China Braves the Ice to Unlock New Arctic Trade Route

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:34)

President Trump hits pause on new Canada tariffs at the last minute, buying more time for trade talks. Plus, OpenAI's second-quarter sales disappoint, and a Chinese cargo ship sets sail for the Arctic in a move that could upend global trade.

Sune Engel Rasmussen (0:50)

The prospects of profits are real, and I think in 5, 10, 20 years, the Arctic will be in a much more viable shipping route than it is today.

Luke Vargas (0:59)

It's Wednesday, August 19th. 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.

President Trump says he is holding off on imposing new 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods for three days while the two countries hammer out a new agreement. The levies would have hit about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods ranging from hockey sticks and electronics to plastics and building materials. The Journal's Canada correspondent, Amanda Coletta, says the new tariffs would have also risked sparking a fresh trade war between the North American neighbors.

SPEAKER_1 (1:39)

Economists estimated that the impact of the tariffs would have likely been limited because they would have applied to about 5% of Canada's exports to the United States. Still, they would have deepened economic uncertainty and already weak economic growth and made it more difficult for Canada to attract private sector investment. A survey this month from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found that 2 in 5 Canadian exporters to the United States sold products targeted by the tariffs. Among them, more than three quarters said they expected their revenues to fall if the tariffs were imposed. The threat of new tariffs intensified trade talks between Canada and the United States, which had been largely stalled since the fall.

In the last several weeks, Canadian officials had camped out in Washington to hammer out a deal that would stave off the new levies and ease existing tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.

In exchange, Canada proposed making several concessions, including widening access to its dairy market and pressing the leaders of Canada's provinces to lift their bans on US alcohol in government-run liquor stores. Polls show that most Canadians favor taking a more hard-line approach in trade talks with the US rather than making more concessions and rushing to get a quick deal. And Prime Minister Mark Carney has long said that no deal is better than a bad deal. Late last week, people briefed on the discussions said the sides were far apart in a deal, but they ultimately managed to bridge some gaps before the deadline.

Luke Vargas (3:01)

In a social media post, President Trump also said that the Keystone XL pipeline quote, may be awoken from the grave. The Canadian government had supported the expansion of the project to carry crude from Western Canada to the US., but it had drawn opposition from American landowners, environmentalists and indigenous groups. The pipeline has long been a sore spot in bilateral relations. President Joe Biden revoked a permit that was issued by Trump in his first term for it to proceed.

While Washington's relationship with Ottawa remains frosty, President Trump is hoping for warmer relations with Pyongyang. We are exclusively reporting that Trump is pushing aids for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as soon as this fall. US officials said Trump has privately discussed setting up an in-person discussion with Kim during the president's next trip to Asia as he hopes to revive a diplomatic quest from his first term to convince Kim to abandon his country's nuclear weapons program. A White House official said that Trump and Kim would meet at an appropriate time while North Korea's UN mission didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Turning to yesterday's Florida primaries now, Trump ally representative Byron Donalds has prevailed in a Republican primary to succeed governor Ron DeSantis, beating DeSantis' own lieutenant governor by a wide margin. Donalds will now face off against former representative David Jolly, a one-time Republican who switched parties after breaking with the president. In other Florida races, former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz won a primary in a new congressional district after her prior district was redrawn to be more friendly to Republicans. And Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon upset Alex Vindman, who'd played a role in Trump's first impeachment to earn a chance to vie for Marco Rubio's former Senate seat. Here was Nixon celebrating her victory courtesy of NBC News.