Washington, DC

1. US-Canada trade war
2. El-Sayed talks Piker
3. Fed conference begins
4. South Korea tariffs?
5. Call for chip curbs
6. Sports bill momentum

PDB: CIA director warned Russia against NATO attack

Trump in Texas … NATO’s Rutte meets with Pentagon’s Colby … More than 1,000 missing in Nepal, Tibet after flash floods

US eyes potential bans on Canadian imports

The Trump administration is weighing which Canadian imports it might prohibit if Canada retaliates further against American tariffs, a US official told Semafor. Ottawa announced earlier this week it would match the administration’s latest levies, fueling fears of an escalating trade war between the two longtime allies after negotiations imploded last week. If Canada goes further, the US official said, its actions would provide the legal basis for the US to impose another round of tariffs on Canada under Section 338. The same legal authority could be used to prohibit imports from Canada, the US official added, and the Trump administration is analyzing those imports to determine which prohibitions would not disrupt US supply chains. President Donald Trump has already pledged to hike tariffs on Canadian steel, as well as trucks, cars, and car parts to 50%, beginning Jan. 1.

— Eleanor Mueller

El-Sayed: ‘No plans’ to campaign with Piker

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is putting more distance between himself and Hasan Piker, telling Semafor’s Nicholas Wu last night that he has “no plans” to campaign with the controversial left-wing streamer. El-Sayed has taken heat from some in his party over his association with Piker, whose comments about American Jews have faced intense criticism in recent days. But El-Sayed framed the whole episode as a nonissue in the election. “Most people are a lot more worried about things like, what are you going to do about my groceries? What are you going to do about my healthcare?” El-Sayed said in the Detroit suburbs. “Those are the things I’m talking about, and the effort to make this race about a streamer in LA is actually kind of laughable.” He said he hasn’t talked to Senate Democratic leadership about Piker.

Warsh faces high stakes in Jackson Hole

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh is poised to take the global stage tomorrow as uncertainty over how he thinks about inflation reaches a fever pitch. Warsh, who’s so far remained committed to revealing little about his view of the economy, will have his biggest audience yet when he delivers the keynote speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which kicks off today. Investors, economists and policymakers hope he uses it to provide clarity on how he assesses economic factors like the Iran war, latest tariffs, and AI boom amid Trump’s continued attacks on Fed independence. KPMG Chief Economist Diane Swonk, who’s attended the conference for decades, called Warsh’s remarks “as critical” as the ones former Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivered in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

— Eleanor Mueller

Republican Sen. floats tariffs on S. Korea

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, is urging US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to consider imposing tariffs on South Korea over its treatment of online retailer Coupang — the latest sign of how the South Korean-founded, Seattle-headquartered firm has wielded its GOP ties. “Seoul is currently conducting a campaign of open hostility toward foreign enterprises,” Moreno writes today in a letter to Greer, shared first with Semafor, that cites “onerous compliance requirements, excessive monetary fines, criminal prosecution of business executives, and biased regulatory enforcement.” Moreno requests that Greer consider opening an investigation under Section 301, the same trade authority Trump invoked to impose tariffs. Doing so would further derail trade talks with one of America’s staunchest allies, which denies treating Coupang differently than Korean companies. It would also add to tensions in the relationship, after Trump scaled back joint military exercises amid suspicions South Korea is slow-walking US investment.

— Eleanor Mueller

Right-leaning groups press for chip curbs

Groups on the right are calling on House leaders to pass a trio of measures designed to constrain China’s access to artificial intelligence chips and manufacturing equipment, after the bills caught a ride on the Senate’s version of annual defense policy legislation. The groups — American Compass, the Foundation for American Innovation, and Heritage Action — penned a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise today demanding they ensure the “urgently needed bills” are included in the final defense legislation. “Dominance in the design and manufacture of advanced AI semiconductors is a national and economic security imperative for the United States and our allies,” they write in the letter. But passing the bills may not be easy: The legislative proposals in question — dubbed the AI OVERWATCH Act, MATCH Act, and Chip Security Act — face opposition from the White House and the tech industry.

— Morgan Chalfant

College sports furor fuels bipartisan push

The ongoing public outcry over pro athletes attempting to come back to college sports is boosting the Senate’s bipartisan college sports bill. A series of summer headlines about professional football and basketball players trying to get back in the college game are landing ahead of the Senate’s return in September — when the body plans to take up the Protect College Sports Act. Tim Buckley, an NCAA spokesman, told Semafor that public “outrage” over the issue has “really changed some minds on Capitol Hill about the need for this legislation” and could help shore up support. “The events over the past week have been helpful to help us drive home the point. You don’t need to take our word for it or the conference’s word for it,” Buckley said. “This piece of legislation gives senators the ability to fix this problem for their constituents.”

— Burgess Everett

Even as the AI economy is booming, Blackstone is investing “through the lens that this may change,” says Jon Gray, chief operating officer of the $1.3 trillion asset manager. On this week’s episode of The CEO Signal, presented by PwC, Gray tells Penny Pritzker and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson that he is constantly checking to ensure Blackstone has not blindly “fallen in love” with an idea.

Gray also says fears of private credit triggering the next financial collapse are “not very logical” and explains why recent shocks can strengthen the system. Plus, he shares how he and CEO Steve Schwarzman run Blackstone, along with the business case behind his “dorky Dad” running videos.

The year tech started losing

The backlash against hyperscale data centers has converted both Democrats and Republicans into AI skeptics, warning that the industry’s rise risks robbing communities of autonomy. The populist rage against Flock and its AI-powered license plate cameras, while smaller in scale, is a growing offshoot of this bipartisan rebellion. “We should be very wary of” any tech that promises to support “an ongoing database of the location of every American citizen,” said William Lawrence, the progressive Democratic nominee for a battleground House seat in mid-Michigan, whose anti-data center campaigning set the tone for other candidates. It’s a marked shift from past campaigns where votes were courted with talk of the benefits of a high-tech future.

White House

• President Trump appointed Mark Paoletta, who holds four other administration posts, to chair the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees DC construction projects like his ballroom. — NY Post
• Trump signed an order banning foreign-made transformers and other equipment from the US electrical grid.

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Russia this week to warn Moscow against attacking NATO, per The Wall Street Journal, and to urge Russia to reduce its support for Iran, per Politico.

Congress

• The other Dan Sullivan made it to the Alaska Senate general election, where he’ll face GOP incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola.

Campaigns

• Democratic candidates are increasingly flagging to outside groups and super PACs what they’d like them to campaign on, a tactic known as “redboxing.” — NOTUS

Courts