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July 14, 2025

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In June, China’s exports saw a renewed surge, and imports also recovered. 

The surge was largely due to companies expediting shipments to leverage a temporary tariff agreement between Beijing and Washington, anticipating an upcoming August deadline, according to a Reuters report.

Businesses globally are anticipating the outcome of negotiations between the world’s two largest economies. 

The key question is whether a lasting agreement will be reached, or if the global supply chains face disruption once more due to the potential re-imposition of duties exceeding 100%.

Trade tensions intensify as China’s exports surge

China’s outbound shipments saw a 5.8% year-on-year increase in June, according to customs data released on Monday.

This figure surpassed economists’ predictions of a 5.0% rise in a Reuters poll and also exceeded May’s growth of 4.8%.

Imports rebounded 1.1%, following a 3.4% decline in May. Economists had predicted a 1.3% rise.

“There are some signs that frontloading demand is beginning to wane gradually,” Chim Lee, senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit was quoted in the Reuters report. 

Global supply chain concerns

Lee added:

While frontloading ahead of the August tariff pause deadline is likely to continue, freight rates for China-bound shipments to the U.S. have started to decline.

He added export controls between the US and China have eased substantially, bringing trade conditions broadly back to mid-April levels.

In June, trade relations between the US and China seemingly stabilised. 

This followed an agreement to revive a delicate truce established during May talks in Geneva.

Prior to these talks, the agreement had been jeopardized by a series of export controls that disrupted global supply chains in critical industries.

China’s customs data indicates a significant increase in rare earth exports, rising 32% in June compared to the previous month. 

This surge suggests that agreements reached last month to facilitate the flow of these metals may be proving effective.

Difficulties for Chinese manufacturers

Analysts caution that Beijing could face indirect harm from the expanding US global trade offensive.

Trump’s new tariffs on other trade partners may impact China, particularly through pressure on third countries extensively used for transhipments of Chinese goods.

Trump recently introduced a 40% tariff on US-bound transhipments via Vietnam. This action could potentially hinder Chinese manufacturers who are attempting to reroute shipments to evade increased duties.

The US President has proposed a 10% tariff on imports from BRICS nations, a move that significantly impacts China as a founding member of the bloc. 

This potential economic measure exacerbates existing trade tensions and introduces new uncertainties for Beijing’s export-oriented economy. 

The imposition of such a tariff could lead to increased costs for Chinese goods entering the US market, potentially dampening demand and disrupting established supply chains.

The White House and China have until August 12 to finalise a lasting agreement.

Compounding these challenges, tensions with the European Union have also intensified. 

The EU has accused China of flooding the global market with excess capacity and enabling Russia’s war economy, an accusation made ahead of a key summit later this month.

China’s trade surplus increased to $114.7 billion in June, up from $103.22 billion in May.

The post China’s exports surge amid waning frontloading demand appeared first on Invezz

The US Department of Defense (DoD) will become the largest shareholder in MP Materials (NYSE:MP) after agreeing to purchase US$400 million worth of preferred stock in the company.

MP Materials is known for owning and operating the only US rare earths mine.

The rare earths producer said the proceeds from the investment will fund the expansion of its processing capabilities at the Mountain Pass mine in California and support the construction of a second magnet manufacturing facility in the US.

The materials mined and processed by MP Materials are critical to the production of permanent magnets used in military systems, including the F-35 fighter jet, drones, and submarines.

The US has depended heavily on foreign imports for these materials — primarily from China, which accounted for about 70 percent of rare earth imports in 2023, according to the US Geological Survey.

In a press release issued on Thursday (July 10), MP Materials described the agreement as a ‘transformational public-private partnership.’ The company also said the deal will ‘dramatically accelerate the build-out of an end-to-end US rare earth magnet supply chain and reduce foreign dependency.’

The investment gives the Pentagon newly created preferred stock convertible into common shares, along with a 10-year warrant to buy additional stock at US$30.03 per share. If fully converted and exercised, the DoD would own 15 percent of MP Materials, based on current share counts as of Wednesday (July 9). That would exceed the 8.61 percent stake held by CEO James Litinsky and the 8.27 percent stake held by BlackRock Fund Advisors.

Litinsky emphasized that the deal does not equate to government control of the company. “This is not a nationalization,” he told CNBC. “We remain a thriving public company. We now have a great new partner in our economically largest shareholder, DoD, but we still control our company. We control our destiny. We’re shareholder driven.”

MP’s new magnet facility, called 10X, will increase the company’s magnet manufacturing capacity to 10,000 metric tons annually once it begins commissioning in 2028. The exact location of the facility has not yet been disclosed.

The Pentagon has committed to purchasing 100 percent of the magnets produced at the 10X facility for 10 years.

Additionally, the DoD will guarantee a minimum price of US$110 per kilogram for MP’s neodymium-praseodymium oxide, a key material for magnet production.

If market prices fall below that level, the Pentagon will pay the difference quarterly. In return, once the new facility is operational, the government will receive 30 percent of any upside above US$110 per kilogram.

To further support the buildout, MP Materials expects to receive a US$150 million loan from the Pentagon within 30 days to expand its heavy rare earth separation capabilities at Mountain Pass, the only active rare earth mine in the US.

It is also commissioning a magnetics facility in Texas, known as Independence, to bolster its downstream processing capabilities.

As the only domestic miner with vertically integrated capabilities and a clear path to rare earth magnet production at scale, MP Materials now sits at the center of the Biden-to-Trump era effort to bring critical minerals supply chains back to American soil.

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

President Donald Trump’s proposed 50% tariff on Brazilian imports is bad news for coffee drinkers.

Brazil, the largest U.S. supplier of green coffee beans, accounts for about a third of the country’s total supply, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Coffee beans need to grow in a warm, tropical climate, making Hawaii and Puerto Rico the only suitable places in the United States to farm the crop. But, as the world’s top consumer of coffee, the U.S. requires a massive supply to stay caffeinated. Mintel estimates that the U.S. coffee market reached $19.75 billion last year.

The increase in trade duties could leave consumers with even higher costs after several years of soaring coffee prices. Inflation-weary consumers have seen prices for lattes and cold brew climb as droughts and frost hit the global coffee supply, particularly in Brazil. Earlier this year, coffee bean futures hit all-time highs. They rose 1% on Thursday, although still well below the record set in February.

To be sure, there’s still time for Brazil to strike a deal with the White House before the tariffs go into effect on Aug. 1. Plus, food and beverage makers are hoping that the Trump administration will grant exemptions for key commodities. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview in late June that the White House is considering exemptions for produce that can’t be grown in the U.S. — including coffee.

But if that doesn’t happen, coffee companies like Folgers owner J.M. Smucker, Keurig Dr Pepper, Starbucks and Dutch Bros will face much higher costs for the commodity. Giuseppe Lavazza, chair of Italian roaster Lavazza, said on Bloomberg TV on Thursday morning that the latest tariff could mean “a lot of inflation” for the coffee industry.

Roasters will try to mitigate the impact of the higher tariff, but it won’t be easy.

“Every company is always trying to eke out the next efficiency, to dial into their operations or find the way to minimize inflationary pressures, but a 50% tariff on a commodity that fundamentally is not available in the U.S. — you can’t really do much with that,” Tom Madrecki, vice president of supply chain and logistics for the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group that represents the consumer packaged goods industry.

One mitigation tactic could be to import beans from countries other than Brazil, but companies will likely still be paying more for the commodity.

“A characteristic of tariffs, especially when you have tariffs on multiple countries at once, is that not just the inbound cost rises. It allows the pricing floor to also rise,” Madrecki said. “If you have cheaper coffee in a country different than Brazil, you’re not inclined to sell it at a 30% lower cost. You’re going to try to bump your coffee up a bit more, too.”

At-home coffee brands, like JM Smucker’s Dunkin’ and Kraft Heinz’s Maxwell House, have already been hiking their prices this year in response to spiking commodity costs. More price increases could be on the way for consumers, although retailers may push back.

Keurig Dr Pepper would consider additional price hikes in the latter half of the year to mitigate the impact of tariffs, CEO Tim Cofer said in late April, after Trump introduced his initial round of so-called reciprocal duties.

And Smuckers warned investors on its quarterly conference call in early June that tariffs on coffee were weighing on its profits. Coffee accounts for roughly a third of the company’s revenue.

“Green coffee is an unavailable natural resource that cannot be grown in the continental United States due to its reliance on a tropical climate,” Smuckers CEO Mark Smucker said. “We currently purchase approximately 500 million pounds of green coffee annually, with the majority coming from Brazil and Vietnam, the two largest coffee-producing countries.”

Vietnam, which announced a tentative trade deal with the White House earlier this month, supplies about 8% of the U.S.’s green coffee beans. Under the agreement, the U.S. will impose a 20% duty on Vietnamese imports.

Consumers who prefer a caramel macchiato from Starbucks for their caffeine hit will likely see a more muted impact on their wallets.

After several quarters of sluggish U.S. sales, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said in late 2024 that the company wouldn’t raise prices in 2025, in the hopes of winning back customers who had complained about how expensive its drinks had gotten. While it waits for its turnaround to take hold, Starbucks might choose to swallow the higher coffee costs.

The coffee giant also benefits from its diversity — both in suppliers and the breadth of its menu, which now includes the popular Refreshers line. Starbucks imports its coffee from 30 different countries, and roughly 10% of its cost of goods sold in North America comes from coffee.

The new trade duty could mean a 0.5% increase in Starbucks’ North American cost of goods sold, assuming about 22% of its beans come from Brazil, TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. Starbucks’ packaged drinks, which are distributed by Nestle, could see their cost of goods sold increase 3.5%. Altogether, that represents a 5-cent drag on annual earnings per share, according to Charles.

For rival Dutch Bros, higher coffee costs also wouldn’t hurt its bottom line much. Coffee accounts for less than a tenth of the drive-thru coffee chain’s cost of goods sold. Assuming that Dutch Bros sources more than half of its coffee from Brazil, its cost of goods sold would rise just 1.3%, according to Charles’ estimates.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Former President Joe Biden defended his use of an autopen during a recent interview, shedding light on his administration’s rationale for the controversial use of the technology.

The interview with the New York Times was centered around his use of an autopen during the last pardons that he made during the end of his administration.

In his final weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardoned more than 1,500 individuals, in what the White House described at the time as the largest single-day act of clemency by a U.S. president.

Speaking to the Times on Thursday, Biden said that he ‘made every decision’ on his own.

‘We’re talking about [granting clemency to] a whole lot of people,’ the Democrat said.

However, the Times reported that Biden ‘did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people,’ according to the former president and his aides.

‘Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, [Biden] signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence,’ the Times’s report read.

Instead of repeatedly asking the president to resign updated versions of official documents, his staff used an autopen to put Biden’s signature on the final version.

Biden’s comments came as Republicans attacked him for his autopen use on a massive number of official documents.

In June, President Donald Trump sent a memo to the Department of Justice directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use, and to determine whether it was related to a decline in Biden’s mental state.

‘In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,’ Trump wrote. 

‘This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.’

Also in June, Trump told reporters that he thought it was ‘inappropriate’ to use an autopen at all, though past presidents have used them.

‘Usually, when they put documents in front of you, they’re important,’ Trump said. ‘Even if you’re signing ambassadorships or – and I consider that important, I think it’s inappropriate.’

‘You have somebody that’s devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador. I think you really deserve that person deserves to get a real signature… not an autopen signature.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS