Economy

Oil prices hit a five-month high over the weekend after the United States struck Iran’s nuclear facilities. Tehran retaliated with an attack on the US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, keeping global energy markets on edge.

But oil prices dropped sharply on Tuesday after it appeared that Iran was holding off further attacks for now, including avoiding closing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint in global trade.

Brent Crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, has tumbled more than 5.6 percent so far in the trading day and is currently trading at around $66 a barrel.

Strait of Hormuz closure still a concern

One of Iran’s most significant potential retaliatory economic measures would be to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterway is a key transit route for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, as well as a broader trade corridor between Europe and Asia.

While Iran’s parliament has backed a proposal to close the strait, the final decision lies with the country’s Supreme National Security Council.

Iran has made similar threats in the past, including in 2018 during US President Donald Trump’s first term, after the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal brokered under former President Barack Obama.

A closure could involve laying sea mines across the strait – which at its narrowest point is just 33 kilometres (21 miles) wide – and even attack or capture vessels. As recently as March, the Revolutionary Guard seized ships it accused of smuggling diesel. Similar tactics were used during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Shutting the Strait would send a jolt through global markets, though analysts believe there is enough spare capacity to blunt the immediate impact. Still, the risk of further volatility remains high, mirroring the energy market disruptions seen in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

HSBC analysts say that crude oil prices could top $80 a barrel if the Strait is closed. Goldman Sachs forecasts that it could be $110.

But the strike on the US airbase in Qatar actually calmed global markets because it suggested that economic retaliation is not at the forefront of Tehran’s arsenal.

“If Iran were serious about retaliation, it would sink an oil tanker in the Straits of Hormuz. The fact that it isn’t doing that means it’s bending the knee,” Robin Brooks, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a post on the social media platform X.

Moment of flux

Outside of the conflict, the oil market was already in a moment of flux. In May, OPEC agreed to increase production by as much as 411,000 barrels per day for the month of July, part of a move to unwind voluntary output cuts after demand crashed during the COVID pandemic.

There are other ways to mitigate the impact of a supply shortage.

Spare production capacity from OPEC+, primarily in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, could quickly add about 2.5 million barrels per day to the market, with as much as five million available over the longer term, according to analysis from Third Bridge Capital.

That could buy time if there is a hit on global oil supplies before it ultimately impacts consumers at the gas pump.

Iran produces 4 percent of the global oil supply, most of which goes to China due to existing global sanctions on Iranian oil.

“It’s hard to see in the current environment how Iran would push more barrels into the market since a lot of their supply ends up going to China,” Peter McNally, global head of Sector Analysts and global sector lead at Third Bridge Capital, told Al Jazeera.

China purchases nearly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports, totalling about 1.6 million barrels per day. China is already grappling with US tariffs and any increase in energy prices will hurt its economy, says Abigail Hall Blanco, professor of economics at the University of Tampa.

“Oil markets are incredibly interconnected. And so if the price of oil globally shoots up as a result of a closure or a restriction of oil tankers passing through the strait, then certainly you would see those impacts on the US and other markets as well,” Hall Blanco told Al Jazeera.

Earlier this morning, Trump said that China can continue to buy Iranian oil.

Meanwhile, regional producers are bracing for a fallout. Iraq’s state-run Basra Oil Company has begun evacuating foreign staff, fearing Iranian retaliation against US forces stationed in the area.

Western firms are also taking precautions. BP, which partners with Iraq’s Basra operation in the massive Rumaila oil field – averaging 3.32 million barrels per day – has reduced its on-site personnel. However, the company says output will not be affected. As of 3pm in New York (19:00 GMT), BP’s stock is down by 1.4 percent.

Outside OPEC+, producers like Brazil, Canada, Guyana and the US could increase output to help fill any supply gap. But with the exception of the US and Canada, the other countries take longer to make those moves, experts said.

“The difference with everyone except the US is just its bit longer lead time. There’s less of an instantaneous response to higher prices. The growth is going to continue. If there is an outage, by way of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the quickest [way] to add production is either in Saudi Arabia, the UAE or the US,” McNally said. “But like longer term, the non-OPEC supply will continue to meet most of the demand growth going forward.”

Over the past decade, non-OPEC countries have significantly ramped up production, a trend that’s expected to continue. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected in December (PDF) that 90 percent of oil production growth this year will come from non-OPEC sources.

The US also has a strategic petroleum reserve at its disposal that currently holds 402.5 million barrels. The reserve is intended to be tapped into in moments of a dip in production due to global emergencies.

While the US does produce more oil than any other country in the world, at current levels, it will cost $20bn and several years to refill the strategic reserve.

A political risk for Trump

On Monday, Trump on Truth Social said in all-caps, “EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN, I’M WATCHING.”

Trump campaigned on cutting prices for everyday goods. But his volatile trade policies and tariffs have pushed prices upward. In the most recent consumer price index report, a key metric the central bank uses to measure the rate of inflation, food prices are up 2.9 percent compared to this time last year.

But oil has remained a key strength for the Trump administration, with prices dropping, including a 12 percent decline in gas prices from this time last year.

But that could change very quickly as prices fluctuate.

“It’s just that it’s a fluid situation,” McNally said.

SAN DIEGO — President Clinton arrived here Monday pledging again to make special efforts to help Californians with their economic problems but asking that they in turn agree to the sacrifices demanded in his pending budget plan.

Clinton, beginning a two-day campaign-style swing through the West to gather support for his agenda, reminded a crowd of several hundred that greeted him at the North Island Naval Air Station that he had vowed his help for California’s problems during his campaign.

“We are going to work our hearts out in Washington in order to move this state together,” he said. And he cited his proposals to foster defense conversion, to provide federal support for California’s special immigration problems and to stimulate the economy in a way that would help California’s ailing real estate industry and small businesses.

“California needs an economic strategy that will be built from the grass roots up, but will have a partner in the White House,” he declared, adding, “the federal government’s going to do more to pay our fair share.”

At the same time, Clinton renewed his call for Americans to support his budget against resistance from congressional Republicans and others.

“When you hear people say ‘No, no, no,’ ask where they were for the last 12 years,” he said. Referring to his Republican predecessors, he said “the most popular thing to do in public life is to cut taxes and raise spending. But sooner or later your string runs out.”

Clinton’s appearance began the second straight week of forays into the country to drum up support for an economic program that has lost ground in the polls. On Monday evening he was scheduled to take questions from the public in a live, hourlong TV “town hall” broadcast from San Diego’s KGTV, Channel 10. Today he is to visit Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys to talk about worker retraining, and later to stop at a business on Florence Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles to promote his plans for urban redevelopment.

He spent much of Monday at a stop in Los Alamos, N. M., pointing to the Los Alamos National Laboratories, where the atomic bomb was developed during World War II, as proof of the potential of his five-year, $20-billion defense conversion plan.

Clinton said the 50-year-old laboratory’s early move into commercial enterprises proves that defense industries can be successfully converted to commercial use in the aftermath of the Cold War. But he also used the occasion to stress his No. 1 theme, that Congress needs to pass his economic program to cut the deficit and step up spending that will strengthen the economy.

In remarks at Los Alamos High School, Clinton said the 7,600-employee nuclear laboratory had made important contributions to the weapons research that kept pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He said that in the last several years the lab’s efforts to find commercial applications for its research had spawned 30 companies and 100 government-industry partnerships.

Clinton said such relationships would begin the kind of “economic chain reaction” that could help the nation create high paying jobs.

The laboratory, with an annual budget of $1 billion, conducts commercial research into batteries, oil recovery, advanced materials and other such projects. Clinton cited its advances in the process called ion implantation, which is used to make stronger materials and which grew out of research begun on the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” launched by President Ronald Reagan.

Only last week, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin declared an official end to the “Star Wars” program. But Clinton acknowledged: “Something good came out of it, because people were looking to break down frontiers.”

But as he spoke about defense conversion, Clinton repeatedly moved into discussion of the need for sacrifices to cut the federal deficit. “Everybody’s for deficit reduction in general, it’s the details that swallow us whole,” he told a crowd of several thousand.

The Los Alamos laboratory had been spared deep cuts, but under Clinton’s proposed budget it faces about $40 million in budget cuts that officials say could force the layoff of about 100 people.

Clinton’s two-month old defense conversion program proposes to spend $19.6 billion over the next five years. The money would go to retrain workers displaced by military cutbacks, to allow early retirement of some military and civilian workers, for environmental cleanup and for grants to help military contractors find civilian applications for their work.

Critics have charged that the program underestimates the difficulty of converting defense businesses to civilian work. And they say that in any case the $19.6 billion will have only a limited effect in helping the 2.5 million workers who could lose their jobs in the next decade.

But Clinton asserted: “It is a good beginning.”

Pressed by slumping polls and unresolved questions about his Bosnian policy, Clinton has sought to rebuild support for his program by explaining its payoff for Americans, and particularly for the middle class.

The President hopes that strong public support will bring pressure on Congress to go along with his economic and health care plans.

Clinton’s appearance in Los Alamos was well tailored to his goal of using the news media to drum up support. To ensure that enthusiasm was high, the organizers bused in thousands of high school students; they passed out American flags just before the event began.

Located on a valley overlooked by the snowcapped Sangre de Cristo mountains, the event made a striking picture.

Clinton came close to a faux pas at one point in his remarks, calling Los Alamos “Los Angeles.”

A chorus of boos followed. But Clinton tried to make a graceful recovery:

“I’m going there tomorrow,” he explained to the crowd. “And if I say ‘Los Alamos’ there, will you cheer?”

As has become his habit, Clinton spent part of his day conducting interviews with TV news stations, in an effort to give his message wide and largely unchallenged access to local markets.

The President’s California visit is his second since the election to a state that his advisers say is key to his strategy for 1996.

California’s unemployment rate fell to 8.6% in April, from 9.4% in March. But the state’s rate still lags far behind the national rate of 7%.

Part of Clinton’s hope to help California was stymied when Senate Republicans blocked the $19-billion economic stimulus proposal that would have channeled more than $2 billion to the state.

After the TV town hall, Clinton was scheduled to appear at a reception for local politicians and supporters at the television station, then to attend a dinner at the home of Larry and Shelia Lawrence. The Lawrences own the Hotel Del Coronado and are Clinton supporters.

With the Friday notices, 85 percent of Voice of America’s workforce had been slashed.

Layoff notices have been sent to 639 employees of Voice of America (VOA) and the United States agency that oversees it, effectively shutting down the outlet that has provided news to countries around the world since World War II.

The notices sent on Friday included employees at VOA’s Persian-language service who were suddenly called off administrative leave last week to broadcast reports to Iran following Israel’s attack.

Three journalists working for the Persian service on Friday, who left their office for a cigarette break, had their badges confiscated and weren’t allowed back in, according to one fired employee.

In total, some 1,400 people at VOA and the US Agency for Global Media, or 85 percent of its workforce, have lost their jobs since March, said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior adviser to the agency. She said it was part of a “long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy”.

“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste,” Lake said in a news release. “That ends now.”

VOA began by broadcasting stories about US democracy to residents of Nazi Germany, and grew to deliver news around the world in dozens of languages, often in countries without a tradition of free press.

But President Donald Trump has fought against the news media on several fronts, with the complaint that much of what they produce is biased against conservatives. That includes a proposal to shut off federal funding to PBS and NPR, which is currently before Congress.

‘Death’ of independent journalism

Most VOA employees have been on administrative leave since March 15, their broadcasts and social media posts mostly silenced. Three VOA employees who are fighting the administration’s dismantling of VOA in court were among those receiving layoff notices on Friday.

“It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” plaintiffs Jessica Jerreat, Kate Neeper and Patsy Widakuswara said in a statement.

The Persian-language employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing legal case, was in the office Friday when colleagues were barred from re-entry. The person was afraid to leave for the same reason – even though authorities said their work had been halted – until receiving a layoff notice.

Steve Herman, VOA’s chief national correspondent who was in the process of retiring to take a job at the University of Mississippi, called the layoffs an “historic act of self-sabotage with the US government completing the silencing of its most effective soft-power weapon”.

It’s not clear what, if anything, will replace VOA’s programming worldwide. The Trump-supporting One American News Network has offered to allow its signal to be used.

Although plaintiffs in the lawsuit called on Congress to continue supporting VOA, Herman said that he is not optimistic that it will survive, even if a Democratic president and Congress take over. For one thing, every day it is off the air is another day for viewers and readers to get into another habit for obtaining news.

“I believe that the destruction is permanent,” Herman said, “because we see no indication in the next fiscal year that Congress will rally to fund VOA.”

By the time another administration takes power that is more sympathetic to the outlet, “I fear that VOA will have become forgotten,” he said.

The court declined to fast-track the review of the dispute over Trump having legal power to impose broad tariffs.

The United States Supreme Court has declined to speed up its consideration of whether to take up a challenge to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs even before lower courts have ruled in the dispute.

The Supreme Court denied on Friday a request by a family-owned toy company, Learning Resources, that filed the legal challenge against Trump’s tariffs to expedite the review of the dispute by the nation’s top judicial body.

The company, which makes educational toys, won a court ruling on May 29 that Trump cannot unilaterally impose tariffs using the emergency authority he had claimed. That ruling is currently on hold, leaving the tariffs in place for now.

Learning Resources asked the Supreme Court to take the rare step of immediately hearing the case to decide the legality of the tariffs, effectively leapfrogging the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, where the case is pending.

Two district courts have ruled that Trump’s tariffs are not justified under the law he cited, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Both of those cases are on appeal. No court has yet backed the sweeping emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed.

Russia’s economy must not slide into recession, President Vladimir Putin said, after economists warned for months of a slowdown in growth.

Putin told attendees, including government ministers and central bankers, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday that some specialists and experts were “pointing to the risks of stagnation and even a recession”.

“This must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances,” he said.

“We need to pursue a competent, well-thought-out budgetary, tax and monetary policy,” he added.

Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Thursday that the economy was on the verge of slipping into a recession, and monetary policy decisions would determine whether it falls into one or not.

In October, the Bank of Russia increased its key interest rate to the highest level since the early 2000s to curb high inflation, only to cut it by one percentage point to 20 percent earlier this month.

Moreover, economists warned for months of a slowdown in the economy, with the country posting its slowest quarterly expansion in two years during the first quarter of 2025.

However, the Kremlin said it expected the slowdown due to two years of rapid expansion as it increased military expenditure to fund its war against Ukraine.

Yet, Putin denied that the defence industry was solely driving the economy. “Yes, of course, the defence industry played its part in this regard, but so did the financial and IT industries,” he said.

He added that the economy needed “balanced growth”, calling on officials to keep a “close eye on all indicators of the health of our industries, companies and even individual enterprises”.

At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that it was time to “cut the [interest] rate and start heating up the economy”.

German Gref, CEO of Russia’s largest lender Sberbank SBER.MM also called for faster rate cuts to incentivise companies to invest.

Growth of military industries

Putin has used the annual economic forum to highlight Russia’s economic prowess and encourage foreign investment, but Western executives shunned it since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, leaving it to business leaders from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The economy, hit with a slew of Western sanctions, has so far outperformed predictions. High defence spending has propelled growth and kept unemployment low despite fuelling inflation.

Large recruiting bonuses for military enlistees and death benefits for those killed in Ukraine have also put more income into the country’s poorer regions. But over the long term, inflation and a lack of foreign investments pose threats to the economy.

Economists have warned of mounting pressure on the economy and the likelihood that it would stagnate due to a lack of investment in sectors other than the military.

Putin said the growth of military industries helped develop new technologies that have become available to the civilian sector.

He pledged to continue military modernisation, relying on lessons learned during the fighting in Ukraine.

“We will harness new technology to improve the combat capabilities of the Russian armed forces, modernise military infrastructure facilities, [and] equip them with the latest technology and weapons and equipment,” he said.

“At the same time, we intend to develop military-technical co-operation with friendly countries. And we are talking not only about supplies or the modernisation of equipment and weapons, but also about joint development, personnel training, and the creation of turn-key enterprises and production facilities,” he added.

The dispute centred on an exception granted to California on national vehicle emission standards, allowing it to set stricter rules than federal standards.

The United States Supreme Court has sided with fuel producers that had opposed California’s standards for vehicle emissions and electric cars under a federal air pollution law, agreeing that their legal challenge to the mandates should not have been dismissed.

The justices in a 7-2 ruling on Friday overturned a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit by a Valero Energy subsidiary and fuel industry groups. The lower court had concluded that the plaintiffs lacked the required legal standing to challenge a 2022 US Environmental Protection Agency decision to let California set its own regulations.

“The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders,” conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision.

The dispute centred on an exception granted to California during Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration to national vehicle emission standards set by the agency under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law.

Though states and municipalities are generally preempted from enacting their own limits, Congress let the EPA waive the preemption rule to let California set certain regulations that are stricter than federal standards.

The EPA’s 2022 action reinstated a waiver for California to set its own tailpipe emissions limits and zero-emission vehicle mandate through 2025, reversing a 2019 decision made during Republican President Donald Trump’s first administration rescinding the waiver.

Valero’s Diamond Alternative Energy and related groups challenged the reinstatement of California’s waiver, arguing that the decision exceeded the EPA’s power under the Clean Air Act and inflicted harm on their bottom line by lowering demand for liquid fuels.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the lawsuit in 2024, finding that the challengers lacked the necessary standing to bring their claims because there was no evidence that a ruling in their favour might affect the decisions of auto manufacturers in a way that would result in fewer electric and more combustion vehicles to be sold.

Sceptical court

California, the most populous US state, has received more than 100 waivers under the Clean Air Act.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has taken a sceptical view towards broad authority for federal regulatory agencies and has restricted the powers of the EPA in some important rulings in recent years.

In 2024, the court blocked the EPA’s “Good Neighbor” rule aimed at reducing ozone emissions that may worsen air pollution in neighbouring states. In 2023, the court hobbled the EPA’s power to protect wetlands and fight water pollution. In 2022, it imposed limits on the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce coal and gas-fired power plant carbon emissions.

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez warns the spending hike would undermine EU efforts to build its own security and defence base.

Spain has reportedly asked to opt out of NATO’s proposed defence spending target of 5 percent of GDP, risking disruption to a key agreement expected at next week’s alliance summit.

In a letter addressed to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Thursday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged the alliance to adopt a more flexible framework, according to media reports.

The letter, seen by the Reuters and Associated Press news agencies, called for either the target to remain optional or for Spain to be exempt entirely.

“Committing to a 5% target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive,” Sanchez wrote, warning that it would undermine efforts by the European Union to build its own security and defence base. “As a sovereign Ally, we choose not to.”

Sanchez insisted Madrid does not intend to block the outcome of the upcoming summit. But any agreement on increased defence spending must be approved unanimously by all 32 NATO members, giving Spain leverage to delay or water down the deal.

Spain currently spends approximately 1.28 percent of its GDP on defence, the lowest among NATO members, according to alliance estimates. While Sanchez has pledged to accelerate the country’s path to NATO’s current 2 percent goal, he argues that going beyond that risks harming the welfare state and compromising Spain’s broader policy vision.

NATO’s push for higher spending follows calls by US President Donald Trump and others to share the burden more fairly across the alliance. Rutte has suggested a new formula that allocates 3.5 percent of GDP to core military spending and an additional 1.5 percent to broader security needs.

Pressure to increase defence spending

The United States, NATO’s largest military contributor and Ukraine’s main backer since Russia’s 2022 invasion, is estimated to have spent 3.38 percent of its GDP on defence in 2024. Trump has repeatedly claimed European allies are not pulling their weight, and has threatened to withhold support for those who fall short.

Sanchez, however, said rushing to meet a 5 percent target would force EU states to buy military equipment from outside the bloc, damaging the continent’s attempts to bolster self-sufficiency in defence.

The proposal also faces resistance from Spain’s political left. The left-leaning Sumar party, part of Sanchez’s coalition, opposes the move, while Podemos, not in government but often a key parliamentary ally, has also rejected it.

“If the government needs parliamentary support to approve spending, it will have a very difficult time in the current situation,” said Josa Miguel Calvillo, a professor of international relations at the Complutense University of Madrid, speaking to Reuters.

Italy has also raised concerns, reportedly seeking to shift the proposed deadline for the new target from 2032 to 2035 and drop the requirement to increase spending by 0.2 percent annually.

One senior European official told Reuters that Spain’s rejection complicates talks but said discussions are ongoing. “It doesn’t look good, indeed, but we are not over yet. Spain has demonstrated to be a steadfast ally so far.”

Trump signs executive order extending the deadline for TikTok’s sale or divestment from Chinese parent company ByteDance to September 17.

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order extending the deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest its US assets of the short-form video app TikTok by another 90 days, he says, despite a law that mandated a sale or shutdown.

“I’ve just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025),” the president said in a post on Thursday on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The ban would have otherwise kicked in on Thursday.

“We are grateful for President Trump’s leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million US businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President [JD] Vance’s Office,” TikTok said in a statement.

Vance’s office has been involved in negotiations with the platform.

Passed in April 2024 and known as the the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law required TikTok to stop operating in the US by January 19 unless ByteDance had completed divesting itself of the app’s US assets or demonstrated significant progress towards a sale.

The law was challenged in the Supreme Court in January, but the nation’s highest court upheld the ban.

Third extension

This is the third time the president has extended the deadline. Trump began his second term as president on January 20 and opted not to enforce the law. He first extended the deadline to early April and then again last month to June 19.

Democratic senators argued that Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline and suggested a deal under consideration would not meet legal requirements.

The White House on Tuesday said the app will be “mandated a sale or shutdown absent significant progress”.

“President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.

She added that the administration will spend the next three months making sure the sale closes so Americans can keep using TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.

In March, Trump said he would be willing to reduce tariffs on China to get a deal done with ByteDance to sell the app.

A deal had been in the works this spring that would spin off TikTok’s US operations into a new US-based firm majority-owned and operated by US investors. That was put on hold after China said it would not approve that deal because of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

TikTok has a wide US user base, especially among younger audiences. According to a survey from Pew Research conducted in December, a third of all US adults use TikTok, and among the under 30 demographic, it is higher at 59 percent while 67 percent of teens use the platform.

Nippon Steel’s $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel has conferred an unusual degree of power for United States President Donald Trump after the Japanese company’s 18-month struggle to close the purchase.

The deal closed on Wednesday, the companies said.

Under the deal terms, Nippon bought 100 percent of US Steel shares at $55 per share which was first used in December 2023. A news release on the filing also discloses details of a national security agreement inked with the Trump administration, which gives Trump the authority to name a board member, as well as a non-economic golden share.

Eiji Hashimoto, Nippon Steel’s chairman and CEO, thanked the president for his role. He said that Nippon Steel agreed to represent an unusual level of control conceded by the companies to the government to save the deal, after a rocky path to approval spurred by high-level political opposition.

The golden share gives the US  government veto authority over a host of corporate decisions, from idling plants to cutting production capacity and moving jobs overseas, as previewed in a weekend social media post by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The share also gives the government a veto over a potential relocation of US Steel’s headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a transfer of jobs overseas, a name change, and any potential future acquisition of a rival business, the release shows.

The inclusion of the golden share to win approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which scrutinises foreign investment for national security risks, could drive overseas investors away from US companies, national security lawyers said on Monday.

The acquisition will give US Steel $11bn in investment through 2028, including $1bn for a new US mill that will increase by $3bn in later years.

It will also allow Nippon Steel, which is the world’s fourth-largest steel company, to capitalise on a host of American infrastructure projects while its foreign competitors face steel tariffs of 50 percent.

The Japanese firm also avoids the $565m in breakup fees it would have had to pay if the companies had failed to secure approvals.

Nippon Steel said on Wednesday that its annual crude steel production capacity is expected to reach 86 million tonnes, bringing it closer to Nippon Steel’s global strategic goal of 100 million tonnes of capacity.

The president described Nippon Steel as a “great partner”. After the United Steelworkers union came out against the deal last year, both then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, expressed their opposition as they sought to woo voters in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, in the presidential election campaign.

Shortly before leaving office in January, Biden blocked the deal on national security grounds, prompting lawsuits by the companies, which argued the national security review they received was biased. The Biden White House disputed the charge. The steel companies saw a new opportunity in the Trump administration, which opened a new 45-day national security review into the proposed merger in April.

But Trump’s public comments, ranging from welcoming a simple “investment” in US Steel by the Japanese firm to floating a minority stake for Nippon Steel, spurred confusion.

Trump’s May 30 rally spurred hopes of approval, and sign-off finally came on Friday with an executive order permitting the companies to combine if they signed an NSA giving the US  government a golden share, which they did.

The markets responded positively to the news. Nippon Steel, which is traded under the ticker NPSCY, is up 2.7 percent from the market open as of 11:00am in New York (15:00 GMT).

The central bank held rates steady despite backlash from US President Donald Trump.

The United States Federal Reserve has left its benchmark rate unchanged despite mounting pressure from President Donald Trump to cut rates.

On Wednesday, the Fed said it will leave its short-term rate unchanged at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent.

The central bank’s decision was largely in line with expectations, and it has not cut interest rates since December.

The decision comes as policymakers weigh signs of a weakening economy. US retail sales numbers fell more than expected in its report from the US Department of Commerce yesterday. Last week’s jobless claims report from the US Department of Labour came in at its highest in eight months at 248,000.

However, the last jobs report showed the unemployment rate was steady at 4.2 percent, indicating the labour market, while slowing, remains fairly stable.

“The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook has diminished but remains elevated,” the central bank said in a statement.

“Fed Chair Jerome Powell has little urgency to ease. But if any easing were to have occurred, it would have been hugely stimulative, and would have lowered US debt interest expense,” Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors, told Al Jazeera.

Policymakers are looking at the looming and consistently shifting changes to Trump’s tariff policies as well as the escalating tensions in the Middle East. While oil prices were on the decline before Israel’s attack last week on Iran and its retaliatory strikes, the concerns about a closure of the Strait of Hormuz as tensions escalate have fueled concerns that prices could go up in the coming weeks.

Trump criticises Powell

Before the rate announcement, Trump expressed disappointment in the central bank’s decision to hold rates steady in the past few months.

“Powell’s too late,” he said, referring to his desire for rate cuts. “I call him ‘too late Powell’ because he’s always too late. I mean, if you look at him, every time I did this I was right 100 percent, he was wrong,” Trump said.

He added that he “may have to force something” but it is not clear what Trump meant by that.

He also suggested that he should lead the central bank. “Maybe I should go to the Fed,” Trump said. “Am I allowed to appoint myself at the Fed? I’d do a much better job than these people.”

Powell’s term is set to expire next May, and Trump has recently walked back his rhetoric on firing the central bank head.

“What I’m going to do is, you know, he gets out in about nine months, he has to, he gets fortunately terminated … I would have never reappointed him, [former President Joe] Biden reappointed him. I don’t know why that is, but I guess maybe he was a Democrat … he’s done a poor job,” Trump said.

WASHINGTON — For a president seeking reelection, Friday’s news of a surge in jobs could not have arrived at a more opportune moment–and President Clinton was quick to take advantage.

“We have the most solid American economy in a generation,” Clinton told reporters hours after the Labor Department reported that unemployment had fallen in June to a six-year low. “The American economy has created 10 million jobs since the beginning of this administration.”

It is a message the White House is certain to repeat often in the coming weeks for one politically powerful reason: Voters judge a president not only as commander in chief but in a very real sense as chairman of the board, the steward of their economic well-being.

While Clinton’s Republican challenger, Bob Dole, has spent most of the campaign so far castigating his opponent over such matters as war and peace, personal character and ethics, it is the public’s verdict on the economy that frequently determines election winners.

And at this point, barring some sudden change, “based on what I see right now with inflation and growth, my prediction puts Bill Clinton between 52% and 53%” in a two-way contest, said Helmut Norpoth, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who has looked at the role of the economy in elections dating back to 1872.

Michael Lewis-Beck, a professor at the University of Iowa and author of a book on forecasting presidential elections, concurs.

The economic figures would indicate that “the election isn’t going to be a landslide, but it wouldn’t be a squeaker either,” he said.

Battle Continues

The timing of Friday’s unemployment report may be particularly auspicious for Clinton because the incumbent usually wins reelection when unemployment is falling at midyear, Lewis-Beck says. The economic performance in the fall is not so important because voters’ perceptions of the economy seem to lag behind the actual statistics by several months, analysts say.

Yet for all that, the crucial battle over the economy may not be over yet. Dole can take at least some comfort in evidence that voters have been less than euphoric about the state of the economy and divided over whether the president or his Republican challenger would do a better job in the head office.

On the campaign trail, Dole seeks to reinforce public doubts by lamenting a “Clinton crunch” and claiming that tax increases and over-regulation have cut into the national prosperity. He and his aides argue that many Americans have been frustrated by stagnant incomes and that the pace of economic growth has trailed that of earlier decades.

The Republican candidate was silent on the economy Friday–he and his advisors have been working on an economic plan to put forward, but they have yet to announce one.

Speaking for Dole, his press secretary, Nelson Warfield, said in a statement: “Even as more people found jobs last month, a stunning 70% of Americans agreed the country is on the wrong track,” a reference to recent public opinion polls. “If people are finding jobs but are still unhappy about where the nation is headed, Bill Clinton is in serious danger of unemployment himself.”

Changing Times

The latest economic figures are a notable contrast with those released this week four years ago, when Clinton was the challenger against Republican incumbent George Bush and the June unemployment report showed an increase in the jobless rate, from 7.5% to 7.8%.

Bush, deeply worried about the economic numbers, called on the Federal Reserve that very day to reduce interest rates. The Fed immediately cut the “federal funds” rate (which banks charge each other for overnight loans) from 3.75% to 3.25%. That may have helped end the recession, but it did not save Bush’s job.

This year many analysts believe that the Republicans will have difficulty selling the notion that Clinton has failed in his financial duties during his term in office, because the economy has performed relatively well in some of the ways that households care most about. Employment is high. Inflation is low. Not surprisingly, consumer confidence has registered at solid levels in recent surveys.

Remember the Misery Index? That infamous duo of unemployment and consumer inflation, which added up to almost 22% in 1980, is now below 9% and has been hovering at the lowest levels since the late 1960s.

Not only is unemployment low, but inflation remains stable and subdued around 3%, little changed from the day Clinton took office.

Interest rates have varied. The key 30-year Treasury bond, which stood at 7.6% in late 1992, plunged from 7.88% to 5.95% during 1995 before beginning to rise again earlier this year as the economy expanded. The bond yield jumped from 6.93% Wednesday to 7.19% Friday.

In addition, the federal budget deficit has shrunk by half since Clinton took office.

Contrary Messages

To this day, many conservatives remain angry that Clinton endorsed a deficit-reduction plan in 1993 that increased top income-tax rates for the affluent. Others, however, credit the program with helping to cut the deficit while preserving economic growth.

Even public anxiety over layoffs and corporate downsizing, so ballyhooed in prominent media reports, appears exaggerated, according to polling experts.

“If a Republican were running on this record, you’d hear nothing from the Republican side but, ‘Look what a good job we did,’ ” said Harvard University economist Benjamin Friedman. “I think the economy should definitely be a plus–and a large plus–for Clinton.”

Not surprisingly, a contrary message emerges from the Dole camp. Its assessment: Meager gains in productivity and a trend of subpar economic growth under Clinton have harmed progress in living standards. “Now it’s time to do something about it,” said John B. Taylor, a Stanford University economist who is advising Dole.

Some of the public opinion polls, such as surveys of consumer confidence, do not capture the undercurrents of unease that many Americans feel about the long-term performance of the economy, Taylor added. “I think most of those concerns reflect the slower long-term growth,” he said.

Yet many economists question whether the pejorative label, “Clinton crunch,” gives a true picture of long-term or even short-term trends in the economy.

The U.S. economy expanded at an average annual pace of 1.6% during the years of Bush’s presidency, according to David Wyss, an economist at DRI-McGraw Hill in Lexington, Mass. Under Clinton, Wyss said, the tempo picked up to 2.3%.

Gauging the Mood

Productivity gains–a key driver of living standards–have dipped during Clinton’s term, a matter of concern to economists, although the timing of economic slumps and recoveries complicates any comparisons of different periods.

Eager to put the Clinton statistics under a harsh light, a clutch of GOP advisors has been pressing Dole to unveil a bold plan of across-the-board tax cuts as a way to highlight his devotion to rising living standards. But the candidate has yet to sign off on a final plan.

“And, frankly, with the economy purring along fairly well right now, it’s a hard case to make to the American public that we need a major revolution,” Wyss said.

Certainly, the voters of 1996 view conditions to be more robust than they did four years ago.

In a May Gallup Poll, only 12% of voters considered the economy to be the nation’s most important problem, and just 13% cited jobs as the worst problem. Four years earlier, 29% cited the economy and 21% pointed to jobs.

Similarly, consumers are much more upbeat today. A June index of consumer confidence by the Conference Board came in at a solid 97.6. The same index had plunged to 61.2 four years earlier.

What is more, there is scant evidence that Americans are gripped with the rising terror of losing their jobs, for all the attention to layoff announcements this year. The number of Americans reporting such anxiety–slightly more than a third, according to Gallup polls–is significant but is about the same as it was four years ago.

To some analysts, this means that the media exaggerated the degree of worker anxiety earlier this year, when news coverage zeroed in on the GOP presidential campaign of Patrick J. Buchanan and his focus on the vulnerability of U.S. workers in a world of free trade and corporate downsizing.

“The public didn’t buy into it even when they were hearing most about economic anxiety, and on the whole that’s still true,” maintained Everett C. Ladd, director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut.

Still, Dole may find reason for hope in voter attitudes about which candidate would be better for the economy.

In late June, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 37% of Americans felt Clinton would do a better job dealing with the economy, while an almost equal 34% chose Dole. Those findings were similar to the most recent Los Angeles Times Poll, in April.

In fact, one scholarly prognosticator of elections, Ray C. Fair of Yale University, gives Dole the edge in November, in part because of the less-than-spectacular pace of economic growth, though the race appears “so narrow as to be essentially a dead heat.”

It should be noted, however, that forecasting how the economy will influence an election is hardly an exact science. To cite one recent whopper, Fair, Lewis-Beck and others picked Bush in 1992.

Questions of forecasting aside, there may be an irony here: No president can exercise much immediate influence over the $7.5-trillion U.S. economy. On top of that, Clinton has served in a time when his party does not control Congress, further reducing his powers.

“The president has very limited importance in the short run about what happens with the economy,” said Jeremy J. Siegel, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“I think he’s been lucky the economy has done well. Some of that good fortune is going to rub off on him.”

* MARKET JITTERS: Stocks, bonds hit amid fears of further upheaval Monday. D1

* PENT-UP DEMAND: Southland housing market takes rate boost in stride. D1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Measuring the Misery

The misery index–the sum of the unemployment rate and inflation rate–is lower this election year than in any since 1968. In the table, the unemployment rate is an annual average, and the inflation rate is the yearly change in the consumer price index.

*–*

Unemployment Inflation Misery Presidential rate rate index result 1996* 5.6% 2.9% 8.5% ??? 1992 7.4% 3.0% 10.4% Incumbent lost 1988 5.5% 4.1% 9.6% Incumbent’s party won 1984 7.5% 4.3% 11.8% Incumbent won 1980 7.1% 13.5% 20.6% Incumbent lost 1976 7.7% 5.8% 13.5% Incumbent lost 1972 5.6% 3.2% 8.8% Incumbent won 1968 3.6% 4.2% 7.8% Incumbent’s party lost 1964 5.2% 1.3% 6.5% Incumbent won 1960 5.5% 1.7% 7.2% Incumbent’s party lost

*–*

* 1996 unemployment as of May, CPI change for 12 months ending in May

Source: Labor Department

Tech giant rejects ‘false reports’ after Iranian state media urges citizens to delete messaging app.

US tech giant Meta has expressed concern that Iran may block WhatsApp after state media claimed the messaging service is being used for snooping by Israel.

“We’re concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most,” Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“All of the messages you send to family and friends on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted meaning no-one except the sender and recipient has access to those messages, not even WhatsApp.”

Meta added that it does not track users’ precise location or maintain logs of who is messaging whom.

“We do not provide bulk information to any government,” the California-based tech firm said.

“For over a decade, Meta has provided consistent transparency reports that include the limited circumstances when WhatsApp information has been requested.”

Meta’s statement came after the  Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) urged citizens to deactivate or delete their WhatsApp accounts because the “Zionist regime is using citizens’ information to harm us”.

“This is extremely important because they are using the information on your phone, your location and the content you share, which is likely private but still accessible,” an IRNA host said, according to a subtitled clip shared by Iraqi media outlet Rudaw.

“Many of us have friends and relatives living nearby, and some of them could be nuclear scientists or beloved figures, don’t forget.”

End-to-end encryption makes it technically impossible for third parties, including tech companies, to access the contents of messages while they are en route from a sender to a recipient.

However, Meta and other tech platforms do collect so-called metadata, such as contacts and device information, which they can share with authorities when requested.

Iran added WhatsApp and Instagram to its list of prohibited apps in September 2022 amid protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, in custody.

Iranian authorities voted to lift the ban two months later as part of reforms to enhance internet freedom promised by President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Crude oil prices jump more than 4 percent amid fears the US may join Israel’s offensive against Iran.

Oil prices have spiked amid fears that the Israel-Iran crisis could spiral into a broader conflict involving the United States.

Brent North Sea Crude and West Texas Intermediate – the two most popular oil benchmarks – rose 4.4 percent and 4.3, respectively, on Tuesday as US President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” from Tehran.

The benchmarks stood at $76.45 per barrel and $74.84 per barrel, respectively, following the jump.

Oil prices edged up further in early trading on Wednesday, with both benchmarks about 0.5 percent higher as of 03:30 GMT.

US stocks fell on the rising geopolitical tensions overnight, with the benchmark S&P500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declining 0.84 percent and 0.91 percent, respectively.

Israel has bombed multiple oil and gas facilities in Iran since Friday, including the South Pars gasfield, the Fajr Jam gas plant, the Shahran oil depot and the Shahr Rey oil refinery.

While there has been little disruption to global energy flows so far, the possibility of escalation – including direct US involvement in Israel’s military offensive – has put markets on edge.

On Tuesday, Trump ratcheted his rhetoric against Iran, adding to fears that his administration could order a military strike against Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Fordow.

In a thinly veiled threat against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump said in a Truth Social post that the US knew his location but did not want him killed “for now”.

Iran has the world’s third-largest reserves of crude oil and second-largest reserves of gas, though its reach as an energy exporter has been heavily curtailed by US-led sanctions.

The country produced about 3.99 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2023, or 4 percent of global supply, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Iran also sits on the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a conduit for 20-30 percent of global oil shipments.

Nearly all of Iran’s oil exports leave via the Kharg Island export terminal, which has so far been spared from Israeli bombing.

“In the context of seeking to destabilize Iran, Israel may choose to strike its oil exports, believing that working to finish off a hostile regime is worth the risk of alienating allies concerned with potential price escalation,” Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, wrote in an analysis on Monday.

“Israeli strategists are likely well aware that Iran’s oil export capacity is quite vulnerable to disruption. Its offshore oil export terminal at Kharg Island accounts for nearly all of its 1.5 million barrels per day average export volume.”

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he wanted a return to a tariff-free agreement for civil aviation.

Airbus has struck a deal with Vietnamese budget airline Vietjet for up to 150 single-aisle jets at the Paris Air Show as the aviation industry’s hopes to return to a tariff-free trade agreement were given a boost by United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

The French planemaker announced the deal on Tuesday.

Airbus is the main supplier of jets to Vietnam, accounting for 86 percent of the planes currently operated by Vietnamese airlines. The export-dependent Southeast Asian country is under pressure from Washington to buy more US goods.

Vietjet Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao said the scale of the airline’s orders was backed by plans to develop a major aviation hub in Vietnam, which Airbus says has seen its aviation market grow by 7.5 percent a year.

A deal for 150 A321neos could be worth around $9.4bn, according to estimated prices provided by Cirium Ascend.

The agreement was the latest in a flurry of business announced by Airbus at the world’s biggest aviation trade fair in Paris, France.

Airbus has made gains against its chief competitor Boeing as airlines reconsider purchases of the US-made jets amid ongoing tariff threats in recent months. In May, budget airline Ryanair threatened to pull orders of Boeing aircraft amid tariff threats.

A tariff truce?

Duffy said he wanted civil aviation to return to a 1979 zero-tariff trade agreement, in one of the clearest signs yet that the administration of US President Donald Trump might favour such a move. However, Duffy added that while the White House was aware that the US is a net exporter in aerospace, it was also dealing with a complex tariff situation.

“Now, again, you look at what free trade has done for aviation. It’s been remarkable for them. It’s a great space of net exporters,” Duffy said. “And so the White House understands that, but if you go over there and you see the moving parts of what they’re dealing with, it is pretty intense and it’s a lot.”

Trump’s sweeping 10 percent import tariffs are a headache for an industry already battling supply chain challenges and facing fresh turbulence from last week’s deadly Air India crash and conflict in the Middle East.

In early May, the US Commerce Department launched a “Section 232” national security investigation into imports of commercial aircraft, jet engines and parts that could form the basis for even higher tariffs on such imports.

Airlines, planemakers and several US trading partners have been lobbying Trump to restore the tariff-free regime under the 1979 agreement.

Boeing was having a subdued show and parking announcements while focusing on the probe into last week’s fatal crash of an Air India Boeing 787 and after it racked up huge deals during Trump’s recent tour of the Middle East.

Attention turned to another big Airbus customer, AirAsia, long associated with buzzy show finales and looking at buying 100 A220s, with Brazil’s Embraer seeking to wrest away the deal after losing a key contest in Poland, delegates said. Airbus was also expected to reveal Egyptair as the airline behind a recent unidentified order for six more A350s.

Even so, Airbus’s hopes of using the event as a showcase for its first significant deal with Royal Air Maroc faded after the airline postponed plans to announce a larger Boeing deal, delegates said.

If passed, the bill will establish for the first time a regulatory regime for stablecoins, a fast rising financial product.

The United States Senate has passed a bill to create a regulatory framework for US-dollar-pegged cryptocurrency tokens known as stablecoins, in a watershed moment for the digital asset industry.

The bill, dubbed the GENIUS Act, received bipartisan support on Tuesday, with several Democrats joining most Republicans to back the proposed federal rules. It passed 68-30. The House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, needs to pass its version of the bill before it heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for approval.

Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents say that they could be used to send payments instantly.

If signed into law, the stablecoin bill would require tokens to be backed by liquid assets – such as US dollars and short-term Treasury bills – and for issuers to publicly disclose the composition of their reserves on a monthly basis.

“It is a major milestone,” said Andrew Olmem, a managing partner at law firm Mayer Brown and the former deputy director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term.

“It establishes, for the first time, a regulatory regime for stablecoins, a rapidly developing financial product and industry.”

The crypto industry has long pushed for lawmakers to pass legislation creating rules for digital assets, arguing that a clear framework could enable stablecoins to become more widely used. The sector spent more than $119m backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year’s elections and had tried to paint the issue as bipartisan.

The House passed a stablecoin bill last year but it died after the Senate, in which Democrats held the majority at the time, did not take it up.

Conflict of interest

Trump has sought to broadly overhaul US cryptocurrency policies after courting cash from the industry during his presidential campaign.

Bo Hines, who leads Trump’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, has said the White House wants a stablecoin bill passed before August.

Tensions on Capitol Hill over Trump’s various crypto ventures at one point threatened to derail the digital asset sector’s hope of legislation this year as Democrats have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump and his family members promoting their personal crypto projects.

“In advancing these bills, lawmakers forfeited their opportunity to confront Trump’s crypto grift – the largest, most flagrant corruption in presidential history,” said Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group.

Trump’s crypto ventures include a meme coin called $TRUMP, launched in January, and a crypto company he partly owns, called World Liberty Financial.

The White House has said there are no conflicts of interest present for Trump and that his assets are in a trust managed by his children.

Other Democrats have expressed concern that the bill would not prevent Big Tech companies from issuing their own private stablecoins, and argued that legislation needed stronger anti-money laundering protections and prohibitions on foreign stablecoin issuers.

“A bill that turbocharges the stablecoin market, while facilitating the president’s corruption and undermining national security, financial stability and consumer protection is worse than no bill at all,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, in remarks on the Senate floor in May.

The bill could face further changes in the House.

In a statement, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors called for “critical changes” to mitigate financial stability risks.

“CSBS remains concerned with the dramatic and unsupported expansion of the authority of uninsured banks to conduct money transmission or custody activities nationwide without the approval or oversight of host state supervisors,” said president and CEO Brandon Milhorn in a statement.

More than one-fifth of news consumers surveyed engaged with podcaster Joe Rogan, Reuters Institute says.

Social media and video platforms have eclipsed traditional media as news sources in the United States for the first time, a report has found.

Fifth-four percent of surveyed Americans used platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok for news during the previous week, up from 27 percent in 2013, the report by the Reuters Institute showed on Tuesday.

Only 50 percent relied on TV, while 48 percent looked at news websites or apps, according to the 2025 Digital News Report.

Young people drove the shift, with 54 percent of Americans aged 18-24 and half of those aged 25-34 choosing social media and video platforms as their “main” source of news.

The move towards social media was strongest in the US and Brazil, where 34 percent and 35 percent of respondents, respectively, described it as their “main” source of news, followed by the United Kingdom, France, Denmark and Japan.

Individual online influencers, most of them right-leaning, are also reaching large numbers of news consumers, the report found.

More than one-fifth of US respondents said they had seen podcaster Joe Rogan discuss the news during the week following US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, while 12-14 percent encountered Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro, according to the report.

The report also found that the so-called “Trump bump” experienced by news platforms in 2016 has not carried over into his second presidency, with only social media and video platforms seeing their audiences rise.

Across nearly 50 countries surveyed, four in 10 respondents said they trusted most news “most of the time,” a figure that has been stable for the past three years, according to the report.

Trust was highest in Nigeria, where 68 percent expressed confidence, followed by Finland, Kenya, Denmark, South Africa and Thailand.

Respondents in Greece and Hungary had the least trust, with just 22 percent believing the news, followed by those in Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Nic Newman, the report’s author, said the declining influence of traditional media has been a boon for politicians, who are “increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favour of friendly partisan media, ‘personalities’, and ‘influencers’ who often get special access but rarely ask difficult questions”.

“These trends are increasingly pronounced in the United States under Donald Trump, as well as parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, but are moving more slowly elsewhere, especially where news brands maintain a strong connection with audiences,” Newman said in an overview of the report.

“In countries where press freedom is under threat, alternative ecosystems also offer opportunities, at their best, to bring fresh perspectives and challenge repressive governments,” Newman said.

“But at the same time, these changes may be contributing to rising political polarisation and a coarsening debate online.”

As a community and cultural center of Boyle Heights, Mariachi Plaza would be an obvious place for families to gather on Father’s Day.

But the normally bustling plaza was all but deserted when Mayor Karen Bass visited Sunday morning.

More than a week after President Trump’s immigration raids first instilled terror in Los Angeles communities, the federal sweeps have had a profound chilling effect in the overwhelmingly Latino, working-class neighborhood just east of downtown.

“Mariachi Plaza was completely empty. There was not a soul there,” Bass recalled a few hours later. “One restaurant, there were a handful of people. The other restaurant, there was literally nobody there.”

Bass visited a number of small businesses in Boyle Heights with Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), including Casa Fina, Distrito Catorce, Yeya’s and Birrieria De Don Boni, as well as the Estrada Courts public housing project, where Bass and Gonzalez both said residents were reluctant to come outside of their homes for a Father’s Day celebration.

“It’s the uncertainty that continues that has an absolute economic impact. But it is pretty profound to walk up and down the streets and to see the empty streets, it reminded me of COVID,” Bass told The Times on Sunday afternoon.

Bass said restaurant operators in Boyle Heights told her current circumstances were actually worse than what they had faced during COVID-19, because unlike during the pandemic, there had been no ensuing bump in to-go orders. She hypothesized that the issue was compounded by the fact that many people were not going in to work, meaning they didn’t have disposable income to eat out.

“They said people aren’t ordering, and people probably aren’t ordering because they’re not working,” Bass said.

Gonzalez said the proprietor of one of the restaurants they visited was crying.

“He said, ‘It’s so empty. I’ve never seen it like this, and I don’t know how we can survive this,’ ” Gonzalez recalled.

Asked about his message to Trump, Gonzalez spoke about the centrality of immigrants to California’s economy.

“For somebody who’s supposed to be business oriented, he sure is allowing local businesses to sink and have the effect that these raids are having,” Gonzalez said.

Entire sectors of the city’s economy cannot function without immigrant labor, Bass said, citing the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles, where raids have instilled acute fears and muffled business.

Bass also said she worried about how the disquiet would affect rebuilding in the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades, if a significant quotient of the immigrant-heavy construction workforce is scared to show up to job sites.

The mayor underscored similar points in a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, describing the disruption and fear as “a body blow to our economy.”

In a post on X, she urged Angelenos to visit small businesses like those in Boyle Heights, writing, “Let’s show up, support them and send a message: LA stands with you.”

The aftereffects of the ensuing mass protests have also pummeled restaurants and bars in the downtown area, with widespread vandalism in the Civic Center and Little Tokyo areas.

The indefinite 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew imposed on downtown Los Angeles has transformed the nightlife hub into a virtual ghost town after dark, walloping business at establishments that have already faced years of financial and operational setbacks in the wake of the pandemic and entertainment industry strikes.

However, the mayor said the downtown business community “made a strong appeal for the curfew,” given the disruption in the area.

Leaders are also torn on a statement calling for de-escalation between Iran and Israel

World leaders assembled at this week’s Group of Seven summit in Canada will try to push United States President Donald Trump to back away from his punishing trade war, which experts say poses a risk to global economic stability.

Most countries represented at the G7 are already subject to Trump’s 10 percent baseline tariff with threats of more to come. European countries and Japan face additional levies on cars and steel and aluminium. The G7 consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US.

Arriving for a meeting with the host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said trade would be the “primary focus” of the summit, which began on Sunday and runs until Tuesday.

The trade issue is of particular interest to Canada after the Trump administration announced several extra levies on Canadian goods in recent months.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has been invited to the summit and will have her own face-to-face time with Trump as her country tries to renegotiate its three-way North American free trade agreement, which also includes Canada.

While there is little expectation that the summit will end with a breakthrough in the trade negotiations between the US and the rest of the world, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is part of Trump’s delegation.

Dozens of countries are locked in negotiations with the Trump administration to clinch some sort of trade deal before the US imposes stinging “reciprocal” tariffs, threatened for July.

Last week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the date could be pushed back later for countries thought to be negotiating in good faith.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters he would team up with his counterparts from France and Italy to discuss the US trade threat with Trump directly.

“[French President] Emmanuel Macron, [Italian Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni and I are firmly resolved to try, over the next two days, to talk again with the US government to see if we can find a solution,” Merz told reporters.

“There will be no solution at this summit, but we may be able to get closer to a solution in small steps,” he added.

The European Commission handles trade negotiations for the 27-country European Union and the bloc’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, was also attending the summit, accompanying the delegation of commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Shortly after arriving at the summit, von der Leyen on Monday made an appeal to “keep trade between us fair, predictable and open” in a veiled plea for Trump to back off from his tariff onslaught.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he will talk about implementing the UK’s trade deal with the US during his one-on-one with Trump.

The UK in May was the first country to sign a preliminary deal with Washington to avoid deeper tariffs although the 10 percent baseline levy stays in place.

Starmer said the deal was in its final stages and he expects it to be completed “very soon”.

Trade talks underscored by Iran and Israel

The trade talks come alongside increasing tensions between Israel and Iran as the two countries exchange attacks. On Monday, an Israeli air strike hit an Iranian state TV station midbroadcast. Calls for de-escalation have been a point of contention at the meeting, according to Al Jazeera’s James Bay.

“The problem with the G7 is that you have a range of views. You have President Trump on one end, who it seems will not even sign a statement on de-escalation. You have the Europeans, who have been saying ‘de-escalation’ since this current situation started on Friday,” Bay said.

“Japan was very different from the other countries. It was very, very strong in its condemnation of Israel’s attack on Iran, so you can see just within the G7 a wide range of opinions,” Bay said.

A $499 gold phone built entirely in the United States and a mobile plan boasting telehealth services have been announced by the Trump Organization as part of an effort to entice the US president’s supporters away from major telecom providers and wireless services.

The mobile service is the latest example of the president’s family striking business deals off of the Trump name.

The eponymous Trump Mobile was announced in a Monday statement issued by the Trump Organization, which is led by President Donald Trump’s son Eric.

Dubbed the 47 Plan, the service will cost consumers $47.45 a month and will offer “5G service through all three major cellular carriers” – T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T. According to the statement, it will offer telemedicine, unlimited texting plans with 100 counties, and roadside assistance.

Some key details about the venture, including those about the family’s partner in the business and the financial terms of their licensing deal, were not immediately disclosed.

The “T1 Phone” is advertised as “proudly designed and built in the United States” and listed with a release date in August, although a tech writer from The Verge questioned the viability of building a phone in the US so quickly.

Speaking on Fox Business, Eric Trump said Trump Mobile would have call centres in St Louis, Missouri.

The Trump family, long known for its real estate empire, luxury hotels, and golf resorts, has in recent years ventured into newer arenas including digital media and cryptocurrency.

President Trump has said he put his business interests in a trust managed by his children to avoid conflicts of interest, but income from such business ventures will eventually enrich Trump, who sits atop the series of Trump family firms. In the president’s financial disclosure released on Friday, he reported more than $600m in income from licensing deals, crypto projects, golf clubs and other ventures – though that figure appeared to be only through the end of 2024, before his inauguration.

Targeting Apple?

The Trump Mobile announcement coincides with increased tension between the Trump administration and Apple in particular. The White House explicitly called for 25 percent tariffs on Apple products unless they are made in the US.

“It’s pointed at Apple, that’s a really big downward price pressure on what Apple’s trying to do,” Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, told the Reuters news agency.

Despite a recent pledge to spend $500bn in the US on manufacturing, research and development – comparable to pledges the Cupertino, California-based tech giant made in the past – the company recently doubled down on moving key parts of its production from China to India.

“There’s been kind of an opening for this type of device, if you will, simply because not just Apple, but Samsung devices to a certain extent as well, have really gotten so expensive in the moment in time and we haven’t really seen that big of a measurable increase in utility,” Mulberry said.

The Trump Organization, which is the main holding entity for most of the US president’s business ventures, said ahead of Trump’s inauguration that control of the company would be handed to his children, replicating the arrangement from his first term, though concerns about potential conflicts of interest remain.

“No one who has been paying attention could miss that President Trump considers the presidency a vehicle to grow his family’s wealth. Maybe this example will help more come to see this undeniable truth,” Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School, told Reuters.

Will it land?

While the Trump Organization is privately held, Trump-related stocks have not performed well on the news of the new smartphone and service plan. ​​Trump Media & Technology Group Corp, which is traded under the ticker DJT, is down 1.59 percent for the day as of 11am ET (15:00 GMT). The stock has already been on the downturn. It has tumbled more than 10 percent in the last five trading days.

“I don’t see much impact from Trump Mobile across the industry, as half of its addressable market is negated by political parties, and then from there, this industry already has a lot of stickiness to current providers,” David Wagner, head of equities at Aptus Capital Advisors, told Reuters.

Major wireless carriers have been having a mixed day on Wall Street. Verizon is down by about 0.1 percent from yesterday’s close. AT&T is up 0.2 percent from the market close yesterday. T-Mobile is up 0.5 percent. The new phone announcement has not underpinned Apple in the markets. Apple’s stock is up 0.7 percent from the market close yesterday.