Wells Fargo CEO Exclusive, Trump on Xi and Powell, Weak ADP Jobs Report 6/4/25

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Jim Cramer (0:59)

It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

Carl Quintanilla (1:06)

Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, a post night of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber is the morning off. We've lost some of the pre-market gain as ADP employment comes in. In the weakest in two years, smaller businesses cutting jobs on a net basis. Plenty of data on deck today as those aluminum and steel tariffs kick in. Roadmap begins with a stalemate in trade talks. The president says that Xi is quote, extremely hard to make a deal with. Elon Musk blasting that tax bill, calling it a quote, disgusting abomination. We'll talk about the fallout. And a big milestone for Wells Fargo. The Fed finally lifting the asset cap. Charlie Scharf is with us here at Post 9 exclusively in a few moments to talk about what it means for the company's growth. Let's begin though with trade tensions between the United States and China. Overnight the president posted on Truth Social, quote, I like President Xi of China, always have and always will, but he is very tough and extremely hard to make a deal with. We still, Jim, don't have confirmation from the Chinese side that they will talk on Friday.

Jim Cramer (2:07)

Right, and without a call, you run the risk of saying, okay, we thought it might be the weekend, we thought it might be Wednesday, we don't know if it's going to be Friday, it's hanging over us. Also, it is this story that we keep hearing about, about the madness, including an incredible thing about the idea in the journal, that maybe we have to go back and make motors there. It is a level of hardball that I think really tests Trump. Okay, I think he likes it. I think he likes it. I think that this is the sign that he does like it, because he would keep quiet if he didn't feel like this wasn't the kind of negotiation that he used to make with banks.

I'm not saying she met his match because she can take an incredible amount of pain because he lives in a totalitarian environment. But this will be incredibly interesting, and it's got, it's the rare earth versus some of these plastics. It's the idea of who's hostage versus the idea that Trump wants to embargo them. I think he wants to put, look, it's embargo versus we need these certain products. I think it's going to be exciting. I think the market's going to hate it because I think it's going to be up and down. We're going to come every day and there's going to be a true social struggle and we're going to be so destabilized. Look, people feel that the ADP is what knocked us down. I also think the idea that that posting knocked us down.

Carl Quintanilla (3:41)

Sure. Big piece in the Times on page one, looking at jet engines, for example. You can't make it without China. The industry actually put a letter out yesterday talking about components for aircraft and defense. They rely heavily on the materials you're talking about, Jim, but we're 3% from all time highs.

Jim Cramer (3:58)

I know, but Kelly Ortberg would tell you, the CEO of Boeing, that they need the planes more than anyone else in the world. The Chinese have travel problems, they can't go where they want to go, and that that's a chip. I mean, everything's a chip. When you read Dollar Tree's earnings, I mean, that place is just one big chip. I mean, they need their stuff. Now, of course, obviously, you don't have to go to Dollar Tree, you can go to Costco, but I just think everything's on the line because it turns out that now we've had a lot of quarters and boy, there's a huge amount of China at every company I've dealt with.