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Recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump that arms sales to Taiwan are a “very good negotiating chip” in the United States’ dealings with China are heightening anxieties on the island democracy that Beijing claims as its own.

Trump made the comment in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier that aired right after the U.S. president wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China on Friday.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, to be retaken by force if necessary. The U.S., like all countries that have formal ties with Beijing, doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country but has been the island’s strongest backer and arms supplier.

Trump is now suggesting that is open to negotiation.

Asked if he would approve a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan that has been held up for months, Trump said that’s up to China.

“I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,” he said. “It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly. It’s a lot of weapons.”

The U.S. is bound by its own laws to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and sees all threats to the island as a matter of grave concern.

By conditioning U.S. arms sales to Taiwan on his negotiations with China, Trump may play into one the island’s “nightmare scenarios,” said William Yang, a Northeast Asia senior analyst for International Crisis Group: that Taiwan, instead of being at the negotiating table, is on the menu.

Although Trump didn’t say specifically what he would want from China in return for denying Taiwan the weapons, he has been pressing Beijing to buy more American goods and to help put pressure on Iran.

Trump and the U.S. Congress already approved in December a separate $11 billion arms sales package to Taiwan. Beijing reacted furiously by staging live fire drills around the island.

China has framed Taiwan as “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations” during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent summit with Trump. The visit is to be followed next week by a trip by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing.

In one of his strongest statements to date, Xi on Thursday warned Trump of “clashes and even conflicts” if the issue of Taiwan is not handled properly.

Taiwan’s presidential office on Saturday sought to smooth over the tensions by highlighting “that the consistent U.S. policy and position toward Taiwan remain unchanged.”

“The Republic of China is a sovereign, independent, democratic country; this is self-evident, and Beijing’s claims are therefore without merit,” said Presidential Office Spokesperson Karen Kuo, referring to Taiwan’s official name. She added that the island remains grateful to Trump for his support and stressed that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are stipulated by law.

Another statement that raised concerns on the island was Trump’s call for Taiwan’s microchip sector — the world’s largest and most advanced — to pick up and move to the U.S.

“I’d like to see everybody making chips over in Taiwan come into America,” Trump told Fox News, describing such a move as “the greatest thing you can do.”

Trump has long pressed Taiwanese chipmakers, which produce more than 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, which are used for artificial intelligence, smartphones and military equipment, to base some of their production in the U.S.

Taiwan’s leading chipmaker, TSMC, has committed an investment of $165 billion in a mega-campus in Arizona. The island’s government, in a sweeping trade agreement with the U.S. earlier this year, pledged $250 billion in investment in the U.S. microchip sector, which included TSMC’s previous commitment.

Trump also reiterated older accusations that Taiwan “stole” its chipmaking sector from the U.S. decades ago.

While Trump during his summit with Xi did not alter U.S. policy wording on Taiwan — which many observers had feared he would — he did seem to adopt some of the Chinese president’s own narrative about the island’s government.

Beijing has branded Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te as a “Taiwan independence diehard,” and warned that he would bring war and destruction to the island.

Trump and other top U.S. officials don’t usually communicate with Taiwanese leaders but have shown support in the past for example by allowing former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to transit on U.S. soil en route to visiting Latin American countries. Lai, who is about to reach his presidency’s two-year mark, has yet to set foot on the U.S. mainland, and some observers have interpreted that as a rollback of support by the Trump administration.

In his interview with Fox News, Trump stressed that he didn’t want to see a change of status quo between Taiwan and Beijing. “But they have somebody there now that wants to go independent,” he said, likely referring to Lai.

“They’re going independent because they want to get into a war and they figure they have the United States behind them.” He added that he is not looking to fight a war thousands of miles away.

Trump’s worrying statements about Taiwan may be another instance of “his transactional rhetoric being turned up to the max,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a fellow with the Atlantic Council. “What matters more is the substance, which Taiwan is holding its collective breath for.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump returned from the spectacle of a Chinese state visit to a less than welcoming U.S. economy — with the military band and garden tour in Beijing giving way to pressure over how to fix America’s escalating inflation rate.

Consumer inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, higher than what he inherited as the Iran war and the Republican president’s own tariffs have pushed up prices. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains and effectively making workers poorer. The Cleveland Federal Reserve estimates that annual inflation could reach 4.2% in May as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.

Trump’s time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears unlikely to help the U.S. economy much, despite Trump’s claims of coming trade deals. The trip occurred as many people are voting in primaries leading into the November general election while having to absorb the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, utility bills, jewelry, women’s clothing, airplane tickets and delivery services. Democrats see the moment as a political opportunity.

“He’s returning to a dumpster fire,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank focused on economic issues. “The president will not have the faith and confidence of the American people — the economy is their top issue and the president is saying, ‘You’re on your own.’”

The president’s trip to Beijing and his recent comments that indicated a tone-deafness to voters’ concerns about rising prices have suggested his focus is not on the American public and have undermined Republicans who had intended to campaign on last year’s tax cuts as helping families.

Trump described the trip as a victory, saying on social media that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes,” as the U.S. president has praised their relationship.

Trump told reporters that Boeing would be selling 200 aircraft — and maybe even 750 “if they do a good job” — to the Chinese. He said American farmers would be “very happy” because China would be “buying billions of dollars of soybeans.”

“We had an amazing time,” Trump said as he flew home on Air Force One, and told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview that gasoline prices were just some “short-term pain” and would “drop like a rock” once the war ends.

Trump departed from the White House for China by saying the negotiations over the Iran war depended on stopping Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

That remark prompted blowback because it suggested to some that Trump cared more about challenging Iran than fighting inflation at home. Trump defended his words, telling Fox News: “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again.”

The White House has since stressed that Trump is focused on inflation.

Asked later about the president’s words, Vice President JD Vance said there had been a “misrepresentation” of the remarks. White House spokesman Kush Desai said the “administration remains laser-focused on delivering growth and affordability on the homefront” while indicating actions would be taken on grocery prices.

But as Trump appeared alongside Xi, new reports back home showed inflation rising for businesses and interest rates climbing on U.S. government debt.

His comments that Boeing would sell 200 jets to China caused the company’s stock price to fall because investors had expected a larger number. There was little concrete information offered about any trade agreements reached during the summit, including Chinese purchases of U.S. exports such as liquefied natural gas and beef.

“Foreign policy wins can matter politically, but only if voters feel stability and affordability in their daily lives,” said Brittany Martinez, a former Republican congressional aide who is the executive director of Principles First, a center-right advocacy group focused on democracy issues.

“Midterms are almost always a referendum on cost of living and public frustration, and Republicans are not immune from the same inflation and affordability pressures that hurt Democrats in recent cycles,” she added.

Democratic lawmakers are seizing on Trump’s comments before his trip as proof of his indifference to lowering costs. There is potential staying power of his remarks as Americans head into Memorial Day weekend facing rising prices for the hamburgers and hot dogs to be grilled.

“What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan from Trump and congressional Republicans to lower costs – in fact, they see the opposite,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.

Vance faulted the Biden administration for the inflation problem even though the inflation rate is now higher than it was when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a specific mandate to fix it.

“The inflation number last month was not great,” Vance said Wednesday, but he then stressed, “We’re not seeing anything like what we saw under the Biden administration.”

Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 under Biden, a Democrat. By the time Trump took the oath of office, it was a far more modest 3%.

The data tells a different story as higher inflation is spreading into the cost of servicing the national debt.

Over the past week, the interest rate charged on 10-year U.S. government debt jumped from 4.36% to 4.6%, an increase that implies higher costs for auto loans and mortgages.

“My fear is that the layers of supply shocks that are affecting the U.S. economy will only further feed into inflationary pressures,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.

Daco noted that last year’s tariff increases were now translating into higher clothing prices. With the Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s ability to impose tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, his administration is preparing a new set of import taxes for this summer.

Daco stressed that there have been a series of supply shocks. First, tariffs cut into the supply of imports. In addition, Trump’s immigration crackdown cut into the supply of foreign-born workers. Now, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the vital waterway used to ship 20% of global oil supplies.

“We’re seeing an erosion of growth,” Daco said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The Long Island Rail Road, North America’s largest commuter rail system, was shut down Saturday after unionized workers went on strike for the first time in three decades.

The railroad, which serves New York City and its eastern suburbs, ceased operations just after midnight after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.

The unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the public agency that runs the railroad, have been negotiating for months on a new contract, with talks stalled over the question of workers’ salaries and healthcare premiums. President Donald Trump’s administration tried to broker a deal, but the unions were legally allowed to strike starting at 12:01 a.m.

Kevin Sexton, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said no new negotiations have been scheduled.

“We’re far apart at this point,” Sexton said early Saturday. “We are truly sorry that we are in this situation.”

MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said the agency “gave the union everything they said they wanted in terms of pay” and that to him it was apparent the unions always intended to walk out.

The walkout, the first for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994, promises to cause headaches for sports fans planning to see the Yankees and Mets battle this weekend or to watch the Knicks’ playoff run at Madison Square Garden, which is located directly above the railroad’s Penn Station hub in Manhattan.

The station was devoid of its usual weekend bustle in the afternoon. Only a few dozen people were seen traversing the main concourse, many dragging rolling luggage from departing or arriving Amtrak trains, which are not affected by the strike.

Departure boards normally showing upcoming trains by destination instead listed ghost trains marked “No Passengers.” A few signs affixed to customer service windows explained that the railroad was shut down because of a strike.

Access to platforms was blocked off with bicycle-rack style barricades and roll-down gates as MTA police officers stood sentry, directing people to alternative transportation.

If the stoppage continues into the workweek, the roughly 250,000 people who ride the system each weekday will be forced to find other routes to the city from its Long Island suburbs. For many that likely means navigating the region’s notoriously congested roads.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short and pushing the negotiations toward a strike. Trump, a Republican, responded on his Truth Social platform, saying he had nothing to do with the strike and “never even heard about it until this morning.”

“No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump said, renewing his endorsement of Long Island politician Bruce Blakeman, who is challenging Hochul’s reelection bid. “If you can’t solve it, let me know, and I’ll show you how to properly get things done.”

Hochul urged Long Islanders to work from home if possible. The MTA has said it would provide limited shuttle buses to New York City subway stations, but that contingency plan was not envisioned to handle all the riders the system normally carries on a workday.

And while remote work options greatly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, many people still need to show up in person, said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, a commuter advocacy group.

“You work in construction, you work in the healthcare industry, you work at a school or you’re about to graduate from school, that’s not always possible,” she said. “People need to get where they need to go.”

Dave Sumner, a locomotive engineer of 32 years, said he anticipates that Trump or Congress will step in before the strike goes on much longer.

“We’re pretty vital to this area,” he said.

The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands to raise salaries would have led to fare increases and impacted contract negotiations with other unionized workers.

The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and other train workers, have said more substantial raises were warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs.

Duane O’Connor, who picketed in the morning at Penn Station, said that while he regrets the impact on commuters, workers are simply asking for fair pay.

“I feel terrible. Terrible. This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt the island, this is going to hurt the city. … All we are asking for is fair wages,” he said.

“We’re pretty much three years without a contract,” said Karl Bischoff, a locomotive engineer with LIRR for 29 years. “If they did their contracts for their construction stuff like that, this place would be in worse condition.”

If the unions get the pay increases they are looking for, “it will come at the expense of our riders who will see next year’s 4% fare increase doubled to 8%,” Gerard Bringmann, chair of the rider advocacy group LIRR Commuter Council, said in a statement. “Like the union workers, we too are burdened by the increase in the cost of living here on Long Island.”

With Hochul running for reelection, the pressure might be on the MTA to strike a deal to end the shutdown, said William Dwyer, a labor relations expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where commuter rail workers staged a three-day strike last year.

“She’s up for reelection, and Long Island is a critical vote for her,” Dwyer said. “So if there’s a significant fare hike, that does not bode well for her on Election Day.”

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Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

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TULA, Mexico (AP) — When bombs fell from the sky and bullets ricocheted off her concrete floors, 74-year-old María Cabrera and her family fled into the night-cloaked mountains of central Mexico with only the clothes on their backs.

A week later, Cabrera picks through the charred scraps of her life, salvaging pots, woven cloths and a small wooden cross. She knows that it’s the last time she’ll return to her home of 60 years.

“Oh God, why have you abandoned me,” she said through heartbroken sobs, wandering past burned ashes of what was once her mattress in a small room with a collapsed roof and a melted refrigerator just through the door. “How are we going to rebuild? We don’t have money, we don’t have anything.”

She joined a growing number of people displaced in conflict-torn regions of Mexico forced to flee their homes. Experts have described the phenomenon as an invisible crisis with long-term humanitarian consequences — there are few official figures on the number of displaced people, who have almost no resources to turn to once violence forces them to leave.

Cabrera fled her small town Friday after years of mounting cartel violence in Tula. This town of around 200 native Náhuatl people is among many in the central state of Guerrero ravaged by decades of fracturing rival criminal groups warring for territorial control.

Last week, a group known as Los Ardillos attacked her town and a handful of others with drone-fired explosives, opened fire on local community police forces, killed livestock and burned homes like Cabrera’s to an undistinguishable crisp.

Cabrera carefully handed bags of belongings to soldiers escorting a small group of families returning home to gather their things. She prayed as armed men in camouflage loaded her possessions into the back of a truck. As she wandered through her garden for the last time, she begged forgiveness from the dogs and chickens she was forced to leave behind.

“We don’t want to abandon them,” she said. “But we suffered through everything. We can’t live here anymore.”

A local human rights group, Indigenous and People’s Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata, or CIPOG-EZ, estimated that at least 800 people, including children and the elderly, were forcibly displaced along with Cabrera, and three community police officers — groups often formed to protect themselves in the wake of state absence — fighting back against the mafia were killed.

The official numbers are far lower: Mexico’s government said Tuesday that only 120 people were forced to flee and confirmed no deaths. One community leader sleeping at the basketball court on Friday told a local government official that in their town alone they estimated around 280 people had been forced to flee.

Some families ran into the mountains, not looking back. Hundreds sought shelter under a local basketball court, hoping that it might be safe to eventually return home. Others — some wounded by gunfire — boarded cars, buses and trucks, scattering to different regions of Mexico.

Videos published on social media this week show groups of crying women and children pleading for help.

The images pushed the government to deploy 1,200 military and police officers to the region. Officials say they have provided aid to those displaced, largely contained the violence, established a “safe corridor” for humanitarian aid to enter and paved the way toward defusing the region’s convoluted conflict.

“What we do not want is a confrontation that would affect the civilian population. Above all, we must preserve people’s lives,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a news conference last week.

Critics say that it was the latest example of government inaction and efforts to downplay the depth of the displacement crisis in Mexico. Unlike Colombia, Mexico doesn’t have a comprehensive registry of displaced people. Government figures are often cited as being insufficient by entities like the U.N. refugee agency, human rights groups and researchers documenting the crisis.

A 2025 government National Survey of Victimization and Public Security Perception estimated that nearly 250,000 households were forced to flee their homes in 2024 alone to protect themselves from crime.

Between 2024 and 2025, the Ibero-American University documented at least 44,695 people who had fled their homes to other parts of Mexico. Many more migrate to the U.S.

In a May report, the university noted that forced displacements are on the rise in Mexico at a time when Sheinbaum’s government has sought to highlight security gains — like sharp dips in homicides — in an effort to offset threats by the Trump administration to take military action on Mexican cartels.

“There’s no more life in these communities,” said Prisco Rodríguez, a local representative for CIPOG-EZ. “The government says people have already returned to their houses, but there’s no one here. People don’t say where they’re going out of fear … and the majority never appear.”

Cabrera and her husband, 75-year-old Alejandro Venancio Bruno, were scrambling to figure out where they would go. Cabrera said that her children plead with her to come live with them in Mexico City, around 350 kilometers (220 miles) from their home, or the state of Queretaro, and rebuild their lives elsewhere.

But Venancio said that he’s spent his life working his land, and without money, a home or his most valuable possessions — his goats — any other life outside of Tula seems unfathomable.

“It’s like starting from zero,” he said.

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May 16 (Reuters) – Tesla raised the prices of its Model Y cars in the United States on Saturday, according to its website.

The company increased the price of its Model Y premium all-wheel drive and Model Y premium rear-wheel drive by $1,000 to $49,990 and $45,990 respectively.

The company also raised the price of its Model Y Performance all-wheel drive to $57,990 in the United States, up $500 from earlier, the website showed.

In August last year, the company raised the price of its most-expensive Cybertruck pickup truck model by $15,000 in the United States despite softer-than-expected sales and recalls.

Tesla did not provide a reason for the price increase.

The last time the company increased the price of Model Y cars was two years in 2024 ago when it raised the prices of all Model Y cars by $1,000.

(Reporting by Angela Christy in Bengaluru; Editing by Louise Heavens)

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By Nate Raymond

May 15 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc was sued on Friday by consumers seeking refunds for costs passed on to them in the form of higher prices as a result of tariffs the U.S. Supreme Court later concluded had been unlawfully imposed by President Donald Trump.

Consumers in a proposed class action filed in federal court in Seattle alleged that the e-commerce giant collected hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful tariff costs by raising prices on imported goods before the Supreme Court had ruled.

The U.S. Supreme Court in February concluded in a 6-3 decision that Trump overstepped his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his sweeping tariffs.

Thousands of companies have begun to seek billions of dollars in refunds from the government following the ruling. 

But Amazon has not, which the lawsuit alleged was “not because it lacks a legal basis to do so, but because it seeks to curry favor with Trump by allowing the federal government to retain the funds.”

“The problem is that the funds Amazon is using to stay in the President’s good graces do not belong to Amazon,” the lawsuit says. “These funds were wrongfully taken from consumers to cover IEEPA Tariffs that have since been invalidated.”

The lawsuit asserts claims of unjust enrichment and violation of Washington state’s consumer-protection law.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. 

The lawsuit follows several earlier cases filed by consumers accusing companies ranging from Costco to Nike to FedEx of failing to pass on tariff refunds to consumers. 

Unlike companies that imported goods, consumers are not eligible to seek tariff refunds from the government for the higher costs they incurred while they were in effect, Friday’s lawsuit notes.

To support its claim that politics were behind Amazon’s actions, the lawsuit notes that in April 2025, the company faced White House blowback after a report that it was considering displaying how much of a product’s cost came from the IEEPA tariffs.

Amazon denied the story and said it never considered listing tariff prices on its main retail site. But the report prompted Trump to call Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos to complain, the lawsuit says.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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By Eduardo Baptista and Che Pan

BEIJING, May 16 (Reuters) – As U.S. President Donald Trump showered praise on his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday, the CEOs of several U.S. aviation, commodities, technology, and finance conglomerates looked to advance their business interests by meeting the heads of powerful Chinese regulators and ministries.

These include GE Aerospace, Boeing, Qualcomm, Cargill, Visa, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup, who held talks with the leading officials of Chinese government agencies such as the commerce ministry, state planner, securities regulator, and central bank, according to official government statements and state-backed media reports published on Friday and Saturday.

The U.S. executives travelled to Beijing as part of the business delegation Trump brought to China. They stood behind Trump’s cabinet on Thursday morning as they were each introduced to Xi, and later in the evening mingled with Chinese officials and businesspeople at a state banquet.

The executives are hoping the political goodwill generated by the bonhomie between the two leaders can trickle down to China’s bureaucratic apparatus and unlock regulatory approvals, lucrative purchase deals, and even solve thorny issues in the world’s second-largest economy.

The corporate diplomacy push came as analysts questioned the effectiveness of Trump’s strategy to woo Xi into opening up China for U.S. companies, as he seemingly left Beijing with far fewer trade and investment deals than in 2017.

“The summit served as a crucial window for attending U.S. CEOs to reinforce corporate diplomacy and directly position their strategic asks with top Chinese authorities,” said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a Beijing-based managing director at Ankura China Advisors.

POST-SUMMIT MEETINGS IN BEIJING

The chairman of China’s securities regulator and Beijing’s party secretary held talks with Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser in China and discussed enhancing cooperation in wealth management and cross-border financing, state-backed media said on Saturday.

Beijing Party Secretary Yin Li said China welcomed Citigroup to expand its business further and help attract more international companies and investment to the country, the state-backed Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Wu Qing, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), also met Fraser, the regulatory body said in a statement. The two exchanged views on issues including the global economic and financial environment and the opening up of China’s capital markets.

Citi has been trying to deepen its onshore China capital-markets presence after exiting a joint venture and applying in 2023 to set up a wholly owned securities brokerage firm, which is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Separately, the vice governor of the People’s Bank of China and the director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange met with David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, the foreign-exchange regulator said in a statement.

Meanwhile, China’s commerce minister Wang Wentao met with Visa’s Ryan McInerney, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, though details about the discussions were not disclosed in official Chinese communication.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, known for engaging with locals on overseas business trips, strolled around central Beijing on Friday, trying local food and taking pictures with scores of fans.

After leaving Beijing on Friday, Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that China had agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets and 400-450 GE Aerospace engines, with a potential for the order to rise to as many as 750 planes. The orders, if finalised, would mark Boeing’s first major Chinese deal in nearly a decade.

As Trump and Xi exchanged pleasantries over tea at the Chinese leader’s Zhongnanhai residence, the CEOs of Boeing and GE Aerospace met with the heads of China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), in a move analysts said was likely aimed at securing a delivery timeline for the jet and engine purchase orders.

(Reporting By Eduardo Baptista and Pan Che; Additional reporting by Selena Li in Hong Kong; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, William Mallard, Tom Hogue and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Berkshire Hathaway more than tripled the size of its investment in Google’s parent company and bought over $2.6 billion worth of Delta Airlines stock as Greg Abel settled into the CEO job after taking over from Warren Buffett at the start of the year.

The conglomerate also dumped a number of other stocks, including Visa, Mastercard, Domino’s Pizza, Amazon and United Healthcare after the departure late last year of Todd Combs, who was one of the two investment mangers Buffett hired to help manage the portfolio.

Buffett was always reluctant to invest in tech companies because he said he didn’t understand them well enough to predict the long-term winners. Buffett did make an exception to that rule near the end of his career by buying a massive Apple stake after he recognized how devoted consumers are to that company’s iPhones and computers.

Abel appears to be more comfortable because by the end of March Berkshire owned nearly 58 million Alphabet shares worth almost $17 billion. Just three months earlier, Berkshire held only 17.8 million Alphabet shares worth $5.6 billion.

Berkshire picked up nearly 40 million shares of Delta stock during the first three months of the year. Buffett has something of a sordid history with airline investments over the years after having bought their stocks heavily more than once before eventually dumping them.

Buffett told shareholders in 2008 that “if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down” because every airline has struggled to maintain a competitive advantage ever since the Wright brothers took to the air.

Berkshire also established a small new stake in Macy’s that was worth nearly $55 million at the end of March.

Berkshire never comments on the moves it makes to its $280 billion stock portfolio from quarter to quarter because it doesn’t want to discuss what it is buying and selling. Earlier this month, Abel just led his first shareholders meeting as CEO while Buffett sat on the floor with the rest of the board of directors.

Many investors have followed Berkshire’s portfolio closely over the years because they liked to copy Buffett’s moves. That may not be the case going forward at least until Abel establishes more of a record as a stock picker. He has spent his career operating companies like Berkshire’s collection of major utilities.

But a couple of the stocks that Berkshire just revealed new stakes in Friday did jump after the conglomerate detailed its investments in a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Macy’s and Delta stock prices both popped after Berkshire’s disclosure, but Alphabet’s stock price hardly changed.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based company also owns dozens of other businesses including major insurers like Geico, BNSF railroad, huge manufacturers like Precision Castparts and an assortment of retail and service businesses that includes such well-known brands as Helzberg Diamonds, See’s Candy and Dairy Queen.

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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) – Two of Wall Street’s most closely watched billionaire stock pickers, both once voluble activist investors, took opposite tacks this year when Bill Ackman bet on Microsoft and exited Google parent Alphabet and Daniel Loeb did the opposite.

Ackman said on X his firm Pershing Square began building a new position in software giant Microsoft in February after shares dropped, saying investors weren’t giving it enough credit for its Microsoft 365 office suite and artificial intelligence investments.

Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point, on the other hand, sold 925,000 shares of Microsoft during the first quarter, liquidating a position the firm had held since late 2022, according to a new regulatory filing. 

Ackman and Loeb once ranked among Wall Street’s loudest activist investors, pushing companies to perform better with suggestions ranging from selling off divisions to firing CEOs.

In recent years, both have adopted a quieter tone, sidestepping public fights that generated headlines, and instead making stock picks and riding along. Picks by the two are closely followed by investors parsing their quarterly filings.

Loeb’s Third Point reported it bought 175,000 shares in Google parent Alphabet in the first quarter, while Ackman sold down most of his position in the company, according to a regulatory filing. A source said Ackman exited the rest of his Alphabet holding in the second quarter.

Also during the first quarter, both Pershing Square and Third Point established new positions in Meta Platforms, their filings show. Reuters first reported the position in February when Ackman told clients the technology and social media heavyweight will benefit from artificial intelligence. 

The regulatory filings showed Loeb and Ackman and other big investors who filed their quarterly 13F holding data with the Securities and Exchange Commission are being more selective in investing in the “Magnificent Seven” AI giants, a group that includes Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Additional reporting by Suzanne McGee; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — The U.S. announced Friday it is turning its attention toward Guyana’s abundant bauxite and other resources for business opportunities at a time when the Trump administration is increasingly eyeing Latin American energy and minerals.

U.S. Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg held talks this week with top Guyanese officials, including President Irfaan Ali, in the South American country experiencing an oil boom.

The country’s mass oil reserves discovered in the last decade have increased Guyana’s geopolitical importance, which has been further amplified by a global energy crisis caused by the Iran war. Its bauxite reserves are critical for producing aluminum.

The Trump administration has more aggressively focused on Latin America’s resources, from pushing to expand oil production in Venezuela following the U.S. military invasion in January, to pursuing cooperation with Brazil over critical minerals.

In a region where energy production seemed to be declining, Latin America is now seeing a reversal of that trend, according to Benjamin Gedan, senior fellow and the director of the Stimson Center Latin America program.

“In times of global energy scarcity, there’s a great deal more focus on Latin America as an alternative stable source of supply,” said Gedan. “And Guyana is the leader of that story.”

The visit comes amid concerns in the U.S. government about the Chinese government and mega companies cashing in on multimillion dollar state contracts at the expense of U.S. companies.

Guyanese officials have argued that U.S. firms have not been as aggressive as the Chinese, who often offer financing and cater to labor needs for mega projects.

Helberg told officials that bauxite reserves are already known so the U.S. will be interested in the sector. Currently, Chinese operator Bosai Minerals is the dominant player in the local bauxite sector.

“Generally speaking, we both understand that Guyana is a country with a lot of natural resources,” Helberg said of the bilateral talks.

He suggested that the U.S. can also assist Guyana in conducting high-tech surveys to determine what other minerals lie under the surface for development later on.

The U.S. is looking to learn from past mistakes of allowing China to gain a foothold in the region, according to Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director for the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council.

While Guyana is likely trying to diversify its trade relationships, including with China, the visit shows that the country remains a strong U.S. partner in the region.

“President Ali in particular is very close to the United States and in general recognizes the importance of the U.S. as a key partner for Guyana,” Marczak said. “That’s reflected by Helberg’s visit to Guyana.”

Guyana’s Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud told The Associated Press on Friday that Guyana is interested in attracting U.S. investors to the mineral, oil and gas-rich country in the coming months.

“The U.S. is our strategic partner and we made that clear to them but we would want value added to bauxite and other products. We are interested in processing and with improvements in energy generation,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Anna-Catherine Brigida reported from Mexico City.

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