If sending stuff to America were an Olympic sport, Mexico would be biting a gold medal before thanking geopolitics and market forces. The country surpassed China as the top exporter to the US last year for the first time in 20 years, according to data the Census Bureau shared yesterday.

It's as much a China flop as a Mexico triumph: The US-China trade deficit (aka the difference between imports and exports) shrank to the lowest level last year since 2010. While that might be partially due to the US pulling back on its post-pandemic shopping spree, according to the WSJ, the trend signifies China losing its status as America’s go-to trade partner.

Here’s why it’s happening…

• Trump-era tariffs on select products, and the Biden administration’s climate rules aimed at limiting dependence on clean tech from China, have made the country’s imports pricier. (A group of economists showed that US imports of many Chinese goods unaffected by tariffs kept growing after the trade war began in 2018.)
• US-China political beef further convinced some manufacturers serving the American market to set up shop south of the border instead, Jesús Carmona, Mexico and Central America president at Schneider Electric, told NYT.
• Hiring workers in China became more expensive as the country got richer.

Goodbye China?

Foreign investment in Mexico rose 21% last year, partially due to exporters ditching China. Other countries are also vying to become America’s factory: The share of US imports coming from South Korea and India grew over the past year.

But…China still plays a major role in making the products that get shipped to US shores. Even for US imports made elsewhere, Chinese companies often supply the components, and they’ve been pouring billions into manufacturing facilities in Mexico as a way to sidestep the US’s punishing tariffs.

Looking ahead…US-China trade might get squeezed even more. Donald Trump recently said he’s considering a 60% tariff on Chinese goods if he’s elected president again.—SK

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Disney’s got game. Not only did Disney blow past expectations for its quarterly earnings and cut its streaming losses, the House of Mouse also announced a new $1.5 billion stake in Fortnite maker Epic Games. It’s the company’s largest ever investment in gaming, and it plans to work with Fortnite on new games and an “entertainment universe” featuring characters from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Avatar. Disney may also soon get the Taylor Swift bump: Her Eras Tour film will stream on Disney+. And that wasn’t the only big movie surprise—Disney also revealed a planned Moana sequel for theaters.

Senate Republicans block border bill. A bill intended as a bipartisan compromise that paired strict border security measures with billions in aid to Israel and Ukraine failed in the Senate yesterday in a 49–50 vote (it needed 60 votes to move forward). Although Republicans had insisted on tying the foreign aid to securing the US border, many rejected the election year bill—especially after former President and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump opposed it. Hoping to salvage the foreign aid package, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer moved to advance a standalone bill instead, but the Senate stopped work last night without voting on it. A vote is expected this afternoon.

Netanyahu rejects Hamas cease-fire proposal. Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Hamas’s terms for a cease-fire deal as “delusional.” Hamas had said it would release its Israeli hostages in exchange for the freedom of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including Hamas leaders, and a permanent cease-fire in a three-phase multi-month plan. Netanyahu’s remarks demonstrated how far apart the two sides remain despite a cease-fire framework negotiated by Israel, the US, Qatar, and Egypt, and another visit from the US secretary of state to help facilitate a deal.

If you’ve ever watched the Super Bowl and thought, “This would be better with Mr. Krabs,” Paramount has answered your prayers.

On Sunday, Nickelodeon will air an alternate Super Bowl broadcast, live from Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star will don headsets and go live in the booth to call the game alongside CBS Sports analyst Nate Burleson and announcer Noah Eagle. Other Nick characters are expected to make appearances throughout the game, which will be enhanced with kid-friendly visual effects through augmented reality technology.

While we’re mostly looking forward to watching Dora the Explorer explain intentional grounding, the alt-cast is a savvy advertising move by Nickelodeon parent company Paramount:

• While some ads will air on both CBS and Nick, 15 advertisers opted for a Nickelodeon-only package.
• Most ads on the main Super Bowl broadcast this year went for an average of $7 million. But Nickelodeon sold its spots for just $200k–$300k, making Big Game ads accessible to a new class of advertisers.

Zoom out: As the future of sports on TV remains in flux, alt-casts like Nickelodeon’s are gaining advertiser interest. Univision, which will air the game in Spanish for the first time, is nearly sold out of ads—some of which, like Metro by T-Mobile’s, will air only on the Spanish platform and forgo airtime on CBS.—CC

The courts don’t care who makes the best butter chicken, just who made it first. That’s because Moti Mahal, a legendary staple of Delhi cuisine, sued rival restaurant chain Daryaganj, hoping to put an end to its claim of inventing butter chicken.

In a 2,752-page lawsuit that will be heard by the Delhi High Court in May and that has captured India’s attention, Moti Mahal says it wants $240,000 and bragging rights for creating the iconic dish.

Two origin stories

Moti Mahal is run by the family of Kundan Lal Gujral, who claim Gujral created butter chicken ~80 years ago by adding leftover tandoori chicken to a tomato gravy at the end of the night so the chicken pieces didn’t dry out.

Meanwhile, Daryaganj claims the dish wasn’t created until Gujral met their family’s patriarch and his soon-to-be chef, Kundan Lal Jaggi. Their story is that Jaggi invented the dish by using the buttery sauce to stretch a few pieces of tandoori chicken for a large group of diners.

Or maybe three…another restaurant just entered the game of chicken. A different family who bought the original Moti Mahal restaurant in the ’90s say they invented butter chicken and might consider heading to court as well.—MM

Stat: Young Americans have been securing the bag since the pandemic, largely thanks to their portfolios popping off. The combined wealth of adults under forty has shot up 80% since 2019, compared to 10% for people 40–54 and 30% for the over-55 set, according to economists at the New York Fed. That’s in part because they were poorer than their elders to start with, so they got more Covid stimulus cash that they put into stocks, which have since had a good run. But money from stocks leaves young people exposed to a volatile asset, since the market…doesn’t always go up.

Quote: “There aren’t many things that haven’t been done with a chicken nugget. This was definitely one of them.”

The nugget innovation that so excited an employee tasked with making a marketing splash for the 50th anniversary of a UK supermarket was sending the processed meat up to space. Kinda—he worked with Sent Into Space, a company that specializes in getting objects into “near space,” ~20 miles above the earth’s surface, and photographing them with the planet below. And he’s not the only marketer boldly going where no product has gone before, according to the Wall Street Journal: A Stanley Quencher was shipped up for the TikTok fave’s European debut—and sold out 24 hours later.

Read: How sci-fi author Cory Doctorow got scammed, and why he thinks AI will make it worse. (Pluralistic)

Zzzzz: A napping polar bear took the people’s choice prize in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards.

Keep it short: Here’s a printable full year calendar that fits on a single page.

Watch: How to use your microwave, including its most important button.

Are PJs at work ever ok? A new poll shows the generational divide over what’s acceptable behavior in a Zoom meeting.

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