Insights: Policy

Trade (IEEPA/Supreme Court)

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding President Trump’s imposition of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Trump has used IEEPA to impose his sweeping “reciprocal” country-based tariffs. He used Sec. 301 to impose his first term tariffs on China and Sec. 232 to impose sector-based tariffs. Those...

Government Shutdown

Senate Majority Leader Thune has repeatedly commented over the last few days that he feels the government shutdown is getting close to ending, a sentiment echoed by various Democrats as well (e.g., Sens. Durbin (D-IL), Slotkin (D-MI), Cortez-Masto (D-NV), others). Democrats are reportedly increasingly open to Thune’s prior offer to support a...

Crypto Market Structure/Stablecoins

Senate Republicans are pushing for a vote on crypto market structure legislation in the Banking and Agriculture Committees by the end of this year. They had hoped the committee votes would take place in September, but negotiations with Democrats have not proceeded smoothly and the process is moving more slowly than anticipated. A set of...

Bank Capital/Liquidity

The Fed’s work to shift the direction of bank capital/liquidity requirements has begun to accelerate, with the release of its proposed changes to stress testing last week and what Vice Chair Bowman said would be finalization of its revisions to the eSLR in the “next few weeks or a month.” She didn’t specify a precise timeline for proposing Basel...

The U.S. and China agreed to a one-year trade truce in which the U.S. will reduce fentanyl tariffs by 10% and ease export controls while China will buy U.S. agricultural goods and ease rare earth export controls, among other promised trade-offs. The deal does not address increased sales to China of advanced semiconductor chips, nor the U.S....

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs, Cigna)

Cigna announced that its PBM, Express Scripts (under the Evernorth division), will shift to a rebate-free model in the commercial/employer-sponsored market. Under this model, discounts on drugs will be passed through upfront to beneficiaries at the pharmacy counter instead of relying on post-purchase rebates. This change will begin with fully...