Are Higher Oil Prices the New Normal?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:34)

Signs of progress in the Senate has lawmakers pushed to fund the TSA, plus oil rebounds as traders assess potential long-term hits to global energy supplies.

Jorge León (0:44)

Before the conflict, refinery runs in the Middle East were around 26 million barrels per day. Right now, we think the refinery rounds is close to 16 million barrels per day.

Luke Vargas (0:55)

And the EU and Australia INCA free trade deal as the world's middle powers link up. It's Tuesday, March 24th. 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. Senators say they are closing in on a deal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, including the TSA, as security lines continue to grow at airports nationwide. Carved out of the potential agreement, according to Democratic senators, would be funding for an ICE division that carries out immigrant arrests and deportations. Delaware Democrat Chris Coons said the deal would broadly require ICE to wear body cameras and display identification, though it's not clear if it would address other core Democratic demands, including a ban on agents wearing masks. Meanwhile, the Senate has approved President Trump's choice to succeed Kristi Noem at DHS in a largely party-line vote.

SPEAKER_5 (1:54)

The ayes are 54, the nays are 45 The nomination of Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma to be Secretary of Homeland Security is confirmed.

Luke Vargas (2:02)

Mullen will face the task of pushing for a deal to reopen his agency and balancing the president's desire to deport large numbers of immigrants with a shift to a more low-profile enforcement style. Mullen's swearing in is scheduled for this afternoon. The Pentagon is once again limiting press access, including rehousing credentialed reporters outside of the building and requiring that they have escorts when inside. The restrictions come after a federal judge on Friday ruled that prior limits on reporters' access to the Pentagon were unconstitutional, including forcing reporters to sign a document restricting their communication with military sources.

The Defense Department has said it plans to appeal that ruling. Meanwhile, the DOD is set to meet face-to-face with Anthropic in court today in a dispute over the military's labeling of the company as a supply chain risk. The spat between the sides spilled out in public last month after Anthropic drew red lines around the use of its AI tools in mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, leading President Trump to call it a radical left woke company and direct every federal agency to immediately stop the use of its technology. Journal tech reporter Heather Somerville told us about the court fight to come.

SPEAKER_6 (3:13)

We are expecting to hear Anthropic talk about how the Pentagon has retaliated against it for free speech and its speech should be protected under the First Amendment. It's going to talk about how the Pentagon's behavior and actions have already detrimentally impacted its business and its ability to raise money from investors has been negatively impacted. What the US government has said in its response is that it is well within its right. It has the discretion to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk and that the government's actions are not retaliatory. They have nothing to do with free speech, but they have to do with this building mistrust of Anthropic and a fear that Anthropic, if it has access to the Pentagon's wartime infrastructure, can meddle with the AI models, can put limitations on its technology, can create changes to the AI that's been deployed that will negatively affect US national security.

Luke Vargas (4:15)

Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been hit by a barrage of missiles this morning as Iran launched fresh attacks. That comes after President Trump said the US military would stop strikes on Iranian power plants for five days following what he called productive talks with Tehran. Iran has denied the talks were taking place according to state media but acknowledged that countries in the region were trying to get diplomacy going. At the same time, Journal Middle East editor Andrew Dowell says that Gulf countries are weighing whether to get more involved in the fighting.

SPEAKER_2 (4:48)

The Gulf's a little bit of two minds here. They've obviously been hurt very badly by the war and they don't want it to continue by the same token. They don't want it to end where Iran is in, for lack of a better phrase, a position of power, certainly where Iran has more influence over the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway than it had coming into the war. So in the background, the Gulf is pressing the US very hard to keep going and finish the job so that Iran doesn't come out of this still able to pose a threat. On the other hand, they are participating in the process with talks to make sure that they head in the right direction and also just because they do eventually want to end to the war. And obviously, diplomacy will have to be a part of that.