Ford and other American automakers asked for relief from aluminum tariffs after fires at a major U.S. producer created supply bottlenecks for the F-150 pickup and other vehicles. So far, the Trump administration has rebuffed those requests, according to people familiar with the talks.

The WSJ’s Gavin Bade, Bob Tita and Ryan Felton report that Ford petitioned the Trump administration for relief from the duties at least until Novelis’ Oswego plant returns to full service after fires last fall. Ford relied on the plant for the aluminum exterior of its F-150 truck, the longtime best-selling automobile in the country.

Novelis, a unit of India’s Hindalco Industries, has been making up for the lost Oswego output with imported metal, which is subject to a 50% duty, the cost of which is passed on to automakers. A White House official said automakers had raised supply concerns, but hadn’t requested tariff relief “in a particularly pronounced way.”

Ships stuck in the Persian Gulf since the Iran war started are preparing to leave after the cease-fire deal calling for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened temporarily. More than 800 are stuck inside the gulf, the Journal’s Costas Paris writes.

The terms for safe passage are still unclear, and what has become known in the shipping world as the “Tehran Toll Booth” wasn’t expected to close immediately. Nevertheless, owners are moving to free up their ships, with the priority being to get out loaded tankers.

Despite the cease-fire, the Iranian navy on Wednesday morning told ships anchored near the strait that they still required Iran’s permission to cross it, the WSJ’s Rebecca Feng reports. A message radioed to vessels and heard by WSJ said ships trying to transit the strait without the Iranian Sepah navy’s clearance would be destroyed. The Sepah is a special operations unit under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Prices for war-risk cover on ships are set to remain at many multiples of their peacetime levels, at least in the near term, according to insurance brokers, who added they don’t expect shipping volumes to return to normal anytime soon, Jean Eaglesham writes.

• U.S. crude oil futures posted their biggest drop since 2020, stock futures surged and government bond yields sank after President Trump said he had agreed to the cease-fire. (WSJ)
• China capped domestic fuel price increases to cushion consumers from energy-driven inflation due to the Iran war. (WSJ)

Community backlash against the building of new AI data centers is spreading across the country, with lawmakers in more than 10 states proposing temporary bans on construction this year. Dozens of county and city governments have already passed such measures, the Journal’s Max Rust and Will Parker write.

Virginia and Texas lead the country in data-center construction, with 579 and 411 server farms, respectively, according to the industry website Data Center Map.

Above is a map of bans that have been proposed or passed, though it may not include every such proposal that exists. Community activists in rural areas also are ramping up their fights against data-center development, at times using AI to help speed up their volunteer work, the WSJ’s Clara Hudson writes.

• Elon Musk’s Terafab project is joining with Intel to design, fabricate, and package chips for SpaceX, xAI and Tesla. (WSJ)
• Specialist investor NOVA Infrastructure has amassed $1.45 billion to back midsize operators of assets such as data centers, battery projects and water-management systems. (WSJ)

• U.S. durable goods orders fell 1.4% in February from January, according to the Commerce Department. (WSJ)
• Air India CEO Campbell Wilson is stepping down, as the nation’s flag carrier grapples with continuing losses following a deadly crash last year. (WSJ)
• Companies are expected to spend $53 billion on supply-chain software powered by agentic AI by 2030, up from $2 billion last year, according to Gartner. (SupplyChain24/7)
• Ukraine said it hit Russia's port of Ust-Luga in the Baltic, the latest strike on the country's oil-export infrastructure. (Bloomberg)
• Production and shipments of Apple’s first foldable iPhone could be delayed following engineering-test setbacks. (Nikkei Asia)
• Towt, a French shipping company seeking to revive transport of cargo by sail, filed for bankruptcy, citing vessel-delivery delays and U.S. tariffs. (Le Télégramme)
• Union-represented pilots at Air Transport Services Group unit Air Transport International ratified a new four-year collective bargaining agreement. (Air Cargo News)
• Truckstop said in a news release that it acquired Wize Load, which connects open-deck, flatbed and specialized carriers for oversize cargo.
• The U.S. Surface Transportation Board rejected CSX’s bid for on-dock service to the Port of Virginia’s Norfolk International Terminals, siding with Norfolk Southern. (Journal of Commerce)
• An explosion of a fuel truck at the Bridge of the Americas over the Panama Canal killed one person and may have affected the integrity of the decades-old span. (Associated Press)
• International Motors is selling its plant in Springfield, Ohio, to Canada’s Roshel, ending production of the Traton unit’s CV Series of trucks. (Transport Topics)

Mark R. Long is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at mark.long@wsj.com. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team on LinkedIn: Mark R. Long, Liz Young and Paul Berger.