• Trump’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve release: President Donald Trump, in coordination with 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency, will be releasing 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The move will see 400 million barrels released internationally from the IEA’s 1.2 billion barrels of reserves. The U.S. SPR was estimated last week to hold around 415 million barrels. The release was triggered by a surge in oil prices due to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz through which 15% of the world’s oil flows. Those threats have so far halted oil transportation in the area, prompting some Middle Eastern producers to suspend production until it resumes. Trump promised that 200 million barrels of oil would be returned to the reserve within the next year.

• Updated tariff legal moves: The White House is launching its next tariff theory, which will allow the president’s tariff regime to continue under the legal restrictions imposed by a recent Supreme Court decision. The administration will investigate over a dozen major trading partners, many of which have already struck deals in the last year, for unfair trading practices. U.S. Trade Representative Jameison Greer will specifically investigate the EU, China, India, and others for “structural excess capacity” under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. If the investigation proves that these nations have been unfairly subsidizing production far beyond what the market would support, it will allow Trump’s tariff regime to take on a more permanent form.

• Noem and Lewandowski probed: Did former DHS chief Kristi Noem and her top adviser (and alleged beau), Corey Lewandowski, misuse hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding? That is the question Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee are investigating regarding a $220 million ad campaign. Indeed, it was after Noem’s March 3 Senate testimony, in which she claimed that President Trump had given the green light to the ad campaign, which Trump denies, that Noem suddenly found herself removed as DHS secretary. Regarding Noem’s claim, Trump said, “I wasn’t thrilled with it. I spent less money than that to become president. I didn’t know about it.” The committee is seeking to determine if any of the funding may have been used to enrich either Noem or Lewandowski or those within their orbit.

• Exxon hightails it out of New Jersey: After a 144-year presence in New Jersey, Exxon Mobil announced that it is leaving the Garden State for the tax-favorable pastures of Texas. Exxon Mobil’s board of directors unanimously recommended the legal-domicile move to the company’s shareholders, with board chairman Darren Woods observing, “Texas has made a noticeable effort to embrace the business community” and “has created a policy and regulatory environment that can allow the company to maximize shareholder value.” This is yet another example of the real difference between red states and blue states, with the former favoring the economic growth that businesses bring, while the latter increasingly penalize and hamper business growth through high taxation, onerous regulations, and dubious climate change policies.

• New Texas refinery announced: A $300 billion deal announced by President Trump on Tuesday will see a new oil refinery built in Brownsville, Texas. America First Refining’s new construction will be the first refinery built in the U.S. since the 1970s. It is designed to leverage American shale oil rather than heavier foreign oil, improving American strategic energy security. AFR expects to produce 50 billion gallons of refined product and improve the U.S. trade imbalance by $300 billion over 20 years. At this location, AFR will produce some of the cleanest gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel in the U.S. This move will strengthen American industry with more than 60 million barrels of crude oil annually.

• Hawley introduces legislation to revoke abortion pill’s FDA approval: On Wednesday, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley introduced the Safeguarding Women From Chemical Abortion Act. If passed, the legislation would eliminate the use of the abortion drug mifepristone. As Hawley explained, “What the bill would do is it would bar the use of mifepristone for abortion. It would withdraw the FDA approval.” Hawley observed that, despite the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, abortions have increased even in states that imposed restrictions due to the wide availability of mifepristone. He noted data showing that, beyond killing preborn children, the drug is also dangerous to women who use it. Hawley argued that Congress must act to regulate drugs that are moving across state lines.

• First graders have a right to free speech too: It’s a he-said-she-said lawsuit between a school principal and a first-grade girl. The girl identified only as BB gave her black classmate MC a drawing with the words “Black Lives Mater” [sic] with “any life” written below. MC’s parents complained and demanded that the administration take action. BB says her principal, Mr. Becerra, gave her a talking-to and banned her from recess for two weeks. A lower court granted summary judgment to Becerra, holding that first graders do not have free speech rights, a ruling an appeals court has now overturned, insisting that all Americans have free speech rights. The court will now determine whether Becerra’s actions were appropriate. Some ask instead why BB’s teacher read a book that included the phrase “Black Lives Matter” to first graders in the first place.

• Obama Foundation is fleecing taxpayers: Barack Obama’s legacy of corruption continues to live on through the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The former president’s private nonprofit secured a deal with the city to pay $10 annually to use 19.3 acres of prime public property to build a museum, an athletic center, and the ugliest presidential library in the country. As a result, the Obama Foundation has been able to pay enormous salaries to its officers, with six of the 10 highest-paid having held senior roles in the Obama administration or campaign. Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett “earned” $740,000 in 2024, while compensation across the organization expanded from $18.3 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024. While the foundation claims that its “executive salaries are based on competitive market rates for roles of the same level in similar institutions nationwide,” the salaries far outpace the compensation of other executives of presidential foundations.

• DOJ asks SCOTUS to end Haiti TPS status: After a lower court blocked the Trump administration from ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from Haiti, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the block. This was the second time Sauer has sought SCOTUS’s intervention. “Lower courts are again attempting to block major executive-branch policy initiatives in ways that inflict specific harms to the national interest and foreign relations, while crediting harms to respondents that inhere in the temporary nature of TPS,” Sauer said. “Unless the Court resolves the merits of these challenges — issues that have now been ventilated in courts nationwide — this unsustainable cycle will repeat again and again, spawning more competing rulings and competing views of what to make of this Court’s interim orders.” SCOTUS has twice lifted lower courts’ blocks of the administration’s revocation of TPS.

Headlines

• Iran’s new impotent supreme leader purportedly releases first statement (NY Post)

• Iran-linked hackers tied to cyberattack on U.S. company Stryker (NewsNation)

• The massive California hospice fraud happening on Gavin Newsom’s watch (Townhall)

• Yamaha is leaving California for greener grass in Georgia (Not the Bee)

• Winston Churchill to be removed from UK banknotes (AFP)

The Executive News Summary is compiled daily by Jordan Candler, Thomas Gallatin, Sterling Henry, and Sophie Starkova. For the archive, click here.