New U.S. Sanctions Aim to Isolate Iran

president trump escalates the trade dispute with canada plus the u.s is launching a new campaign to squeeze iran called operation economic outcast there's been all these talks about whether there's a deal or there's no deal and back and forth on this and clearly the administration is getting frustrated with a lack of concrete results so they've landed on this being the option and the trump administration proposes a new six-figure fee for h-1b visas it's monday august 24th i'm pierre bien-amé for the wall street journal filling in for alex osola this is the pm edition of what's news the top headlines and business stories that moved the world today we begin today's show with a run of news out of the trump administration the white house is proposing a new fee of about a hundred thousand dollars for h-1b visas we begin today's show with a run of news out of the trump administration the white house is that replaces an earlier plan to charge a hundred thousand dollars for the visa that one was struck down by the courts the h-1b is a visa for high skill foreign professionals it's the main way for foreigners to work in the u.s and it's used a lot by the tech and finance sectors to hire top international graduates from u.s universities there's a 30-day period to submit comments on the proposal before it can take effect in the latest escalation of the trade conflict that erupted over the weekend president trump says the u.s will impose 50 percent tax tariffs on cars and trucks car parts and steel from canada starting in january u.s tariffs on canadian autos now stand at 25 with discounts for the u.s content in cars the threat came after a canadian prime minister mark carney said his government would respond to a separate set of trump's tariffs with tariffs on u.s products trump imposed those new tariffs this weekend after last minute talks over a deal fell apart they're effective on about five percent of canadian exports to the u.s carney said canada will not impose those new tariffs this weekend would only return to negotiations with the u.s if the americans showed up with a different approach an attitude at the negotiation table that canada is a subsidiary of the united states the canadian industry is going to be disadvantaged relative to american industry that we're going to set up terms so that over time canadian industry is going to face constant headwinds that's not something we're going to accept the u.s is launching a new campaign to isolate the iranian regime treasury secretary scott besant says america will go after countries and companies that do business with iran the united states treasury has begun operation economic outcast operation economic outcast involves sanctioning more than 60 entities individuals and vessels across the world that enable the regime to get nuclear and missile technology make money from oil and carry out cyber operations economic and cyber security and that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years so that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years so that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years so that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years so that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years so that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years so that's what we're going to see in the next 30 years those responsible to the full reach of american power covering this story is our white house economic policy reporter brian schwartz the military campaign has only done so much against iran there's been all these talks about whether there's a deal or there's no deal and back and forth on this and clearly the administration is getting frustrated with a lack of concrete results so they've landed on this being the option iran has been saying that this is not going to really impact them at least what was announced today but from the u.s side they were quite confident it seemed that this was going to make a significant impact on iran brian says it's notable that one country in particular wasn't mentioned today we don't really have a timeline as to when he's going to move ahead with anything bigger against various countries potentially china china is the top trading partner with iran a period full stop if you're china you have to really ask yourself i mean will the u.s go ahead and do what it's kind of edging around to say it might do it goes back to that relationship president trump wants to have with china's government meanwhile the trump administration has maintained that big volumes of oil are getting through the strait of hormuz to the tune of eight or nine million barrels of oil a day that's less than half of what used to transit those waters but still a sizable amount independent tanker watchers however which count ships and oil output say they're only seeing a range of between two and six million barrels a day wall street journal foreign correspondent georgie kanchev says that divergence could come down to a few different factors the u.s navy has a better overview than the commercial trackers because a lot of the ships right now that are crossing the strait of hormuz are doing that at night with their transponders off in which case that means it's difficult to track by satellites and satellites and transponders is what the commercial players use to track ships so the navy might have a better overview it's also possible that the navy and the u.s government is making assumptions that every ship that transports is fully laden with oil that might not be true and that also makes a big difference in terms of numbers then of course missing one or two big ships that do carry a lot of oil also can make a big difference one of the biggest tankers around they can carry up to two million barrels the question of missing barrels ultimately gets settled in physical markets where the oil is either available or not so far markets are relatively relaxed but there's still a lot of uncertainty as to what's going to happen in the future that's what's going to happen in the future i think it's going to be a lot of uncertainty but i think it's going to be a lot of uncertainty and i think it's going to be a lot of uncertainty in terms of what's going to happen in the future but i think it's going to be a lot of uncertainty in terms of what's going to happen in the future brent crude futures today snapped a six-session winning streak finishing just over 92 a barrel and in stock markets u.s shares started the week on a mixed note the dow rose slightly while the s&p and nasdaq fell chip stocks declined with nvidia closing down 2.9 that's its seventh straight slide the longest losing streak in the history of the u.s economy in almost four years coming up a cancer study was a huge win for moderna's stock but is it now overhyped we'll hear from our herd on the street columnist after the break in the latest on the paramount deal for warner brothers discovery california attorney general rob bonta has canceled a meeting that was planned for today with paramount chief executive david ellison they were expected to discover settling an antitrust lawsuit against the deal california's leading the lawsuit bonta is accusing paramount of failing to quote maintain the confidentiality of another meeting last friday paramount says it has not been the source of leaks into confidential discussions the company says it's ready to continue discussions to resolve the lawsuit last week moderna's stock skyrocketed after promising new data for its vaccine against the cancer melanoma in fact the pharma company's shares saw the biggest one-day gain for an s&p 500 company in over 20 years at 177 percent while they've pared back some of those gains the stock price is still more than twice what it was this time last week heard on the street columnist david wainer considered some of the challenges the company could run into and he joins me now david this all seems like great news for anyone who's against cancer why can't we have nice things why the pessimism about what moderna can achieve here i think uh we certainly can and the science is a real breakthrough and it's really exciting it's the first time a personalized mrna cancer vaccine has shown that it works there's all the reason for the enthusiasm i think the issue here is the stock may have outrun that enthusiasm a little bit moderna as you said almost tripled in that first day and a big reason for that may have been a bit of a short squeeze with some short sellers getting caught on that move but in any case it's almost like you added like two modernas on top of the one moderna on a single day so what are some of the headwinds for moderna if we had to boil them down to the two biggest ones first of all it's the question of whether this will be applicable in other disease settings whether we'll see the same success in other tumors melanoma was the lower hanging fruit and it was still a very high bar to meet and it's great that they did but we just don't know if it'll carry over to other cancers every other cancer they're chasing is going to be harder so the real question it's whether we're going to see this travel into other cancers into other settings and we just don't know until the data reads out and then the second issue is the cost this will be a personalized vaccine you're making it for the individual and it's just higher costs conventional drugs can have margins that are higher than 90 an analyst i spoke with at learing says that the margin for a product like this could be closer to 50 to 80 so we're going to see lower margins for these drugs at least initially that was heard on the street call us david wiener david thanks so much thanks for having me and finally is your therapist biased therapists are supposed to keep their personal experiences and opinions out of their work with patients but some experts say more of them are now failing to do that wall street journal columnist elizabeth bernstein wrote about this and she joins me now elizabeth psychology has a term for this shortcoming from a therapist counter-transference yes it's really a term that describes what happens when therapists take their own views opinions narratives and place them onto a patient therapy expects this psychology expects this therapists are human but therapists are also trained to try to work to be more objective to bring wisdom to that relationship rather than their own views and this trend that you're reporting on where therapists can't rein in their own bias how is it showing up in patients experiences i talked to so many people who are in therapy so many therapists and i'm not saying that they're not going to be able to do it but i'm saying that they're not going to be able to do it but they're not going to be able to do it but they're not going to be able to do it but they're not going to be able to do it but they're not going to be able to do it one woman told me that she was very happy in her single life and she had a full life many friends great work but Her therapist repeatedly told her, you're really not going to be happy until you find somebody. I really hope I can help you find somebody. And finally, she challenged the therapist and said, why are you pushing me to find somebody? Do you want to find somebody? And the therapist said, yeah, I guess that's me. The key here is in each anecdote, the therapist was suggesting something that the therapist themselves had already practiced. If they were saying, have you ever thought of cutting off your mom? They'd already done it. Have you ever thought of, you know, getting rid of your bad boyfriend? They'd done it. That's where the wisdom and the training and the experience of a good therapist is supposed to guard against. Elizabeth Bernstein is a columnist here at The Wall Street Journal. Thanks so much, Elizabeth. Thank you. And here at What's News, we recently wrapped a three-part series looking at a pretty different kind of therapy, one provided by AI. I actually spoke to one of those AI chatbots myself, and it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. We'll leave a link to that in our show notes. And that's What's News for this Monday afternoon. Today's show was brought to you by. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Danny Lewis with supervising producer Talia Arbel. I'm Pierre Bien-Aimé for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.