Chapter 1: Will President Trump order a military strike on Iran?
Will President Trump order a military strike on Iran? Is he stepping back? Maybe.
There is a chance that this is an off-ramp and he takes it. It's also a chance that it's a delay tactic. And there's also a chance that he's good now, but if Iran continues its crackdown, he's not good later.
Plus, Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota. And why a new way to extract copper could help feed the data center boom. It's Thursday, January 15th. I'm Alex Ocele for The Wall Street Journal.
Chapter 2: What factors influence Trump's decision on Iran military action?
This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. It's been a busy day for the Trump administration. President Trump has been weighing attacking Iran, where the government has met widespread demonstrations with a heavy crackdown. Today, we're reporting that U.S.
and Middle Eastern officials told the White House that a large-scale strike against Iran was unlikely to make the government fall and could instead spark a broader conflict. U.S. officials said they will monitor how Tehran handles protesters before deciding on a potential attack. WSJ national security reporter Alex Ward says there are other reasons why President Trump may be easing off.
Countries in the region are concerned about this moving forward because they don't want to see a lot of volatility in their region. Trump seems to be signaling that as long as the crackdown on protesters doesn't go forward, he's good.
Chapter 3: How does the Insurrection Act relate to current events in Minnesota?
But we can't forget that last June he announced to the world after the Wall Street Journal reported he had made the decision to attack that he was actually open to two weeks of diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program and instead went ahead and attacked Iran anyway. I'm talking to certain officials who are telling me it's possible.
They don't know for sure, but it's possible that Trump is stalling for time because there are certain amounts of military assets that he would like to see in the region that we currently don't have that could, if he were to order it, lead to a much broader scale attack on Iran and help the U.S. protect not only troops in the region, but also allies like Israel.
Today, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt suggested that military action wasn't off the table. The president and his team have communicated to the Iranian regime that if the killing continues, there will be grave consequences. She added that, quote, only President Trump knows what he's going to do.
Trump is expected to order the Pentagon to send the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier from the South China Sea to the Middle East, a trip that would take about a week. That's according to U.S. officials and a person familiar with the move.
Chapter 4: What new developments are there in the U.S. copper industry?
Meanwhile, in Iran, the government's crackdown has forced demonstrators off the streets in some cities, although human rights groups say it's not totally clear what's happening due to the internet shutdown. Analysts say the quiet is likely temporary. In the Caribbean this morning, U.S. forces seized another oil tanker.
The Trump administration has now captured six ships in its campaign against the dark fleet that transports sanctioned oil around the world. Back home, President Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act against Minnesota. He said today on social media that he'd make a move if local officials don't stop the, quote, professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking ICE.
WSJ national political reporter Ken Thomas says the Insurrection Act has rarely been used in the modern era.
It's a law from 1807 that allows the president to use the military for civilian law enforcement purposes on U.S. soil under a narrow set of circumstances.
Chapter 5: How is Amazon impacting the U.S. copper market?
It's been used a few dozen times in our nation's history, but it's been exceedingly rare in modern history. We saw it used in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement, but we have not seen it used since 1992 to deal with the civil unrest in the Los Angeles area. after the acquittal of four police officers and the beating of Rodney King. Now, it's important to note that President George H.W.
Bush did this at the request of California's governor at the time, Pete Wilson.
Ken says it's not clear that Trump will go forward with invoking the Insurrection Act. If he does, it could face a number of legal challenges.
I think you would see opponents argue that he is fabricating an insurrection when it doesn't exist. I think you would also see legal opponents make the case that this is constituting an abuse of power or a bad faith effort to try to suppress dissent for political reasons, not to try to enforce federal law or to protect civil rights.
The key thing here is that this has been used in our country's history, but not recently.
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Chapter 6: What innovative mining techniques are being used in Arizona?
And so any legal challenge would be plowing through new ground here.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, made a direct appeal to Trump on social media today, asking him to turn down the temperature. He's urged demonstrators to protest peacefully. And the White House today released a health care framework called the Great Health Care Plan.
It aims to codify executive actions Trump has taken on addressing health care costs, such as lowering prescription drug prices. Passing such legislation is likely to face hurdles in Congress. Strong earnings from investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and chipmaker TSMC lifted markets today.
And BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, said its assets topped $14 trillion for the first time. The Dow led gains today in the major indexes, closing up 0.6%. Coming up, an Arizona mine that is a proving ground for the U.S.
Chapter 7: How is the demand for copper linked to the AI data center boom?
copper industry lands a major new customer, basketball's expanding game-rigging scandal, and what was behind yesterday's Verizon outage. That's after the break. An Arizona copper mine, the first new source of U.S. copper in more than a decade, has landed its first major customer. It's Amazon, which needs the medal for its AI data centers.
Ryan Dezember, who covers commodities for the journal, is here to tell us more about the mine and what the Amazon deal means for the U.S. copper industry. So, Ryan, we've seen copper prices hit record after record recently. What is driving this demand?
So there's a problem brewing in copper where we won't have enough.
Chapter 8: What are the implications of the basketball betting scandal?
We need, globally, a tremendous amount of copper. And that's because a lot of different things are happening. We have this move to improve the power grid, expand it, make it able to handle electric vehicles. You have countries in the developing world where people are getting air conditioning and refrigerators and appliances for the first time. And then you have this AI boom.
These data centers are... Basically giant buildings filled with copper. Every wire circuit board component has copper in it to move the electrons around. So they have a tremendous appetite for copper.
And then, of course, President Trump has imposed a 50 percent import tax on copper products. How is that affecting things?
Well, that's making things like wire and pipe more expensive to bring into the country. So there's really been a focus on how do we produce more of the stuff within the U.S. The problem is a lot of that material needs to be sent abroad to be processed into useful forms that manufacturers can use and then brought back.
So there's a lot of effort into figuring out ways to produce ready-to-use copper in the U.S.,
That brings us directly to this mine in Arizona. So you write that it's using some new mining techniques. What are those and why is it important to this industry?
It's a relatively small mine, but it's important because a company called Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest miners, is basically running an industrial-scale trial of a new technology they've developed where they add bacteria to the acid that's normally poured over mines. certain copper ores to extract the copper in solution. The resulting copper cathodes are like pure copper.
They're ready to go. They can sell them right to automakers or tech firms for their data centers or companies that are making plumbing parts and pipe. So if Rio's successful, it's the sort of technology that they can take to a lot of other mines. They're trying to see if they can take this cocktail of bacteria they've developed and make copper out of stuff that was essentially waste.
This could potentially open up a lot of that material to become useful stuff for us.
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