American companies looking to reset their supply chains are finding it hard to avoid China. Trade data, corporate announcements and new academic research show that a large portion of the products shipped to the U.S. from places such as Southeast Asia and Mexico are being made in factories owned by Chinese companies. Many other goods finished in smaller countries are being made with key inputs from Chinese suppliers. The WSJ’s Stella Yifan Xie reports that the realities underscore the challenge in disentangling the U.S. from China’s colossal manufacturing machine. Far from decoupling, some supply chains connecting the U.S. and China have merely added another link or two, adding complexity and cost. In part that is because Chinese business owners are pouring money into operations in smaller countries, so that when Americans buy from factories in places such as Thailand, sometimes they are actually buying from Chinese companies.

• Ocean, air cargo, rail and trucking carriers are launching new services and adjusting their networks to meet shifting global trade flows. (Supply Chain Dive)

North Carolina is looking beyond the more familiar automakers in its effort to spur electric-vehicle manufacturing. The state has provided more than a billion dollars in incentives and landed VinFast Auto, a Vietnamese upstart with big ambitions but a limited record. The WSJ’s Jon Emont and Dave Sebastian report that VinFast has lost more than $5.8 billion since 2020 and that the six-year-old company sold only around 10,000 EVs globally through the first six months of the year, with most of them going to a taxi company owned by its parent, Vingroup. The government backing of the carmaker highlights the bold bets being taken to establish domestic clean-energy supply chains. VinFast hasn’t received federal loans but it is benefiting from state and county incentives that include grant payments and several hundred million dollars of state money to improve roads and infrastructure near its new factory site.

• New York state is joining chip companies to invest $10 billion in a semiconductor research facility that is set to attract advanced chip-making equipment. (WSJ)
• Vietnamese officials say Nvidia is scaling up its investment in semiconductor manufacturing in the country. (Barron’s)
• Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing is placing a plant in Japan as it expands its automotive chip business. (Nikkei Asia)

At Hyundai’s electric-vehicle plant in Singapore, robotic arms assemble cars in specialized cells while roaming robots monitor the procedure. It’s a new method of automaking taking place in smaller, more flexible “microfactories.” A WSJ Video report looks at how a combination of robot dogs and artificial intelligence may be the future of electric-vehicle manufacturing.

Natural-gas futures in the U.S. for January delivery have fallen more than 13% so far this month. (WSJ)

XPO Executive Chairman Brad Jacobs is targeting the building-products distribution sector in his next plan for a billion-dollar rollup business. (WSJ)

Hasbro is cutting nearly 20% of its workforce as weak toy sales persist into the critical holiday shopping period. (WSJ)

Occidental Petroleum is buying West Texas oil producer CrownRock in a $10.8 billion deal. (WSJ)

An investor group is offering $5.8 billion to buy Macy’s and take the department-store chain private. (WSJ)

Seattle-based online retailer Zulily says it is going out of business. (Seattle Times)

Yemen’s Houthi rebels widened their shipping targets to include all vessels heading to Israel, regardless of nationality. (Splash 247)

Clarksons says transits through the Panama Canal have fallen by about 20% over the past month. (TradeWinds)

The U.K. is creating a regulatory office charged with enforcing sanctions on Russia trade. (Lloyd’s List)

VesselsValue is projecting consolidation in the hot car-carrier sector. (ShppingWatch)

Former Kiva Systems and Canvas Technology founding engineer Andrew Hoffman was named chief technology officer at Gather AI. (Modern Materials Handling)

Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at paul.page@wsj.com.

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @bylizyoung and @pdberger. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on X at @WSJLogistics.