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- [00:00]
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- [00:33]
Luke Vargas
Amid growing resistance to new data centers and fears of pricier electricity, President Trump pushes tech companies to pay for new power plants. Plus Sidelined by Washington Canada's leader finds a friend in China we must be ambitious. We must work at speed and scale to find new partners to diversify our trade and attract unprecedented levels of investment in our country. And why potential US Strikes on Iran might not help anti regime protesters there it's Friday, January 16th. 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. In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration is set to propose that America's largest grid operator, pjm, hold an emergency auction in which tech companies would bid on 15 year contracts for new power plants that would aff effectively formalize a bring your own power approach to data center construction that's already taken hold across much of the US and which the administration has begun to embrace. In October, Energy Secretary Chris Wright instructed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to draft rules giving it oversight of how giant data centers connect to the grid, a process typically overseen by states. Officials argue that the change could get data centers connected to the grid faster and easier, though some state regulators are pushing back, saying the plan and encroaches on their authority. Canada and China are setting aside years of frosty relations and pledging to work closer on agriculture, energy and finance. Prime Minister Mark Carney's visit to Beijing this week is being seen as Ottawa's pivot away from the United States. Peter Seidel is the Journal's Asia political editor. It can be risky, Peter, to read too much into a bilateral meeting, but the significance of this visit seems pretty straightforward. Tell us why you've been tracking this.
- [02:32]
Peter Seidel
Well, it's been closely watched because of the sort of decaying relationship between Canada and the U.S. and Carney has said that the close relationship with the US as it once was is now over and that Canada needs to find new partners. It's also significant from a China perspective in that China's sort of on a global charm offensive to step into the breach where US Partners are feeling spurned by Trump and are looking for other relationships around the world.
- [03:06]
Luke Vargas
Peter, the details are of course still coming in here, but it sounds like there is some substance to this Carney saying that Chinese EVs are going to be allowed into the Canadian market. This is something he hopes leads to Chinese investment in Canada's auto and clean energy sectors. And meanwhile Canadian farmers are going to be getting more access into the Chinese market.
- [03:24]
Peter Seidel
Yes, that's really significant because the products you mentioned have been significant obstacles on both sides. Canada's kept 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, and Canada's canola farmers are keen to get into the Chinese market where there's a 76% tariff. So any progress there is both significant for Canada's economy and symbolic for a sort of progress and a trade relationship when Canada's relationship with the US Is on the wane. It's also important to recognize that China is Canada's number two trading partner. Its two way trade is about $80 billion over the past 12 months, whereas with the US it was $1 trillion during that period. So China can't really replace the US as a trading partner, but it can give a boost to Canada.
- [04:20]
Luke Vargas
That was Journal Asia political editor Peter Seidel back in Washington. President Trump has the Nobel Peace Prize he's long coveted, sort of. I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize. That was Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corinna Machado, who made that gesture yesterday during a visit to the White House, but who emerged with no public backing from Trump. On social media, the president called Machado a wonderful woman who's been through so much. But the Trump administration says it will continue to work with Venezuela's acting president, Delsey Rodriguez, who was Nicolas Maduro's deputy. Machado's previous offer to share her prize with Trump had provoked rare public clarification from the Nobel committee that the award can't be transferred to another person. And we are exclusively reporting that the Food and Drug Administration has quietly removed several Web pages saying that cell phones pose no health risks. That comes as the Department of Health and Human Services launches a new study on CEL phone radiation. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And some of his allies have long pointed to mobile phones as a potential source of illnesses, including cancer, though many mainstream scientific institutions, including the fda, previously concluded there isn't adequate proof to link health problems to wireless devices. An HHS spokesperson confirmed the removal was intended to clear old conclusions, while the agency works to identify potential research gaps. Coming up, correspondent Suna Rasmussen discusses the unpredictable consequences of potential US Strikes on Iran. Plus a look at today's top markets, news and the argument that dressing up leads to better behavior on airplanes. That's after the break.
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Christopher Mims
Hi, I'm Christopher Mims. And I'm Tim Higgins. We're the hosts of the Wall Street Journal's Bold Names podcast. On our show, we bring the bold name companies featured in the pages of the Wall Street Journal to life through real conversations with the people that lead them. If you're looking for more news and insights that bring you inside the C Suite, consider becoming a subscriber to the Wall street journal. Visit subscribe.WSJ.com boldnames to subscribe now.
- [06:56]
Luke Vargas
The US could still strike Iran. As we mentioned on our PM show, officials have made it clear that option remains on the table. But as the Journal's Suna Rasmussen is here to discuss, should President Trump pull back from his threat of intervening on behalf of opponents of the regime, he wouldn't be the first to realize the limits of what missiles can accomplish. Suna, this historical framing of the current situation seems important. How does it factor into the White House's calculations about how to proceed?
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Suna Rasmussen
What we're hearing is that Trump wanted an option for a big US Strike, one that could potentially decapitate or severely damage the regime. But US Military intervention in Iran is quite complicated. And almost no matter what option Trump went for, whether it's a big spectacular strike against the government's facilities, whether it's a strike on security forces, on Iran's nuclear capabilities, no matter what it is, it is unclear what effect, if any, it would have on the ground and how it would change the power balance between protesters and the government.
- [07:57]
Luke Vargas
I mean, that's the key point, right? Because taking out a nuclear facility is one thing. With a missile or many of them, or bombs like we saw last year, changing a 40 year old regime is quite another.
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Suna Rasmussen
Yeah. And I think it's worth just keeping in mind what it actually takes to have a popular uprising succeed. And foreign intervention can certainly help push things along. But there are certain things that you need on the ground for uprising to succeed. You need the opposition to be united and organized around a common goal. Maybe you have that. Although organizing the opposition in Iran has been tricky in recent years of recent decades because the Iranian government has managed to arrest, marginalize, drive into exile a lot of leaders who could organize an opposition. And then you need the security establishment to fracture. That can either be the government, but can Also importantly be security forces. And we haven't seen any indication in Iran that that's happening this around. Trump is not the first president to face this conundrum. Barack Obama famously In 2009, during the Green Movement protest in Iran, did not intervene on behalf of protesters, even though there were some calls among protesters for him to support them. And he declined to do that, primarily because he didn't want to make it appear as if the US Was fomenting the uprising in Iran. And a very standard accusation by the Iranian government is that protesters in the streets of foreign agents or terrorists, and we've seen this this time around as and when people are arrested and they're tried in court, their punishment so much more severe can even entail the death penalty. So whether or not Trump intervenes on behalf of Iranian protesters, time will tell.
- [09:38]
Luke Vargas
Are there, though, other steps you're hearing about that could be more effective that the US could turn to right now?
- [09:43]
Suna Rasmussen
Yeah. One thing that Iranian activists have also called for is increased Internet access. We've had a weeks long, almost total Internet blackout in Iran, which means both that is very difficult for outside like us to get any sort of good transparency into the scope, the extent of the crackdown on protesters, where the protests are taking place, how big they are, et cetera. But it also makes it difficult for the demonstrators themselves to coordinate and be in touch. And this is a tactic we've seen Iranian security forces, the Iranian government, take in the past as well. Some analysts will say that a solution to this would be for Western governments and the private sector to come together and improve Internet access for Iranians. And Starlink has made moves to do this. So that's one approach they could take. You also have analysts saying that European governments, for example, should continue monitoring the human rights situation, continue sort of spreading awareness of what's actually happening on the ground, providing refuge for those Iranians who might have to flee the country. But those things don't change the fundamental dynamic on the ground, which is that currently you have a security establishment which is heavily armed and clearly not reluctant to kill its own people, and you have mostly unarmed population rising up against them being killed in very large numbers, larger numbers than we've seen in any public protest in Iran in the past. We've surpassed several thousand deaths in Iran now, according to sort of the most reliable estimates that we get.
- [11:15]
Luke Vargas
Journal Foreign correspondent Sooner Rasmussen, thank you as always for stopping by.
- [11:18]
Suna Rasmussen
Very welcome.
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Luke Vargas
In markets news today, Mitsubishi is splashing out more than $5 billion for shale assets in Texas and Louisiana the Japanese trading house is exploring portions of that LNG production could be exported to Asia and Europe. And Norway's Equinor has been given the green light to resume work on its massive Empire Wind project off Long Island. A federal judge ruled that harm to the company stemming from a construction halt ordered by the Trump administration outweighed national security concerns outlined by the government. The Interior Department, which oversees wind projects, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. And finally, does clothing influence how we act? The US Government seems to think so. As the holiday travel rush began last year, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued this reminder. Whether it's a pair of jeans and a decent shirt, I would encourage people to maybe dress a little better, which encourages us to maybe behave a little better. Let's try not to wear slippers and in pajamas as we come to the airport. The Golden Age of Travel starts with you campaign is the Transportation Department's attempt to recapture the glamour of aviation's heyday. The goal is less about being style police and more about improving unruly passenger behavior. But as Journal reporter Dean Seale points out, that doesn't mean people are listening.
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Dean Seale
The Federal Aviation Administration says in flight, outbursts ranging from disruptive behavior to outright Violence has risen 400% since 2019, with a big surge during the pandemic. Their quest for travelers to ditch their comfy clothes was largely met with eye rolls online comedians, TikTok influencers and other online commentators were quick to point out that travelers these days are dressing to endure lengthy flight delays, TSA pat downs and cramped seating on planes. Dressing to impress probably isn't going to make you any less stressed if you find yourself sleeping on the floor of an airport or crammed into a middle seat.
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Luke Vargas
So what do you normally wear at cruising altitude? Let us know in our Spotify poll. And that's it for what's news for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bock, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Otherwise, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.