Duffy Slams Ford’s ‘Unacceptable’ Use of Chinese Tech

The Trump administration calls out Ford for its unacceptable use of Chinese tech, plus Apple's new CEO prepares to raise the curtain on a slate of much pricier iPhones. And after conquering the airwaves and most days of the week, the NFL's relentless global march is about to reach the land down under. The NFL is perpetually interested in expanding its reach, and not long after this Australia game, they're going to be back down in Brazil for Ravens Cowboy game at the American Up. It's Wednesday, September 9. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. A $100 barrel oil is back, Brent Crude Futures crossed that milestone this morning for the first time since July, following fresh U.S. Iran fighting that's raised the likelihood of lasting supply disruptions. We report that the U.S. military destroyed five Iranian oil tankers yesterday after Iran tried to hit American warships. Tehran responded by firing missiles into Jordan. The war is now in its seventh month, and continuing to fuel broader instability, most recently in Yemen. U.S. gasoline prices jump to further $0.07 a gallon overnight according to AAA. President Trump is dialing up the U.S. Canada trade war ordering a ban on certain dairy products, alcohol, and motorcycles after Canada imposed fresh tariffs on American goods. Those bans, which could be ruinous for some businesses, won't go into effect until September 29th, giving the two sides time to negotiate, though the meantime, British Columbia premier David Evey heard here courtesy of Global News urged fellow Canadians to buy local. "In the middle of the economic war, a war that we did not start, we can and must be our own best customer. Every purchase is a choice. Every dollar we spend is a choice. And right now, our choices matter." Meanwhile, Republicans are gathering in Dallas to date for the GOP's mid-term convention. And despite not being on the ballot, White House correspondent Natalie Andrews says that President Trump is putting himself at the center of the party's efforts to keep control of Congress. "If you talk to a lot of prognosticators, a lot of them feel like the House is lost. It's just really hard for a president in power to keep the majority. So Republicans want to use these two days to really kick off campaigning. And they hope that they can reach voters who are not following politics, who might turn their TV on in the evening and see Donald Trump talking to them and saying, "Hey, I need you to pretend like my name is on the ballot when you go vote in Iowa. When you go vote in Kansas or you vote in Texas, I need you to not take it for granted that your state is a red state and is all going to go Republican because there's tough races there. And be vote. You need to get out and vote and probably bring your friends to vote." Natalie says that strategy comes with political risks as the president grapples with low approval ratings. And as far as conventions go, this one's a bit unusual. Usually there are no mid-term conventions because the political conventions are generally to choose the president during a presidential year. In the scenes, a lot of lawmakers have kind of rolled their eyes. They didn't want to come. Some of them are coming for a short time and not the full time. It's a made for TV event, so on TV it will probably play out as though people are having a great time. With just eight weeks to go until the midterms campaigning is ramping up and primaries are winding down, with the final two set to be held today in Rhode Island and in Delaware next week. Apple is set to unveil its long-awaited first foldable iPhone later today. General reporter Rolf Winkler called it the company's most consequential product event in years with new devices, a new chief executive, and likely higher price tags all on display. The headline is expected to be a new foldable iPhone, almost tablet-like device that fits in your pocket, that will allow people to multitask using more than one app at the same time. Equally important, will be the man introducing it. It's going to be John Ternis, who took over his CEO last week. And of course, the price increases, the surge in the cost of memory and storage chips, because of demand for me, I companies, those chips go into iPhones and Macs and iPads and all consumer devices. And they're going up so much in price that all consumer electronics companies are having to raise their prices significantly, so what you're likely to see is that iPhones are going to start at $200 higher price point than they have in years past. And transportation secretary Sean Duffy is calling out Ford for its business links with Chinese car makers and criticizing it for, quote, "actively intertwining its future with Chinese state-back enterprises." The deals include licensing battery production technology from CATL, a joint venture in Europe with Glee, and the manufacturing of Lincoln vehicles in China for the US market, which Ford has said they will bring back to the US by 2030. Duffy's letter to Ford's CEO marks the latest rebuke of the company's business deals with Chinese firms, which have drawn bipartisan iron and Congress. In a forceful rebuttal, Ford called Duffy's letter "wrong-headed" and said that it produced more vehicles in the US than any other carmaker. Ford's shares closed down yesterday, more than 4%. Coming up, Ukraine sets a lofty new military target, shutting down Russian airspace. We've got that story and more after the break. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine promptly shut down its airspace. Russia never did, but Kiev now wants to change that. As part of its goal of bringing the war to Vladimir Putin's doorstep, Ukrainian officials are embarking on a new strategy aimed at shutting down commercial aviation in Russia and reporter Ben Katz. Ben tells us about the plan here, is Ukraine, I presume, using drones for this and are they trying to knock Russian airliners out of the sky what's going on? Definitely not the latter, Ukraine has been very clear that it has no intention of targeting civilian aircraft or civilian lives, but what they are very much planning to do and have really already started is firing so many drones into Russian airspace that it effectively brings to a closed Russian airspace. Just makes it untenable for any foreign airline or even domestic airline to operate in that space. Ben, sounds like a really high-risk proposition here. Can Ukraine actually thread that needle? But Ukraine is saying what President Zelensky is very clear on is if there is any catastrophe, if there are any civilian lives lost, that that blame would lay on the feet of the Russian military and the Russian authorities by their decision not to respond, as is required by global aviation convention, to formally close airspace. But one thing is clear, the risk to civil aviation, the risk of another catastrophic incident as in an aircraft being shot off the sky is increasing, and it has been increasing over the last few months. We've reviewed data from the last two or three months from Ukraine that shows that the amount of air strikes in the sheer number of drones that they've been firing into Russian airspace has exponentially increased. We're looking now at days where there are up to a thousand drones that get fired to the areas around Moscow, to St. Petersburg, to Sochi in the south. This is causing massive disruption already. So while Russia has refrained from issuing what's called a formal airspace closure, what they are doing is shuttering their airports. What is Russia's reason for not going the extra step here? Obviously it's a massive country, you need aviation to get around, but Ukraine is a large country too, and it closed its airspace years ago and has been using trains instead. Why has Moscow held off on making this decision? Closing airspace is a massive move for any country. It typically takes a long time to convince airlines that it's safe again to effectively fly back and aviation, as you say, is a massive part, it's a really critical part of Russia's economy. It's a massive country, it's required for travel, but it's also required to keep open those links to places like Dubai in the Middle East, China, Turkey, the countries that have maintained those air links. If that starts to get disrupted, you know, it can have those kind of knock-on impacts. But also it's felt on the ground and increasingly we're seeing Ukraine's strategy in the last few months, attacking oil refineries is one thing, going after warehouses for e-commerce sites like wild berries, is really something that is felt by everyday Russian people and also people who have influence over Putin. So it really is this kind of economic campaign to make the war feel felt by the people on the ground in Russia. And since you mentioned aviation being a critical part of Russia's economy, I just pulled up a flight tracking app, I can see lots of flights coming to and from China. This is a lot of Chinese carriers flying these routes that go over Russia. They pay Russia to use that airspace, do they not, could that be another motivating factor here? Absolutely. Every time an airline flies over Russia or uses its airspace, it has to pay a fee as it does in other countries in the world. The loss of that revenue from Western carriers that I've stopped flying to Russia because of the war since the start of the war, we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in those fees. So there is also just a direct impact. A lot of what Ukraine is targeting is in the Western South of Russia. A lot of the flights that over fly, for example from China. go over more of the east side of the country, but even so, you know, if there is a blanket airspace ban that really starts to hit at some of the core avenues that that Russia is still getting from its aviation industry. I've been speaking to Journal Aviation reporter Ben Katz, Ben, as always, thanks so much. Thanks very much. And finally, football is back as the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks kick off at a 20 Eastern in a Super Bowl rematch. Journal Sports columnist Jason Gaye has a proper season preview complete with all the on the field storylines to watch, which we've linked to in our show notes, but he told me that the league itself and its unstoppable growth has its own main character energy. The NFL's Imperial March goes as far as it's ever gone before. It's going to Australia. On Thursday night, you're going to watch the Rams play the Niners for Melbourne. Approximately 17 hours away from Los Angeles in San Francisco. Those distances have turned the Aussie game into something of a test of jet lag management. The Jason says that from a league's point of view, that's just the cost of doing business as a prepares for other matchups this year in Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Madrid, Munich, and Mexico City. The NFL definitely has designs on incorporating some kind of international team into its future, whether it's a team in Europe or a team in Mexico, as far as having an actual NFL franchise in a place as far as long as Australia. That just doesn't seem logistically possible, but it's a market. It's an audience to build the game, to grow the television, streaming, franchise, and to sell merch. And also key to growing a league's war chest is fueling its media empire, which includes equity and CBS and a 10% stake in broadcaster ESPN, which just so happens to be airing this year's Super Bowl. Believe it or not, ESPN for as long and as exhaustively if they have covered professional football. They have never had an ESPN Super Bowl. This is a big, big moment for the network, for whatever the future is of those cable/streaming product, and you are going to be bombarded with reminders of ESPN's stamp on this game. At this point, it's become basically cliche to say that the NFL is kind of the last sliver of the American monoculture. It's the last thing we kind of collectively gather to watch. That isn't a Spider-Man or Christopher Nolan movie. It is something that has massive value to media companies. And now media companies are not just strictly media companies, but technology companies. And the NFL has been incredibly shrewd about its product and trying to spread it among all of these different partners and potential partners. And you see Netflix, which swore forever, it wasn't going to get into live sports is now very much in business with the NFL. This is a product which has retained incredible value for its partners and the NFL is going to exploit every last quarter out of that. And let's try some totally unscientific market research here. Drop the emoji that most closely matches your team in our Spotify comments. I think mine is going to require a little creativity. And that's it for what's news for this Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer, our supervising producer, his Sandra Killhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a news show. And until then, thanks for listening.