Newell Brands has developed a playbook for making low-cost, high-volume products in the U.S., albeit one that takes long-term planning and hefty investment. 

The Wall Street Journal’s Natasha Khan writes that then-CFO and current CEO, Chris Peterson, in 2018 sought to find out whether Newell could keep from becoming obsolete compared with the Asian factories where many of its Sharpie markers were made. Now, most Sharpies are made at a Tennessee factory. Newell neither cut its employee count, nor raised prices. But it took nearly $2 billion of investment across the company, thousands of hours of training, centralizing the company’s supply chain and overhauling the production process.

Investments in robots and training allow the factory to make pens at three to four times its previous speed, Peterson says. The shift to the U.S. also allows Newell to fulfill orders more quickly, and reduce shipping costs. President Trump, who uses a custom Sharpie, has slapped tariffs on many imports to prompt more companies to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. But one analyst says few companies in the sector have the resources to replicate Newell’s move.

• Jeep-maker Stellantis plans about $10 billion of investment in the U.S. that could go to plants in states such as Illinois and Michigan, according to people familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg)

Aurubis just started up its first American facility in Georgia—the largest and most advanced multimetal recycling plant in the country, the German company says. The Journal’s Clara Hudson writes that the plant is coming online as the AI boom and the needs of everything from missile makers to auto companies are buoying demand.

Recycling could reduce the U.S.’s need for imports amid new tariffs, shifting trade policies and a technological race with China. Building a smelter for metal recycling is a lot faster than getting a mine up and running, Aurubis’s president and managing director says. One challenge is in making reclaimed copper to the very high standards required for electronics. And, despite bipartisan support for salvaging metals from waste, building widespread infrastructure for recycling is a work in progress.

• BlackRock’s new AI-infrastructure consortium is close to an agreement to acquire Aligned Data Centers for about $20 billion, people familiar with the matter said. (WSJ)
• Google said it will build a $4 billion data center on more than 1,000 acres in Arkansas. (WSJ)
• A multibillion-dollar deal to send Nvidia’s AI chips to the U.A.E., signed five months ago faces delays. (WSJ)
• U.S.-based Groq, which makes chips and software to run AI models, aims to establish more than a dozen data centers next year. (WSJ)

Spreading supply chains across regions can reduce business disruptions. But doing so can mean lots more work for compliance teams and higher cybersecurity risks, DHL’s Asia-Pacific chief of staff and strategy, Omera Khan, told a Journal House panel in Singapore, hosted by Dow Jones Risk Journal.

Until recently, the trend was to slim supply chains to boost economies of scale, said Shuhui Li, Carrier HVAC’s senior director of Asia-Pacific ethics and compliance. Now, competing and conflicting tariff policies and regulatory requirements between the U.S. and China, as well as new export restrictions, are heightening risk for businesses, encouraging diversification.

This is making the choice of whether to hire more people to handle the extra vetting requirements a hot topic right now, said Julie Mills, managing director of international, investigations and emerging sanctions for Citi’s Asia-Pacific region.

• Asahi Group’s Japanese beer production was largely offline due to a cyberattack, delaying shipments and new product launches. (WSJ)
• Customs offices were still clearing imported goods at ports and airports across the U.S. on Friday, despite the government shutdown, but delays were possible. (WSJ)
• Oregon’s Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said procedures to end the de minimis tariff exemption were inadequate, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. (Reuters)

Economic activity among U.S. services firms was unchanged last month, hurt by a pullback in business and weaker employment, the ISM’s monthly survey said. (WSJ)

French industrial production decreased by 0.7% in August, marking the fourth decline in five months. (WSJ)

Global food prices decreased slightly in September, driven by lower prices for sugar and dairy, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said. (WSJ)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Washington this week to advance talks on tariff relief on key sectors such as steel and cars. (WSJ)

The number of fast-charging ports in the U.S. increased by more than 80% in two years, reaching over 60,300 by August. (WSJ)

DP World reached an agreement to collaborate with PayPal on a digital-payments system for cross-border trade. (Gulf News)

Moran Towing acquired Bisso Towboat, of New Orleans, to bolster its Lower Mississippi River operations. (MarineLink)

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.