The White House’s protectionist plan to impose roughly $60 billion in annual tariffs on Chinese imports went over like a lead balloon on Wall Street, sparking fears of a trade war, increased volatility, and unintended ripple effects throughout the American economy – WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

Meanwhile, the US is continuing to tweak its steel tariff plan, adding allies Argentina, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, and the whole of the EU to its exemption list that had originally included just Canada and Mexico – NYTimes

China’s noticed all of this, by the way – Bloomberg

The troubled assets are out there. But at least some major PE players are thinking long and hard about parallels to 2007 before making the move from browsing to buying – WSJ

Dealbook’s Common Sense column engages in the rather intriguing exercise of comparing Martin Shkreli to Elizabeth Holmes and exploring the very different outcomes that each fraudster has faced to this point – NYTimes

Changes are underway among Whole Foods’ executive leadership, with more than a dozen execs and senior managers having exited since Amazon acquired WF last year. The departures appear to affirm concerns that the cultures of each company were far from a perfect match – WSJ

HSBC and RBS have skirted a class action Forex rigging suit on personal jurisdiction grounds – Law360

The UK has announced plans to form a cryptocurrency task force to “examine the risks and benefits” of the virtual currency in hopes of making London a hub for the “potential benefits of the underlying technology, while guarding against potential risks” – Law360

Bill Ackman and Pershing Square are finished with their passive stake in Nike, and they’ve got a cool $100 million to show for it – Bloomberg and WSJ

The Journal’s keeping a close eye on the DOJ/AT&T trial which, after a few days of procedural hearings and a snow day, finally got underway in earnest yesterday morning – WSJ [and NYTimes]

Yesterday’s business news head-scratcher for you: ‘80s comic and aspiring media mogul Byron Allen’s production company has purchased the Weather Channel TV network from Blackstone, Bain, and Comcast for a reported $300 million – Bloomberg

An inside look at Mars—Jeff Bezos’s 3-day conference in the California desert for “the world’s most successful geeks.” Think of it as an interesting mélange of Coachella, CES, and a Ted talk, with a dash of SXSW thrown in for good measure – NYTimes

Have a good weekend.