WSJ What’s News - The Tech Wizardry Needed to Stop Drones

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

A.M. Edition for Oct. 21. President Trump demolishes part of the White House as he begins construction on his new $250 million ballroom. Plus, WSJ editor Dan Michaels looks at some of the new tech including Spiderman-like nets that European countries are looking to buy, to keep drones at bay. And, we look at how millennial and Gen Z consumers are getting their hands on luxury - at a major discount. Caitlin McCabe hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. President Trump demolishes part of the White House for his new ballroom. Plus how new tech, including Spider-Man-esque nets, could keep drones at bay. And we look at why the stiffest competition facing luxury brands is the stuff they've already sold. The second-end luxury market has become too big for brands to ignore. They're growing much faster than for new products. It's Tuesday, October 21st. I'm Caitlin McCabe 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. President Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee will now only apply to new visa applicants living outside the country. The new guidance was published yesterday, explaining employers will need to pay the fee after their new hires visa is approved, allowing them to move to the U.S. Previously, the White House had said the fee would apply to all new visa applicants, except those who work for companies or industries that have secured a special waiver. According to government statistics, more than half of the 141,000 new H-1B visas issued in 2024 went to immigrants who were already in the U.S. on a different type of visa. We are exclusively reporting that the Treasury Department has instructed employees not to share photos of construction work on the new White House ballroom. This, after photos of demolition of parts of the East Wing's facade, went viral. Treasury's headquarters is located next to the East Wing, giving staff a front row seat.

Trump views the $250 million ballroom as an important part of his legacy. Since taking office, he has redecorated parts of the White House complex, including the Rose Garden, Oval Office, Palm Room, and Colonnade. Beyond the activity next door, Treasury has also been. been focused on a larger issue in recent days. How to pull off a $40 billion financial aid package for Argentina. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that would include a $20 billion private finance facility that could act as a backstop for Argentina's debt. But as we are exclusively reporting, some of America's biggest banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, are struggling to put together that $20 billion loan without leaving themselves too exposed to the

South American country. Here's markets reporter Chelsea Delaney. Their main concern is obviously getting paid back. $20 billion is a large loan, and Argentina has a long history of being a serial defaulter. They've defaulted nine times on their debt in the past. Chelsea says it's relatively unusual for private banks to be involved in a deal with a country facing so much financial distress, which is why the banks are wanting guidance from the Treasury Department on what kind of backstop is available to them? So the banks are looking for potentially a couple things. One is collateral. So in the past, in loans like this, you know, a country could pledge something like oil export revenues. They could pledge, you know, a stake and a state-owned company, just something that if they end up not being

able to pay back the loan, then they can go and try and seize some of that asset or some of those revenues. They also are looking at potentially having the Treasury Department pledge to back the loan as well. So again, if Argentina is unable to pay back that loan, then the Treasury Department would come in and make them good. A Treasury spokesman said discussions regarding the deal remain ongoing. Going now to Japan, where the country's first female prime minister, Senei Takeichi, was confirmed in a parliamentary vote today, giving the nation a new leader who advocates close ties with the U.S. and a stronger Japanese military. She is a hardline conservative from the ruling LDP.

That's the journal's Tokyo Bureau Chief, Jason Douglas. She's a Japanese nationalist. She was a close ally of the late Shenzhou Abe, who was a great friend of President Trump. She is someone who believes very strongly in fiscal expansionism and very expansionary monetary policies to get Japan motoring again. She's a hawk on China. She has something of an ideological affinity with Trump. So one of the things people are watching closely in Tokyo is how well she will get on with the U.S. president. Takeichi's election as prime minister comes days ahead of a possible visit to Japan by President Trump as he is expected to depart for Asia at the end of the week.

Tokyo hopes similar ideologies between both leaders will help heal ties that have been strained by Trump's push to reorder global trade. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine signaled yesterday that they remain far apart on a peace deal, even as President Trump turns his attention to the conflict after securing a ceasefire in the Middle East. They could still win it. I don't think they will, but they could still win it. I never said they would win it. I said they could win. Anything can happen. You know, war is a very strange thing. President Trump speaking there yesterday about Ukraine's prospects of winning the war, following what officials have described as a tense meeting between Trump and Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, last week. Officials from Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S. told the journal that Trump at times expressed frustration in his meeting with Zelensky and that he told the Ukrainian leader that he was eager to reach a quick settlement on the war,

regardless of the region's fate. According to officials, Trump said it wasn't a priority to return the Donbass region to Ukraine, noting that Russia already holds much of the territory. Ukrainian and European officials consider such a concession unacceptable. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump are expected to meet in Budapest for talks to end the war at a date that is yet to be announced. Coming up, as Europe faces an increasing threat from drones, a look at these startups racing to develop cheap, reliable systems to counter them.

That story and more after the break. When you support Movember, you're not just fundraising. You're showing up for the men you love. Your dad, your brother, your partner, your friends. It isn't just a men's issue. It's a human one. That's why Movember exists. To change the face of men's health.

From mental health and suicide prevention to prostate and testicular cancer research and early detection, Movember is tackling the biggest health issues facing men today. Join the movement and donate now at Movember.com. A new technology arms race is underway across the world. Startups from Silicon Valley to Europe are rushing to develop cheap, reliable systems to counter hostile drones. In recent months, drones are increasingly showing up over airports, cities, and military bases far from the battlefield in Ukraine, worrying local governments and causing significant disruptions to airspace. But intercepting these drones is hard, says the journal's Brussels Bureau chief, Dan Michaels, spurring many developers of the technology to get creative. Dan, how urgent has the need for this technology become?

This is very urgent because unlike some security concerns that are in the future or potential, this is happening now. Drones, as you say, are shown up over cities, military bases, airports across Western Europe, not just along the front line. We saw Russian drones going into Polish airspace and crashing. There have been drones in Munich over a military base in Copenhagen over the airport. it. So it is a clear and present danger. Got it. So clearly a very pressing need for this. But how easy is it to actually intercept these drones? That's the issue here. It's not at all easy. Listeners may be familiar with the Patriot anti-missile system, which is by all accounts a very impressive system, but that's designed to hit missiles that are following a steady, linear path. One difference with drones, aside from the

being much smaller, is that they can zig and zag and stop and start again, more like a tiny helicopter than a rocket. And even the best computer, which might be able to track a missile in flight, isn't going to know what a drone is going to do three seconds later. So there are a lot of very complicated technical challenges involved in just locating the drones to try to knock them out of the sky. And so, Dan, can you walk us through some of the tech that's been developed so far? Like with so many other situations, defense planners and engineers are trying to develop layers of systems to stop drones. The first thing you want to do is spot them far away and hit them as far away as possible. And for that, something kind of like a very small missile is

generally what is being developed or some kind of longer-range drone that itself hunts down and destroys another drone. Another type of system is like a small surface-to-air missile that has been used for decades in the military, which goes up in the sky and then explodes near its target, kind of like a grenade. One of the things that people design in counter drone systems have to figure in is collateral damage, because even if you can knock a drone out of the sky, you may destroy something on the ground when both the drone and the counter drone system come crashing down. So one system that a colleague of mine saw tested shoots a net to grab a drone and then land with it. The problem is for that system, you have to know exactly where the target is.

You have to be able to get close to it. So these are very complicated problems. And Dan, you have this really interesting story out about this. You make the point that NATO militaries are taking lessons from Ukraine on this, which has really been forced to innovate. anti-drone technology after years of war with Russia. Indeed, no one at this point knows more about detecting and countering drones than Ukraine because they've faced many thousands of Russian drones. And NATO countries are helping Ukraine defend itself. And one of the things they're getting in return is a lot of knowledge from Ukraine about what works and how quickly they need to adapt. NATO has set up an office in Poland to focus on learning from Ukraine.

And some of the Ukrainian drone and counter drone startups are working with Western European countries. Britain just recently announced that they're going to start making Ukrainian counter drone interceptors at a factory in England that will be shipped to Ukraine. And the British military learns from this. So this is becoming a two-way street on defense technology as the dangers that Ukraine has faced for a while are now spreading to the West. That's the Journal's Brussels Bureau Chief Dan Michaels. Dan, thanks so much for joining us. Good to talk with you. Thanks. And while the tech and defense sectors may be enjoying strong sales, the outlook is less rosy for high-end brands like Louis Vuitton, Chloe, and Gucci. Sales of new luxury goods are in a slump at the moment, and heard on the street columnist Carol Ryan says brands really need to win back young.

and middle-class shoppers in particular. But that might not be so easy. The problem is a lot of these shoppers have gone over to second-hand now. And last year, there was around $55 billion worth of second-hand luxury goods sold. And the market, it's growing at about 10% a year now. It's partly because it's become so easy to buy and sell, use luxury on big specialist resell websites like the Real, fashion file, investier collective. And people are really in the mood for bargains at the moment.

They feel cautious about the job market. Luxury brands also raise their prices too much during the pandemic. So shoppers are heading to second out market and they're finding the goods they want at a 10, 20 or 30 percent discount to the prices in brand stores. And as Carol explains, Gen Z and millennial shoppers spent about $8 billion less on new luxury goods than they did in 2023, creating a real dent in income for brands. But there are ways to get them back. The date in the resale market can also be gold dust for the luxury brands.

and they're getting a bit smart about using the information from resale websites to boost their own sales. For example, if they see one of their old handbag designs is becoming really popular again on resale websites being traded quite heavily, they can reissue it to cash in and the buzz. And we've already seen this happen this year with the Chloe Paddington Bag and the Balenciaga City bag. And that's it for What's News for this Tuesday morning. Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal.

We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening.