Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Trump Tours The Gulf For Freebie Plane. Stocks Mixed.

Baltic Dry Index. 1280 -24         Brent Crude 66.30

Spot Gold 3224               US 2 Year Yield 4.02 +0.04

US Federal Debt. 36.846 trillion!!!

As markets soared on a truce in the trade war between the US and China, Citadel founder Ken Griffin reflected on the past month, suggesting it would have been better to sit on the sidelines in cash. “It’s been a really difficult time for fundamental investors because so much of the value of the companies that we invest in is being dictated by very quickly changing policies from Washington,” Griffin, 56, said in an interview.

Trump Touts Saudi US-Investment Pledge That May Hit $1 Trillion - Bloomberg

Has the relief rally and short covering rally in the stock casinos already ended?

While it’s too early to know for certain, in the real global economy, the disruption to the just in time global supply chains is now starting to show up.

What if the US v China 90 day tariff pause isn’t made permanent?

What if the Trump v EU tariff war isn’t ended but extended?

Well we’ll know by about mid-August if not sooner.

Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed as U.S.-China tensions ease

Updated Wed, May 14 2025 10:35 PM EDT

Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Wednesday after key Wall Street benchmarks rose on easing U.S.-China trade tensions.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.68%, giving up gains after four consecutive positive sessions. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.53%.

Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was flat.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.96% while mainland China’s CSI 300 traded flat.

Wall Street rebounded after the U.S. and China reached a temporary truce on tariffs earlier this week. The development led to stocks surging with the Dow gaining more than 1,000 points Monday.

At current levels, however, Julius Baer strategists remain cautious, adding that the bank “does not share the prevailing optimism” regarding a quick resolution of the trade conflict.

“Even if new deals are announced, they are likely to involve complex conditions and protracted implementation timelines, making a full rollback of tariffs to pre-conflict levels unlikely,” the bank said in a Tuesday note.

Investors will be keeping an eye on Asian chip stocks after shares of Nvidia jumped following CEO Jensen Huang’s remarks that the company will sell more than 18,000 of its latest artificial intelligence chips to Saudi firm Humain, a new AI startup owned by the country’s Public Investment Fund.

U.S. stock futures were little changed as Wall Street looks to extend a strong start to the week. Futures tied to the S&P 500 were flat, as were Nasdaq 100 futuresDow Jones Industrial Average futures added 30 points, or less than 0.1%.

Overnight stateside, the three major averages closed mixed. The S&P 500 rose, clawing back into positive territory for the year as investors extended the sharp gains seen in the previous session. The broad market index gained 0.72% to close at 5,886.55, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.61% to end at 19,010.08.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, losing 269.67 points, or 0.64%, as a nearly 18% drop in shares of UnitedHealth pressured the benchmark.

Asia-Pacific markets live: Asia chip stocks, U.S.-China trade

Up next, more Bidenism?

Trump’s Middle East trip marked by potential private business conflicts

May 13, 2025

President Donald Trump kicks off the first major international trip of his second term Tuesday in a region where his family business has grown significantly in recent months, presenting his administration with more potential conflicts of interest than ever.

The president’s sons, who head the Trump Organization, have spent the past few weeks crisscrossing the Middle East, laying the groundwork for deals that will benefit the company and, in some instances, Trump himself. Government watchdogs, presidential historians and other critics say it is an escalation of unethical and even unconstitutional conflicts between the interests of the United States and its president.

A week before Trump was scheduled to land in Saudi Arabia for a trip that would also take him to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, his son Eric spoke to a crowded convention center in Dubai about the Trump Organization’s plans to build an 80-floor hotel and residential tower there. He boasted that the “incredible icon” would “redefine luxury” and have the highest infinity-edge pool in the world, overlooking the towering Burj Khalifa building.

“On behalf of myself, on behalf of my family,” he said, “we love Dubai. … We have such a great relationship between the United States and just one of the greatest places and I’m glad to call so many of you friends.”

Trump’s relationship with the Persian Gulf states offers insight into the instincts of a lifelong businessman who has made a career of selling. Trump has notably declined to duplicate his first-term pledge to not advance his personal business interests from the White House, but he has also managed to evade efforts by Congress and the courts to rein in his potential conflicts.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have appeared at events in the region to advance deals including cryptocurrency and luxury penthouses, signaling the family intends to continue to pursue international deals even as Donald Trump leads U.S. foreign policy in the region.

Qatar, where the president is scheduled to visit Wednesday, has previously paid his attorney general, FBI director and head of the Environmental Protection Agency, among others, to lobby or consult on behalf of the country and its royal family, a Washington Post review of Foreign Agents Registration Act filings and disclosures found.

Trump himself has appeared unconcerned about conflicts of interest.

On Monday, he spoke glowingly of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet that Qatar has offered as a gift, which would become Air Force One for the duration of his presidency and then turned over to his presidential library foundation.

“I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much,” Trump said of what he has called a “palace in the sky.” “I would never be one to turn down that kind of offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person [and] say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was — I thought it was a great gesture.”

Two weeks ago, Eric Trump entered into an agreement to build the $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club, Simaisma — “a beachside ultra luxury community” in Qatar that the company said will boast an 18-hole golf course and luxury villas emblazoned with Trump’s name.

The president will end his trip in Abu Dhabi, where his family’s cryptocurrency venture, already at the center of allegations of corruption, is increasingly intertwined with Middle Eastern investment. Last week, an investment firm backed by Abu Dhabi said it plans to plow $2 billion into the venture.

More

Trump’s Middle East trip marked by potential private business conflicts

In other news, after losing a trade war with China, Trump attempts to take on the EU over big pharma.

But big pharma has many dirty tricks ways to hit back. Just make a slightly different variant drug for the cheaper Africa, Asia, and Europe all priced differently, and claim the variants are specifically adapted for the rest of the world and only leave the American version available in the higher priced USA, for one.

And don’t think for one moment avaricious big pharma doesn’t have a hundred or more such dirty tricks, including defunding MAGA and funding socialist Democrats.

After killing the conservatives in Canada and Australia, can we get some grown-ups thinking in the District of Crooks and soon?

Trump calls European Union ‘nastier than China’

13 May 2025

President Donald Trump said the European Union is ‘nastier than China’ while announcing an order to slash prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices for Americans. Trump condemned the EU hours after the US and China reached a deal to cut reciprocal tariffs against each other and deescalate their trade war. ‘European Union is in many ways nastier than China, OK, we just started with them,’ Trump said from the White House on Monday morning. We have all the cards. They treat us very unfairly. They sell us 13million cars. We sell them none. They sell us their agricultural products. We sell them for virtually none. They don’t take our products. That gives us all the cards. And it’s very unfair’

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association’s March fact sheet, there were actually 750,000 vehicles exported from the EU to the US, versus about 170,000 exported from the US to Europe, in 2024. Trump declared that the EU does not pay its fair share for drugs and that the bloc needs to in order to lower prices for Americans. ‘Europe’s going to have to pay a little bit more. The rest of the world is going to have to pay a little bit more,’ he said. ‘And America is going to pay a lot less’

Trump signed an executive order setting a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription drugs in America, or face further action by the federal government to see it through. He said the US ‘will no longer subsidize the healthcare of foreign countries’ that pay a small fraction of what Americans pay for the same drug. ‘European Union has been brutal, brutal. And the drug companies actually told me stories which is just brutal how they forced them,’ Trump said. ‘European Union suing all our companies – Apple, Google, Meta – they’re suing all of our companies. They have judges that are European Union-centric and they get rewarded $15billion, $17billion, $20billion, and they use that to run their operation. Not going to happen any longer, that I can tell you’ 

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has been tasked to develop a new rule equalizing what the US and other nations pay for medications if deals are not reached, echoed Trump’s criticism of Europe. Kennedy said that the US represents 4.2% of the world’s population but represents 75% of revenue for pharmaceutical companies. ‘We spend in our country $1,126 per capita on drugs. In Britain, they spend about $240,’ said Kennedy. ‘They spend about one-fifth of what we do and this is true across Europe.’ Kennedy added that if Europeans raised the price of their drugs by just 20%, it would equate to $20trillion that could be spent on innovation and that the ‘health of all people, all across the globe, is going to increase’ 

Trump signed the order after writing on his Truth Social platform on Sunday afternoon: ‘My next TRUTH will be one of the most important and impactful I have ever issued. ENJOY!’ That evening, he revealed that he was referring to the order aimed at reducing drug prices for Americans by 30% to 80%. ‘They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!’ he wrote. ‘I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World’

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Trump calls European Union ‘nastier than China’

U.S.-China trade war pushed global supply chain near breaking point, new data shows

Published Tue, May 13 2025 8:01 AM EDT Updated Tue, May 13 2025 10:23 AM EDT

The trade truce reached between the U.S. and China arrived just as President Donald Trump’s tariffs took a big bite out of North American & Asian manufacturing, with a steep retreat in April purchasing activity after the rush to hoard supply, according to the GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index.

“The pause on tariffs is a major relief for manufacturers in both the U.S. and China,” said John Piatek, vice president of consulting for GEP. “Our Supply Chain Volatility Index shows manufacturing demand in China is dropping steeply, and U.S. manufacturers are aggressively stockpiling key inputs to buffer against tariffs.”

But according to Piatek, the trade deal won’t quickly quiet U.S. manufacturers’ anxiety about how to reduce risks related to China for the long-term. “As they maneuver to de-risk and limit exposure to China, the rapidly changing landscape and uncertainty is clouding manufacturers’ outlook and dampening their capital investment and supply chain,” he said.

The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index tracks demand conditions, shortages, transportation costs, inventories, and backlogs based on a monthly survey of 27,000 businesses.

“The first blows of the tariff war have landed on global manufacturers,” Piatek said. The supply chain volatility data should serve as a warning about what would come next if the temporary pause in tariffs by the U.S. and China aren’t extended permanently after the 90-day pause and the trade war re-escalates.

The data showed a “hockey stick”-like upturn in April, according to Piatek, with North American companies aggressively stockpiling inventory at what he described as a “concerning rate.” At the same time, “the first signs of manufacturers anticipating slower demand and supply shortages have emerged,” he said.

More

US-China trade war pushed supply chain to breaking point, data shows

Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.

World trade chief says global free trade is in a 'crisis' while on visit to Japan

13 May 2025

Global free trade is in crisis, the head of the World Trade Organization chief said Tuesday while meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shigaru Ishiba on Tuesday.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, told Ishiba that she has high expectations for Japan as a champion of open markets as U.S. President Donald Trump disrupts world commerce with his fast-changing tariffs and other policies.

“Trade is facing very challenging times right now and it is quite difficult,” she said. “We should try to use this crisis as an opportunity to solve the challenges we have and take advantage of new trends in trade.”

Japan, as “a champion of the multilateral trading system” must help maintain, strengthen and reform the WTO, the Japanese Foreign Ministry cited her as saying.

They met a day after the United States and China said they had agreed to slash recent sky- high tariffs for 90 days to allow time for negotiations.

Japan is among many countries yet to reach a deal with the Trump administration on hikes to U.S. tariffs, including those on autos, steel and aluminum.

The WTO played a pivotal role in past decades as the U.S. and other major economies championed the trade liberalization that facilitated the growth of global supply chains, many of which are anchored in China.

By dismantling many protectionist barriers to trade, it has aided the ascent of Japan and China, and many other countries, as export manufacturing hubs.

Since taking office for a second time, Trump has prioritized higher tariffs to try to reduce U.S. imports and compel companies to locate factories in the United States, doubling down on a trade war that he launched during his first term.

The two leaders agreed that WTO member countries should unite to restore the organization's capacity to address challenges.

Okonjo-Iwaela was visiting Japan to strengthen cooperation between Japan and the WTO to maintain and reinforce the multilateral trading system, Japanese officials said.

She also was scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yoji Muto.

World trade chief says global free trade is in a 'crisis' while on visit to Japan

Tourists are cancelling trips to the US – and it’s not just Trump to blame

13 May 2025

International travel spending in the United States is projected to fall by $12.5 billion, or seven per cent, in 2025, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

WTTC CEO Julia Simpson said the unpopular policies from the administration of President Donald Trump, fear of being stopped at the border and an unfavourable exchange rate had pushed international tourists towards alternative destinations.

"Of 184 countries, the U.S. is the only one that's seeing an absolute decline in international visitor spending," Simpson said.

"The U.S. is definitely losing its crown in this area."

The U.S. is the largest travel and tourism economy globally, she said. However, international visitor spending in the country is projected to fall under $169 billion this year, down from $181 billion in 2024 and 22 per cent below its previous peak in 2019.

A strong dollar, which makes U.S. vacations more expensive, caused a decline in foreign travel spending in the country in 2024, Simpson said, but now politics and worries about crossing the border were also weighing on U.S. visitation figures.

In March, Germany updated its U.S. travel advisory to emphasise that a visa or entry waiver does not guarantee entry after several Germans were detained at the border.

The Trump administration requires all foreigners 14 or older to register and submit fingerprints if they stay beyond 30 days. This includes Canadians, who previously could visit for up to six months without a visa.

"The rest of the world are putting up open signs and getting people to come and see their country," Simpson said. "The U.S. at the minute has firmly got a 'we're not open for business, closed' sign, which is a great shame."

While 90 per cent of U.S. travel and tourism spending comes from domestic tourists, Canadian travellers spend three times more on U.S. vacations than Americans, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Overseas visitors spend seven to eight times more than U.S. travellers.

Travel from Canada and Mexico, the largest source of inbound visitors to the U.S., is down about 20 per cent year-over-year, the organisation said. Visits from British, German and South Korean travellers are also trending lower.

Overall, overseas travel to the U.S. fell about 12 per cent year-over-year in March but rose 8 per cent in April, according to data from the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office.

Tourists are cancelling trips to the US – and it’s not just Trump to blame

Microsoft said it will cut thousands of workers with a focus on reducing layers of management. Planned reductions across the company amount to less than 3% of total headcount, a spokesperson said. “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the spokesperson said.

Trump Touts Saudi US-Investment Pledge That May Hit $1 Trillion - Bloomberg

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.

Maybe, but no evidence presented.

Covid inquiry: 180,000 lives could have been saved

12 May 2025

If the government had listened to experts and implemented the same strategies used in other countries, 180,000 lives may have been saved during Covid, the UK Covid Inquiry heard today.

East Asian death rates were five times lower than in the UK.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group said the UK’s death toll was down to “political decisions rooted in arrogance” and a “dangerous belief that Britain was somehow different”.

Covid inquiry: 180,000 lives could have been saved – Channel 4 News

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

Keppel, Huawei to collaborate on solar and battery tech for Asean power grids

Other projects include low-carbon data centres and industrial parks

Published Tue, May 13, 2025 · 12:00 PM

[SINGAPORE] The infrastructure division of Keppel will work with Chinese tech giant Huawei International to design and develop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and battery energy storage system (Bess) technologies for interconnected power grids across South-east Asia.

Both companies will also collaborate on PV and Bess solutions for low-carbon data centres and industrial parks, and digital energy management for hybrid energy systems, under a memorandum of understanding inked on Tuesday (May 13).

The aim is to reduce the projects’ carbon intensity, improve operational stability and optimise life-cycle costs and economic performance, Keppel and Huawei said in a press statement.

Once operational, the projects will be connected to Keppel’s Operations Nerve Centre in Changi for real-time remote monitoring and control, and performance optimisation.

Both companies are also collaborating on a demand response programme – a system which helps to balance power demand with supply – using a Bess developed at Keppel Infrastructure’s Changi premises.

“The Bess will allow Huawei and Keppel to further explore novel smart operations and maintenance solutions to enhance the reliability, performance and efficiency of renewable energy assets,” said the companies, adding that they will co-develop go-to-market strategies beyond Singapore.

Cindy Lim, chief executive officer of Keppel’s infrastructure division, noted that energy storage is “essential” to overcome the intermittency of renewable energy sources such as solar power.

“Through this partnership, we will harness Huawei’s digital power technologies and Keppel’s deep expertise in energy infrastructure,” she said.

Keppel, Huawei to collaborate on solar and battery tech for Asean power grids - The Business Times

Next, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.

World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)

The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.

Ben Bernanke


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