Huawei prosecution heads to trial after nearly eight-year wait
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy criticized Ford Motor’s business with Chinese automotive firms in a letter to Chief Executive Jim Farley that was made public Tuesday, saying the company’s “reliance on technologies of foreign adversaries” isn’t sustainable for America.
“While DOT recognizes the intense competitive pressures of the global market, the company’s recent strategic decisions paint a troubling picture of a foundational American brand actively intertwining its future with Chinese state-backed enterprises,” Duffy said in the letter.
The Morning Risk Report, a newsletter published by The Wall Street Journal, separately characterized the Justice Department’s prosecution of Huawei Technologies as a “long-simmering irritant” between Washington and Beijing. The Journal described Huawei as a “Chinese national champion.” The case is going to trial after a nearly eight-year wait dating to President Trump’s first term.
President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet in Washington later this month, with trade, artificial intelligence and the war in Iran among the contentious subjects the newsletter identified for the meeting.
In other items from the newsletter:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Utah can enforce its anti-gambling laws against Kalshi while litigation continues over whether the prediction-markets operator should be subject to state gambling laws. The court denied Kalshi’s request for a temporary stay, finding that the platform had not shown it would be irreparably harmed while a broader legal challenge over the state’s regulatory oversight proceeds.
Over a decade ago, Ohio lawmakers exempted tech companies from sales taxes on computer servers and other equipment needed for data centers, betting that changes worth millions of dollars would lure investment to the state. The exemption helped make Ohio one of the leading destinations for data centers, the Journal reported, and the artificial-intelligence boom later expanded the scale of the provision, pushing it to more than $1.5 billion last year — more than 10 times the original state estimate.
The Journal reported that voter outrage following coverage by Signal Ohio of the provision’s scale prompted Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to pause new applications for the sales-tax exemption in May. Some state lawmakers, including Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, want to repeal the exemption and renegotiate past deals with companies such as Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google that secured exemptions for decades by signing contracts with the state. The newsletter said exemptions for tech giants have exceeded $1 billion annually in several states.
The Justice Department has requested additional information from Fox Corp. and Roku as the companies work to complete a roughly $25 billion deal. Fox and Roku said Wednesday they would work cooperatively with the department, providing the requested information and documentary material. The companies continue to expect the acquisition to close in the first half of 2027.
The Treasury Department intends to buy back longer-term bonds Thursday, the newsletter said.
Dow Jones Global Horizons is scheduled for Sept. 14–16 at Christ Church, Oxford, with programming that the newsletter described as including expert-led conversations, off-the-record discussions, networking and dinners at Christ Church and Blenheim Palace. A 35 percent discount is available exclusively to Morning Risk Report subscribers; registration requests are subject to approval.
Analysts at Dutch bank ING said in a note to clients about the conflict in the Middle East that “Recent developments only reinforce the view that we’re still some way from a restart in talks. In the meantime, the market is likely to continue to price in a sizable risk premium.”