The Wall Street Journal - 19.03.2020

A2| Thursday, March 19, 2020 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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U.S. WATCH

TOP DOGS: Thomas Waerner of Norway and his pack won the Iditarod on Wednesday, arriving in Nome, Alaska, after a nearly 1,000-mile trek.

MARC LESTER/ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

2020 CAMPAIGN

Weld Ends His Bid

For GOP Nomination

Former Massachusetts Gov.

William Weld ended his long-

shot challenge to President

Trump for the Republican presi-

dential nomination.

The announcement from Mr.

Weld on Wednesday followed

primaries a day earlier in Florida

and Illinois, where Mr. Trump

won easily and collected enough

delegates to clinch the 2020 Re-

publican nomination.

It was an outcome that was

never seriously in question, given

that the GOP primary has been

largely uncompetitive, the Repub-

lican National Committee has

backed Mr. Trump, and the presi-

dent has won every state that

has voted so far by large margins.

Some state Republican parties,

such as in South Carolina, decided

to forgo a presidential primary.

In announcing he was sus-

pending his campaign, Mr. Weld

nodded to what he called the

“damage that has been done to

our social fabric during the past

three years” of Mr. Trump’s pres-

idency.

Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman

of the RNC, wrote on Twitter af-

ter Mr. Trump officially became

the party’s presumptive nomi-

nee: “Our party is united, our

grassroots movement is fired up,

and we are ready for FOUR

MORE YEARS!”

—Joshua Jamerson

OBITUARY

Apollo 15 Astronaut

Worden Dies at 88

Apollo 15 astronaut Al

Worden, who circled the moon

alone in 1971 while his two

crewmates test-drove the first

lunarrover, has died at age 88,

his family said Wednesday.

His family said he died in his

sleep in Houston.

“Al was an American hero

whose achievements in space

and on Earth will never be for-

gotten,” said NASA Administra-

tor Jim Bridenstine. He also

praised Mr. Worden for his ap-

pearances on “Mister Rogers’

Neighborhood” to explain space

flight to children.

Mr. Worden flew to the moon

in 1971 along with David Scott

and Jim Irwin. As command

module pilot, Mr. Worden re-

mained in lunar orbit aboard the

Endeavour while Mr. Scott and

Mr. Irwin descended to the sur-

face and tried out NASA’s first

moon buggy.

Once his crewmates were

back on board and headed

home, Mr. Worden performed

the first deep-space spacewalk.

He inspected the service mod-

ule’s science instrument bay and

retrieved film. His foray outside

lasted just 38 minutes.

He said of the mission: “Now

I know why I’m here. Not for a

closer look at the Moon, but to

look back at our home, the Earth.”

—Associated Press

ous business, including the en-

tirely reasonable wish to stock

up on food for what could be a

long period of staying home.

But consumers also need to

be ready, it would appear, for

a tinge of disappointment

when they set out on that mis-

sion.

“The Lucky Charms were all

gone, I’ll tell you that,” said

Louie LaFeve of Atlanta, when

he went to fill his larder at a

Kroger’s.

And judging from what’s

been left behind on stripped

shelves, along with the fear of

the virus is a nagging fear of

trying unfamiliar food.

“I just don’t know much

about black-eyed peas,” said

another shopper at Ralphs,

George Nishikawa, as he

warily eyed the Southern deli-

cacy, which was among the

few canned vegetables left at

his market.

At the same time, “The Be-

yond Meat isn’t flying off the

shelves,” Mr. Nishikawa said,

referring to the fake meat that

has wowed a lot of consumers

but obviously left some unper-

suaded. A spokeswoman for

Beyond Meat said that “retail-

ers have been requesting expe-

dited deliveries from us to re-

fill shelves.”

Shopper Brittani Gibson,

rolling her cart past the Sim-

ContinuedfromPageOne

ple Truth Meatless Patties,

said she was passing up the

vegetarian offerings.

That attitude works OK for

Emily Dabney of Atlanta,

who’s a vegan. “Everyone has

joked for years about what am

I going to do if there is an

apocalypse, and so far things

have been pretty good for

me,” Ms. Dabney said. The su-

permarkets she frequents have

had no shortage of vegan sup-

plies.

There is especially no

shortage of squash or zuc-

chini, she’s found: “It’s not a

go-to vegetable for people.”

It was okra that was being

snubbed at a Shop ’n Save

near Pittsburgh on Monday,

while the peas, carrots and

corn were sold out. Lisa

Stoner, who splits her time be-

tween Atlanta and Water

Sound Beach, Fla., described

what is left where she shops

as falling into the “I haven’t

quite gotten there yet cate-

gory.”

Locale plays a part in what

people aren’t hoarding, said

Jeanne Petashnick as she

shopped at the Miracle Mile

Ralphs. “You can see that

we’re in Hollywood—a lot of

the fattier foods are not being

taken,” she said.

One such product’s neglect

at another store, a Safeway in

Bremerton, Wash., set shopper

Shari Hofer to musing about a

certain strict anti-carb regi-

men. “Pork rinds were in

abundance,” Ms. Hofer said. “I

wonder if Keto diets are

over?”

Meanwhile, Ms. Stoner

found “tons and tons of wine

to be had” at a Publix market

she visited in Panama City

Beach, Fla. “I don’t under-

stand. I’m hoarding wine.”

At the baked-goods section

of the same store, bread and

burger buns were running low

but there were plenty of

Twinkies and Little Debbie

cupcakes no one had grabbed.

“I’m so proud of our gener-

ation,” said Britta Perry, who

has three young daughters and

was shopping for her family in

Katy, Texas. “Most of the

shelves at H-E-B are empty ex-

cept for the crap food our par-

entsusedtofeedus.”

Concern about being stuck

at home has meant a second

chance for some foods that

had lost touch with younger

consumers.

Campbell Soup Co. said it is

making more Swanson canned

chicken and SpaghettiOs to

meet higher demand. Canned-

tuna producers have been try-

ing to rework their image and

win back shoppers, but it

wasn’t until this crisis that

they saw a big resurgence.

U.S. sales of canned tuna

for the week ended Feb. 1, be-

fore the virus got everyone’s

attention, were down 2.5%

from a year earlier. By the

week ended March 7, sales had

leapt to 31% above the year

before, according to Nielsen.

Powdered milk, canned

soup, dried beans and rice also

went from falling sales to

spikes as people turned back

to staples.

“I don’t even know how to

cook dried beans, but I bought

them because my mom said I

should. Because if we run out

of food, you can live on beans

and rice for a long time,” said

Robin Stover, an assistant

principal and mother in the

Houston area.

Rachel Sackett travels for

work, and grocery shopping

isn’t in her usual routine.

When she decided to stock up,

she found an Aldi in Chicago

short on frozen dinners,

canned food and most frozen

vegetables.

“They only have frozen as-

paragus, and I don’t really

want that,” she said. In the

canned-food aisle, there

wasn’t much besides canned

beets and sauerkraut.

“Now is not the time to

learn how to cook,” Ms. Sack-

ett said.

Finding a store out of old-

familiars needn’t always be a

drag, though. Shelbi Rampy,

from Dallas, recently bought

the only bread left at the store

where she shopped, a refriger-

ated roll of Pillsbury French

bread dough that she had

never heard of before.

“It ended up being incredi-

ble. We loved it,” she said.

What Food

Shoppers

Don’t Take

Robin Stover with rice and beans

ELYSIA FAULKNER

U.S. NEWS

omy by $75 billion. “We urge

you to provide tariff relief as one

of the measures to help those

hurting financially from the eco-

nomic effects resulting from the

current public health crisis.”

Treasury Secretary Steven

Mnuchin said Wednesday the

administration is committed to

providing whatever economic

aid is needed. Yet Mr. Mnuchin

and Peter Navarro, a White

House trade and manufacturing

adviser, have said Mr. Trump

isn’t looking to cancel broad

tariffs right now. Currently, U.S.

officials are seeking to keep the

health and humanitarian issue

separate from trade conflicts,

according to a person familiar

with the matter.

“This whole crisis is a vindi-

cation of President Trump’s tar-

iff policies, which over the last

three years have already begun

to bring some of our supply

chains and jobs home,” Mr. Na-

varro said in an interview.

Washington and Beijing in

January signed a “phase one”

agreement that serves as a

truce in the trade war, but the

U.S. didn’t remove tariffs on

any Chinese products under

that pact, only reducing the

rates of some tariffs.

The phase one pact requires

China to buy $200 billion more

in U.S. exports than previously,

and Mr. Trump has said he ex-

pects the pact to be upheld.

The two countries have re-

cently experienced friction over

the virus, which spread from

China, as well as a media spat

that has seen both sides reduce

the number of foreign corre-

spondents permitted from the

other country.

“An announcement of a tem-

porary truce in the trade war

would underscore that both

governments, even in the midst

of a protracted economic con-

flict, put the needs of their citi-

zens above protectionism,” said

Jake Parker, senior vice presi-

dent at the U.S.-China Business

Council, which represents

American companies doing

business in China.

Yet trade hawks such as Mr.

Navarro have tended to double

down on efforts to decouple the

American economy from trad-

ing partners, rather than easing

trade barriers.

“To eliminate or lower the

China tariffs now would

amount to a bailout for the

China economy at the expense

of even more American jobs

and growth,” Mr. Navarro said.

A spokesman for U.S. trade rep-

resentative Robert Lighthizer

had no immediate comment.

Even with the phase one

trade deal, there are tariffs tar-

geting about $360 billion a year

of goods from China, and a

range of tariffs targeted to Eu-

ropean cultural products and

airlines, owing to a long-run-

ning dispute over subsidies for

aircraft manufacturers. On

Wednesday the U.S. raised the

tariff level on jets made by Eu-

rope’sAirbus SE.

The U.S. has quietly taken

steps drop tariffs on medical

supplies from China, but many

medical supplies and compo-

nents continue to face tariffs.

Mr. Trump took the rela-

tively rare step of imposing

broad tariffs at a time of eco-

nomic expansion, and domestic

manufacturers that benefit

from the trade barriers will

push hard to prevent them

from being lifted.

“Any action to remove [steel

tariffs] in the face of continued

global overcapacity and mount-

ing steel product inventories

will only exacerbate the eco-

nomic and national security

challenges facing the nation,”

said Thomas Gibson, president

of the American Iron and Steel

Institute, in a letter to lawmak-

ers last week.

Some in the business com-

munity are pointing out that

bigger tax cuts and potential

bailouts are under consider-

ation, many with a direct im-

pact on consumers, and they

say the Trump administration

is more likely to listen to tar-

geted pleas for tariff exemp-

tions rather than a broad re-

think of policy.

—Josh Zumbrun

contributed to this article.

WASHINGTON—The Trump

administration is brushing

aside calls to put broad import

tariffs on hold, despite pleas

from the business community

that it could stimulate the in-

creasingly rocky U.S. economy.

On Wednesday, more than

100 business organizations

wrote to President Trump and

top administration officials to

ask for the suspension of tariffs

on Chinese-made goods and

global steel imports to help the

economy.

“These tariffs are taxes that

Americans pay,” said the busi-

ness groups from a variety of in-

dustries under the group Ameri-

cans for Free Trade, citing

research that eliminating the

tariffs could boost the U.S. econ-

BYWILLIAMMAULDIN

ANDALEXLEARY

Trump Spurns Business Plea to Ease Tariffs

grams for the $4 trillion

money-market mutual-fund in-

dustry, The Wall Street Journal

reported earlier Wednesday.

Large losses by a money-

market fund in September

2008 accelerated the financial

crisis that followed the failure

of Lehman Brothers Holdings

Inc., leading investors to pull

more than $200 billion from

prime funds—a type of money-

market fund—over the next

two days. U.S. officials created

a temporary money-market

guarantee to calm investors,

who generally consider money-

market funds as safe as cash.

The landscape of money

funds has changed dramatically

since the 2008 crisis, with

more money now parked in

stable options that mostly hold

short-term Treasury debt and

other government securities.

Funds that invest in riskier,

short-dated commercial paper

hold about $1 trillion in assets,

according to Crane Data LLC,

publisher of Money Fund Intel-

ligence.

Prime money-market funds,

which buy commercial debt,

are a source of lending to

American corporations, but

they can stop buying debt and

even sell assets when investors

speed up withdrawals.

Investors pulled about $

billion from those funds in the

past week, Crane Data shows,

while money has flowed into

funds that hold government

debt.

In 2014, the Securities and

Exchange Commission ap-

proved rule changes partly in-

tended to change investor psy-

chology toward the funds. The

riskiest ones—those buying

corporate debt and catering to

institutional investors—had to

adopt a floating share price,

making it more apparent to in-

vestors that they could suffer

losses.

Other SEC measures were

meant to help money funds

weather periods of turbulence,

including freezing redemptions

and imposing fees on investors

who withdrew their cash dur-

ing stressed markets.

The Federal Reserve said

late Wednesday it would

launch a new lending facility to

backstop the money-market

mutual-fund sector as part of a

broadening effort to calm tur-

moil sparked by the novel cor-

onavirus epidemic.

The Fed’s latest facility,

called the Money Market Mu-

tual Fund Liquidity Facility,

will make loans available to eli-

gible financial institutions

backed by high-quality assets

purchased by the institutions

from money-market mutual

funds.

The Fed said the facility

would assist money-market

funds “in meeting demands for

redemptions by households

and other investors, enhancing

overall market functioning and

credit provision to the broader

economy.”

The Fed made the an-

nouncement late Wednesday

after companies and investors

braced for a prolonged eco-

nomic stall, sparking a rush for

cash that took the recent mar-

ket turmoil into a new, more

troubling liquidation phase.

Investors sold nearly every-

thing they could in the most

all-encompassing market draw-

down since the 2008 financial

crisis.

Short-term money markets

at the heart of the financial

system saw strains while large

companies drew heavily on

credit facilities.

The facility is the third an-

nounced by the Fed this week

created by citing emergency

powers to extend credit, fol-

lowing earlier efforts to back-

stop the market for short-term

commercial debt and to expand

lending to primary dealers, the

large financial institutions that

function as the Fed’s exclusive

counterparties in markets.

Those facilities required the

approval of Treasury Secretary

Steven Mnuchin. The Fed said

it would receive $10 billion to

cover potential losses from the

Treasury from its Exchange

Stabilization Fund.

The latest facility could

prove contentious because af-

ter the 2008 financial crisis,

when the Treasury Department

used the ESF to backstop

money-market funds, Congress

restricted its authority to do so

again.

The Trump administration

is asking Congress for author-

ity to develop guarantee pro-

BYNICKTIMIRAOS

Fed Sets Facility

To Aid Money Funds

The landscape of

money funds has

changed since the

2008 crisis.