in U.S. economic policy that poses a threat to global economic growth, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said Wednesday.

The White House has rejected an Arab plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip, an early indication of the strength of President Trump's commitment to positions he has staked out on contentious foreign-policy issues.

Trump administration officials have been holding face-to-face talks with Hamas officials in Qatar in an effort that focused on securing the release of remaining American hostages held by the militant group, U.S. and Arab officials said Wednesday.

Few changes prompted by President Trump's second term could be as consequential for Europe as Germany shedding fiscal prudence to turbocharge its military and retool its economy. What Else Matters McDonald's is giving its 43,000 restaurants a technology makeover, starting with internet-connected kitchen equipment, artificial intelligence-enabled drive-throughs and AI-powered tools for managers.

The U.S. government on Tuesday was gearing up for one of the largest sales ever of commercial real estate. By Wednesday morning, that sales process was suddenly in limbo .

South Korean jet fighters conducting preparations for joint drills with the U.S. mistakenly dropped eight bombs that landed just outside Seoul, injuring at least 15 people and destroying buildings. About Us

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk . Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich .

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at [david.smagalla@wsj.com].

This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 06, 2025 07:17 ET (12:17 GMT)

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