U.S. Finalizes Trade Deal with China
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Here is your morning brief for Friday, June 27th. I'm Kate Bullivant for The Wall Street Journal. Markets look poised to test all-time highs, with European stocks and US futures rallying after President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the US has finalised a trade deal with China. This includes an agreement to deliver rare earth materials to the US in exchange for Washington easing its own restrictions on certain exports to China.

Lutnig also told Bloomberg that the US is nearing deals with 10 countries, including its biggest trading partner, the EU.

Senate Republicans are pushing ahead with plans to vote on President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill before next week. The legislation hit a major roadblock yesterday when Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough effectively blocked a number of GOP proposals central to it, including Medicaid cuts, ruling they'd have too much of a fiscal impact to be passed by a simple majority using a fast-tracked reconciliation process.

Some Republicans responded by calling for McDonough's firing, but current leader John Thune has called that a nuclear option, akin to ending filibuster rules. President Trump has warned lawmakers not to go on a scheduled recess until the bill is passed and urged Republicans to fall in line.

And we're reporting that Tesla has parted ways with Musk's top aide, Omid Afshar, who is in charge of sales and manufacturing operations in North America and Europe. Tesla's director of human resources for North America has also left the company, which is struggling with declining global sales, an ageing line-up and a backlash over Musk's work with the Trump administration. Afshar and Tesla didn't return requests for comment.

And we have a lot more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.