China tightened its control over sectors crucial to making high-tech products including EVs and jet fighters. The Wall Street Journal’s Hannah Miao writes that the move threatens to reignite trade tensions with the U.S. ahead of an expected meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

China’s Commerce Ministry said foreign suppliers must obtain approval from Beijing to export some products with certain rare-earth materials originating from China if they account for 0.1% or more of the good’s total value. Goods produced with certain technologies from China are also subject to the export controls. Both restrictions apply to products manufactured outside of China.

Licenses related to semiconductors or AI development will be granted on a case-by-case basis. The ministry also said it would require licenses for exports of certain lithium batteries and some equipment and materials used to make them, expanding restrictions on technology used in EVs and consumer electronics.

• GM is bringing back its Chevrolet Bolt with a new model priced at just under $30,000 that will be assembled in Kansas City, Kan. (WSJ)
• Ferrari showed off the technology that will power its first fully electric vehicle, but shares plunged on a cautious long-term forecast. (WSJ)

A small containership is due to arrive in the U.K. next week having sailed from China via Russia’s Northern Sea Route. Ed Ballard writes in WSJ’s Climate & Energy newsletter (subscribe here) that the arrival of the Chinese-operated Istanbul Bridge in Felixstowe will mark a new chapter for Arctic intrigue, but probably won’t herald a new era for global trade.

Chinese battery giant CATL, which dispatched products on the ship, says the route doesn’t reflect its long-term logistics strategy. And it will be many years before the Arctic makes a serious dent in the enormous volumes of shipping from Asia to Europe. Operating in the region remains hazardous and expensive, and while the shipping lane is typically viable in an August-to-October window, mobile ice floes heed no timetable.

• The U.S. will buy four Arctic-capable icebreakers from Finland as part of a larger deal worth $6.1 billion that includes the construction of seven of the vessels in America with Finnish assistance. (CNN)

Smaller, smarter and cheaper “cobots”—collaborative robots—are bringing automation to all sizes of fabricators, enabling the slow, fragile recovery of U.S. goods production,

The Journal’s Chistopher Mims writes that renewed push to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and demand for industrial goods to power AI are driving automation adoption. Dozens of companies in the U.S. now offer manufacturers specialized welding cobots, for instance.

These are part of a trend of robots using sensors to safely navigate human environments. This was essential to the rise of Amazon and its superfast fulfillment, and now it is coming to manufacturing.

• German exports unexpectedly declined by 0.5% in August, hampered by weaker European trade and tariff uncertainty. (WSJ)
• Auto-parts supplier First Brands, which collapsed into bankruptcy after the discovery of accounting irregularities, is facing a Justice Department criminal probe, people familiar with the matter said. (WSJ)
• Orsted will cut a quarter of its workforce by 2027 and focus on offshore wind in Europe, as the Trump administration pulls back on renewable energy in the U.S. (WSJ)
• Levi Strauss raised its fiscal-year outlook after posting higher quarterly sales, as a focus on direct-to-consumer business gained traction. (WSJ)
• Daimler Truck and Toyota Motor said the new business combining their Japanese truck units will be called Archion, with manufacturing to be consolidated into three sites from five by the end of 2028. (WSJ)
• Delta Air Lines posted a 19% year-over-year rise in quarterly cargo operating revenue to $233 million, and expects premium seat sales to overtake economy sales by 2027. (WSJ)
• Agillence said in a news release that Rivian Automotive chose its software to support the planning of parts logistics networks.
• The California Energy Commission granted the Port of Long Beach $20 million for its plan to build a 400-acre terminal to serve offshore wind farms. (Long Beach Press-Telegram)
• Walmart plans to deploy 90 million Bluetooth sensors called Pixels across its inventory by the end of 2026, in partnership with technology firm Wiliot. (Supermarket News)
• The amount of containerized cargo transiting the Panama Canal’s locks in fiscal year 2025 was down 21% from last year, and the lowest since fiscal 2016. (Lloyd’s List)

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.