Trump-Xi Phone Call, Layoffs Surge, Amazon and Robots 6/5/25

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David Faber (0:47)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC Squawk on the Street.

Carl Quintanilla (0:53)

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer. David Faber's back at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Pre-market adds to some gains as Chinese state media says the president and Xi hold a phone call. Germany's chancellor visits the White House today. ECB cuts rates. Jobless claims highest since October. Our roadmap begins with those China talks. The president reportedly holding this call with Xi this morning.

David Faber (1:16)

Plus, Elon Musk is ramping up his attacks on President Trump's tax plan, urging lawmakers to kill the bill. And Amazon reportedly preparing to test humanoid robots. They would deliver packages. And that could eventually, of course, take the jobs away from those who currently deliver those packages.

Carl Quintanilla (1:34)

Let's get right to the latest on trade. It's a busy one. And of course, the last few minutes, Xinhua, the state news agency in China, says that the president and Xi reportedly, Jim, held a call this morning. That's all we know for now.

Jim Cramer (1:45)

Look, I think that one of the things that's got to be on the agenda is that China is short of shipping. It's a term they use. The rare earth magnets, the metals, and it's starting to close our factories. They're not doing it, by the way, to Germans or the Japanese. They're targeting us. This is obviously very important because these affect not just EVs, but motors, speakers, sensors. So I think that maybe push is coming to shove here, David.

David Faber (2:14)

Yeah.

Jim Cramer (2:14)

Maybe we're finally realizing that we have some courts. We don't have all the courts.

David Faber (2:20)

No. No. I mean, we should say this call comes in the backdrop of what was frustration expressed by the Trump administration in terms of the progress of the talks after the so-called agreement almost that they had reached in terms of a significant de-escalation on both sides but most significantly on the US side down from 145 percent tariffs to 30 percent. But to your point, part of that agreement, or at least the agreement to reach an agreement was to restart the shipment of these rare-earth metals, the magnets, which are so important to so many things. And we just mentioned robots with Amazon, obviously, but also very important in making automobiles. And then on the other side, and this is other reporting, not mine, certainly, but apparently frustration on the Chinese, something we talk about all the time, which is the continued inability to access chips that are made by the likes of Nvidia.

Jim Cramer (3:17)

Right, I mean, I started last night's show, Carl, with this note, which just said, all right, what do we really have? We have gas turbines, maybe more than 200 of them. We have Boeing, but you can't slot a Boeing because they're busy till 2030 And we have Nvidia, which is ready to go. Now, we know that there was a White House source that said Nvidia is out. We're not going to let them have even what Biden had. But we're also holding back ethane, but I think that there are other sources as saying. There are no sources other than Nvidia for video. So we have that. They have magnets. I can't believe that there can't be some sort of deal made.

Carl Quintanilla (3:58)

Yeah, you did, but you are acknowledging sort of the difficulties for us. And for the Europeans, by the way, there's some German auto parts suppliers this morning saying, hey, this is getting critical on the magnet side.

Jim Cramer (4:09)

My understanding from a major auto company in this country is that they are getting more of Germany and Japan, are getting more. That could be sour grapes. But I would say that maybe we didn't think this through as much when we decided to put our tariffs on.