WSJ What’s News - Trump Plans to Deploy the National Guard to D.C.

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

P.M. Edition for Aug. 11. Speaking from the White House this morning, the president compared the homicide rate in Washington with capitals around the world and said he would also put D.C. police under federal control. Plus, 50% tariffs on aluminum imports went into effect in June, and beverage, auto and manufacturing companies are hurting. Ryan Dezember, who covers commodities for the Journal, discusses how the U.S. aluminum industry’s answer to boosting the domestic supply of aluminum might currently be in your recycling bin. And Ford Motor has announced a $2 billion investment in a Louisville, Kentucky factory to build high-tech, affordable electric vehicles. WSJ reporter Sharon Terlep discusses how that might help the company take on the makers of cheap Chinese electric vehicles. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump plans to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and take over the city's police department. Plus, how recycling your beer can may help keep auto prices down and beat aluminum tariffs. If we started recycling, like, all those cans we throw away, the industry folks think that we could reduce imports by 25 to 50%. And at least one person has been killed and dozens injured after an explosion at a U.S. steel plant in Pennsylvania. It's Monday, August 11th. I'm Alex Oso-Left for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. President Trump said today that he would deploy National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and place the city's police department under federal control, launching an unprecedented effort to take charge of the nation's

capital. During a news conference at the White House, where he was flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hakesheth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and other senior administration officials. The president compared the homicide rate in Washington with capitals around the world, including Bogota, Columbia. I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we're going to take our capital back.

We're taking it back. Trump said roughly 800 D.C. National Guard troops would be deployed to the city. He added that he would call in active duty military troops if needed and suggested he might attempt to take similar action in other U.S. cities. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump's decision to exert control over the city unsettling and unprecedented, and she objected to the use of the National Guard in the city. Justice Department data show that violent crime in Washington was down 35 percent last year from 2023, the lowest in more than 30 years.

The data showed a decline in homicides, robberies, armed carjackings, and assault with a dangerous weapon. A president has never asserted emergency power over the D.C. police before. But Congress has occasionally intervened in D.C. affairs. A city government financial crisis prompted Congress to create a financial oversight board in 1995, giving it authority to override decisions by local officials. The board ceased operation in 2001 after the city had several years, of balanced budgets. Ford Motor says it has an answer to the cheap Chinese electric vehicles that are gobbling

up market share around the world. The company announced today that it plans to spend $2 billion to overhaul a factory in Louisville, Kentucky to build a new line of affordable high-tech EVs. One of the first models the company is planning to roll off that assembly line is a $30,000 electric pickup for U.S. consumers, which had intends to launch in 2027. For more, I'm joined now by WS.J. reporter Sharon Turlip, who is on her way back from visiting that Ford factory in Louisville. So, Sharon, how is this new EV pickups expected to challenge those Chinese competitors?

Ford says they're overhauling both the way this truck is built and the way it's made with the goal of making an electric truck that has a lot of features, has a lot of technology, is nice to drive, but also is affordable in the realm of EVV. Sharon, we had you on the show last week talking about how the Trump administration is really rolling back some of the regulations against internal combustion engines and how Detroit is like really loving it. So how does that fit in with this priority of having these affordable EVs? If you talk to Ford, if you talk to many other auto executives, they'll say EVs eventually will be the future. And the issue that they had with the regulations is that they are not making EVs profitable. right now. They're not something consumers are willing to pay for right now. So right now,

they're able to make a lot of money on big trucks and SUVs, but it's a balancing act because they also believe that down the road, and we already are seeing this happen in markets all over the world outside of the U.S., EVs are becoming a bigger and bigger part of what people are driving. So how much of a risk is this really for Ford to take this on? It's a big risk. The CEO, Jim Farley, underscore that. I actually asked him what the biggest risk was, and he kind of ticked off the whole list of things that they're doing differently in this vehicles in terms of things that could possibly go wrong, because a lot of these things are new for Ford. And it's a big investment. They're spending $2 billion on this factory. They are spending $3 billion to develop the battery

that will power this line of vehicles. Ford lost $5 billion last year on EVs, and they've said they expect to lose even more than that this year. So already EVs have driven big losses, and so they need to turn it around. That was WSJ reporter Sharon Turlip. U.S. markets close slightly lower today. The S&P 500 slipped about a quarter of a percent. The NASDAQ lost 0.3 percent, and the Dow fell by about half a percent. Gold prices were down following Trump's declaration that there would be no tariff on gold bars.

President Trump has signed an executive order, extending the deadline for higher tariffs on China until November 9th. That's according to a White House official. Tariffs on China were set to rise tomorrow, but Trump's order extends the deadline for 90 days, allowing time for further negotiations and a potential meeting between the U.S. president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this fall. Coming up, how the U.S. aluminum industry is looking to reduce its reliance on imports.

That's after the break. Searchlight Pictures presents. The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things Comes The Roses, starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman, Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Samburg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney. A hilarious new comedy filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred,

proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. In June, President Trump raised the tariff on aluminum imports from 25% to 50%. It's already walloping beverage, auto, and manufacturing companies. And though U.S. primary aluminum production has dwindled over the past 25 years, companies are finding other creative ways to avoid the additional cost. Ryan, December, covers commodities for the journal and joins me now. Ryan, how are the companies that use aluminum affected by this? So basically they're going to have to pay a lot more if they use primary aluminum.

So far, we haven't seen big headline increases, and it'll probably vary by industry. Analysts say that things like RVs and electric cars that use a lot of aluminum proportionally, those probably you'll see more costs passed on. You might see prices rise to the point where the companies are worried about demand destruction. It's probably not going to affect much the price of like your six-pack. But we'll see. Molson Coors came out and said they're going to be paying. somewhere between 40 and 55 million this year in the added premium for U.S. aluminum.

Where would these companies get aluminum before this tariff became a problem? One of the biggest suppliers of aluminum to the U.S. is Canada. And the reason for that is Quebec has these massive hydro dams, very cheap power. The U.S. was long a big producer of aluminum. Basically, commercial production began here. The U.S. dominated for over 100 years. Around 2000, though, utilities stopped providing cheap power. So the aluminum companies focused on producing primary aluminum, meaning from refined

bauxite. So Canada was the answer. Of course, that relationship is frayed very seriously in this administration, and the Canadian production is being tariffed. So there's not a ton of U.S. production. In fact, the U.S. produces about as much primary aluminum by weight as the amount of aluminum cans that we throw away into landfills every year. So if the U.S. used to have this industry, why not just bring it back?

Well, the smelters, they're there, but the power costs too much. About 40% of the cost of making primary aluminum is electricity. There's also a lot of natural gas involved. So it just doesn't work at that price. So if primary production isn't going to get the industry to cover the needs of these companies, what is the answer here? So aluminum executives and analysts say we should use the metal that's already here in our trash cans. When you recycle aluminum, you make something called secondary aluminum, and it's a lot

cheaper because you're not causing a chemical reaction to create the metal. It's more of a sorting and melting situation. So it uses a lot less electricity. It's feasible. The plants can be built in a couple years as opposed to five or six or more. The prices are like in the hundreds of millions, as opposed to several billion dollars for a smelter. So they say that's really the way to go. You need primary aluminum production and the purity involved for a few things, some military, some high-tech applications. But for your typical soda can or auto part, you can use that making a recycled aluminum. That was Wall Street Journal reporter, Ryan December. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you.

President Trump's tariffs on chips could disrupt the global electronics trade and send prices of all kinds of goods upward. One thing it appears unlikely to do, bring advanced chip making roaring back in the U.S. WS.J. heard on the street columnist Asa Fitch told our Tech News Briefing podcast why that's the case. When Trump lead out this 100% chip tariff plan last week, he said that there would be exemptions for companies that invest a lot of money in the U.S. Now, all the large chip makers have already invested tons of money in the U.S. So they've already passed that bar. And that means that they likely, based on the language that Trump used, will get exemptions.

So there's no further incentive for these chip companies to build upon their existing manufacturing operations, the U.S., based on these tariffs, because the tariffs are gone. If anything, these companies are more incentivized to import stuff tariff-free from other parts of the world where it's cheaper to produce chips than to make them here in the U.S. So there's a little bit of a mismatch of the stated intent of these tariffs and the actual effect of them, at least as they appear so far to have been outlined. And granted, that is kind of vague. To hear more from ESA, listen to tomorrow's episode of Tech News Briefing.

An explosion at a U.S. steel facility in Pennsylvania this morning killed at least one person and injured dozens more. State officials and emergency workers were responding to Clareton Coke Works in Clareton, Pennsylvania, roughly 15 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Footage from local media appeared to show a pillar of gray smoke rising from the site of a significant blast. County officials said that two people were unaccounted for in addition to the person confirmed dead. Residents living within one mile of the plant were advised by local health officials to remain indoors and close all windows and doors, quote, out of an abundance of caution. U.S. Steel said the company's top priority is employee and environmental safety. And finally, a federal judge has dedicated.

denied the Justice Department's bid to release grand jury materials from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein Associate Galane Maxwell, saying the request didn't meet the high bar to make the secret materials public. The department and a lawyer from Maxwell didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon. In case you missed it, we've got a bonus episode out today. In What's News and Earnings, we're looking at the earnings reports of some asset managers and discuss why their shares have lagged the broader market and what could reverse that? You'll find it in your what's news feed just before this podcast. Today's show was produced by Charlotte Gartenberg with the supervising

producer Michael Cosmites. I'm Alex Ocelo for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with the new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.