Good morning. Panama’s Supreme Court decision to void Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison’s contract to operate two ports at either end of the Panama Canal is rippling through global shipping and geopolitics, complicating a $23 billion ports deal and sharpening U.S.-China competition in the Western Hemisphere.

Impact of decision: The ruling forces Hutchison out of the strategically located terminals and deals a setback to Beijing’s regional influence. It also hands President Trump a symbolic win as his administration presses allies and partners to curb China’s footprint in critical infrastructure.

Details: The high court said the license terms last granted to the Hong Kong firm in 2021 violate Panama’s constitution. The termination of Hutchison’s license to operate the ports of Balboa on the Pacific Coast and Cristóbal on the Atlantic side throws a wrench into the company’s plans to sell more than 40 ports globally to BlackRock and Mediterranean Shipping Co. The two Panama container terminals were the crown jewels of the deal.

What it means for the canal: The ports managed by Hutchison aren’t part of the Panama Canal, and the court’s decision has no impact on the operation of the waterway.

What it means for the ports deal: The BlackRock and MSC-led deal to buy Hutchison’s global ports portfolio already looked to be in peril, with China’s government threatening to block the transaction if state-run shipping company Cosco wasn’t added as an equal partner with veto power. The removal of the Panama container terminals from the transaction, however, could reduce Beijing’s leverage over the broader deal, potentially clearing a path to a sale of the remaining ports, which are less politically charged.

• Panama High Court Gives Trump a Win Over Canal by Ousting Hong Kong Port Operator
• Panama’s Decision on Canal Raises Questions About China’s Holdings in Latin America

Uber Eats ordered to pay $3.5 million over NYC delivery worker pay.

Uber Technologies’ food-delivery business agreed to pay $3.5 million in worker pay restitution and civil penalties as part of an order by the New York City government.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection ordered Uber Eats to pay $3.15 million in restitution to 48,000 workers across the city, and $350,000 in civil penalties and fees. An investigation by DCWP alleged that Uber Eats failed to pay workers the minimum pay rate between December 2023 and September 2024 for time spent on canceled trips, the mayor’s office said Friday.

Former Google engineer convicted of stealing AI trade secrets.

A former Google software engineer and Chinese national was convicted of stealing artificial-intelligence-related trade secrets from the Alphabet unit, reports Risk Journal’s Max Fillion.

The charges: A federal jury in San Francisco found Linwei Ding guilty on all 14 trade secret theft and economic espionage charges the U.S. Justice Department brought against him, according to a verdict returned Thursday. Prosecutors said he stole more than 2,000 pages of confidential information from Google’s network and uploaded them to his personal Google cloud account.

• President Trump said Friday he would nominate Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, choosing a former Fed official who has aligned himself with the president’s criticism of the central bank.
   
• A former TD Bank employee pleaded guilty to participating in a money-laundering scheme, Risk Journal reports, as the Canadian lender revamps its compliance program after a record fine by U.S. authorities.
   
• ConocoPhillips Alaska can for now continue drilling for oil in the Western Arctic, despite a lawsuit raising concerns about harm to wildlife, a federal court in Alaska said, Clare Hudson wrote for Risk Journal.
   
• The European Union has designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, reports Risk Journal, in response to Tehran’s deadly crackdown on protesters.
   
• Fourteen countries on the Baltic Sea and North Sea are warning the international maritime community of growing risks from Russia’s shadow fleet and satellite navigation interference, Risk Journal reports.
   
• The new head of the Federal Maritime Commission wants the shipping regulator to play a bigger role in protecting American commerce around the globe.
   
• The arrests of two alleged ringleaders of transnational scam networks in Cambodia have led to thousands of workers—many of them trafficked—being let go from compounds across the country, one of the biggest shake-ups to date of the so-called pig-butchering industry.
   
• Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig promised on Thursday that his agency would clarify its stance on how sports-related bets on the prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket differ from the state-regulated gambling offered by DraftKings and Flutter’s FanDuel.
   
• President Trump’s lawsuit against the government that he runs presents a mind-bending minefield of conflicts that could end with the president’s appointees approving a federal payout to him.

Also, the U.S. plan for Venezuelan oil money has issues. James Rundle hosts.

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Before any strike on Iran, U.S. needs to bolster air defenses in Mideast.

President Trump’s promised “armada” has arrived in the Middle East, headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier battle group, and sophisticated F-35 jets have moved closer to the region.

Trump has yet to say whether and how he might use force. But American airstrikes on Iran aren’t imminent, U.S. officials say, because the Pentagon is moving in additional air defenses to better protect Israel, Arab allies and American forces in the event of a retaliation by Iran and a potential prolonged conflict.

• Trump’s Armada Is Getting in Place. Now He Must Decide What to Do With Iran.
• A Conflict With Iran Could Shake Up More Than Oil Prices. A Lot Is on the Line.

House’s bid to end partial shutdown gets tougher.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) faces a tougher-than-expected vote to end a partial government shutdown this week, after House Democrats pushing for sweeping changes to immigration enforcement signaled they wouldn’t help Republicans pass any funding measures through the narrowly divided chamber.

Johnson, with a 218-213 majority, will need to keep almost all Republicans on board or risk the shutdown that started Saturday stretching deep into the week. The measure, endorsed by President Trump, funds swaths of the government for the rest of the fiscal year, while providing a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security—which contains immigration-enforcement agencies. The extension is intended to jump-start talks on reining in enforcement officials’ practices.

• Mexican exports of oil to Cuba have slowed to a trickle as President Trump amps up the pressure on President Claudia Sheinbaum’s leftist government to stop its support for the island’s Communist regime.
   
• President Donald Trump threatened additional tariffs against Canada and Mexico, in his latest move to raise trade tensions with U.S. allies.
   
• In purging his top generals, Chinese leader Xi Jinping put the command of the armed forces in the hands of one man—himself. Now, his vision alone will decide the course of Beijing’s looming confrontation with Taiwan.
   
• President Trump is fast approaching his first major strategic arms decision since returning to the White House: whether to agree to a Russian proposal to extend limits on long-range nuclear weapons for another year or do nothing when the treaty expires this week.
   
• Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez is offering Washington economic wins on oil while slow-walking human-rights and democratic reforms.
   
• The Trump administration late Friday approved $15.7 billion of proposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, according to the Pentagon.
   
• The Rafah crossing connecting Gaza to Egypt will open to Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, marking the first time they can both enter and exit the enclave in more than two years—though restrictions will still apply.
   
• The party in the crypto market is starting to feel like a distant memory.