Oil Heads For Worst Annual Loss Since COVID As US Crude Production Hits Record High
Oil futures are gaining in early U.S. trade, but on track to end the year substantially lower.
As Dow Jones reports, the unwinding of OPEC+ output cuts, along with higher non-OPEC production, fueled oversupply concerns in 2025, while U.S. sanctions and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Russia-Ukraine and more recently Venezuela led to frequent price spikes.
“The crude supply surplus will acquire greater transparency than was the case through most of the fall period as floating storage gradually finds its way into onshore facilities,” Ritterbusch and Associates says in a note.
But away from the geopolitical chaos, domestic supply and production remain key…
DOE
Crude -1.934mm
Cushing +543k
Gasoline +5.845mm
Distillates +4.977mm
Crude stocks fell for the 3rd week in the last 4 while product inventories saw their 8th straight weekly build in a row…
The US Crude Oil Total Inventory (excluding Strategic Petroleum Reserve) fell to 422,888 thousand barrels in the week ending Dec. 26, 2025, lowest since Oct. 31, 2025… decoupling from the crude price…
US crude production remains near record highs as the rig count has continued to slide all year…
Oil headed for its steepest annual loss since the start of the pandemic in 2020, in a year that has been dominated by geopolitical risks and steadily rising supplies across the globe.
OPEC+ roiled markets earlier this year by reversing its longstanding policy of defending prices and raised output, seeking to reclaim market share as countries including Brazil and Guyana boosted supply and the US pumped at record levels. The producer group is expected to hold off on output hikes during talks this weekend.
A punishing surplus is expected to weigh on prices in 2026 – Global oil markets have been been oversupplied this year.
“The oil market is set to remain oversupplied into 2026, with strong non-OPEC production from the US, Brazil, Guyana and Argentina outpacing uneven global demand,” said Kaynat Chainwala, an analyst at Kotak Securities Ltd. Prices should stay range-bound between $50 and $70, with risks over Venezuelan or Russian supply remaining supportive, she added.
Both the International Energy Agency and the US government see production exceeding consumption by just over 2 million barrels a day in 2025 and that surplus worsening in the coming year.
Futures Flat On Last Trading Day Of 2025, Silver Slides
Stocks are ending a third straight year of double-digit gains in subdued fashion as an expected seasonal rally fails to gain traction. Silver’s volatile ride extended to another session, with the metal tumbling after the CME hiked margins for the second time in three days. As of 8:15am ET, S&P 500 futures fell 0.1% and well off session lows, after a stretch of post-Christmas losses pared the benchmark’s advance for 2025 to 17%, just shy of the 20%+ gains 2021, 2023 and 2024. Nasdaq 100 contracts were down 0.3%.Both indexes have drifted lower for the past three days amid a rotation out of growth and momentum stocks and into value and quality names in seasonally. Silver plunged as a run of price moves of 5% or more entered a fourth day. The dollar is steady as it heads for an annual decline of about 8%, the steepest since 2017. Treasury yields are ticking lower after Tuesday’s FOMC minutes offered nothing to shake expectations rates will be left unchanged when policymakers meet again in January, with further cuts likely later in the year. The only economic data on today’s calendar is the weekly initial claims which printed far below expectations at 199K (est.218K).
In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks were mostly lower (Nvidia +0.4%, Tesla +0.3%, Microsoft -0.1%, Apple -0.2%, Amazon -0.1%, Meta -0.1%, Alphabet -0.3%). With a 66% year-to-date rally, Alphabet leads the group in 2025.
Nike (NKE) is up 2.6% after CEO Elliott Hill reported the purchase of about $1 million in shares.
Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA) jumps 21% after the biopharmaceutical company said the US FDA has approved Nereus (tradipitant) for the prevention of vomiting induced by motion.
In corporate news, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. plans to once again reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance Corp., according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. Among the board’s concerns, Paramount has yet to increase its offer, which Warner Bros. earlier rejected as inferior to Netflix’s offer. Michael Burry, the money manager made famous in The Big Short, denied betting against Tesla shares, despite calling the company “ridiculously overvalued” earlier this month.
Investors have reaped strong returns this year in a market that has been powered by optimism about the vast economic potential of artificial intelligence. Of course, as Bloomberg notes, it hasn’t been a smooth ride, though, with traders weathering swings triggered by US trade policies, geopolitical tension and concern over lofty valuations. And while many expected a Santa rally, the year’s momentum faded in the final days of December, as traders delay big decisions until after the holiday period, having already banked strong returns. The post-Christmas losses pared the S&P’s 2025 advance to 17%, just shy of the 20%+ gains 2021, 2023 and 2024.
“After an excellent year in equity markets, and with positioning close to highs in late November, portfolio and fund managers may have been closing their bets and realigning them to benchmark,” said Roberto Scholtes, head of strategy at Singular Bank. “Our base case is for the bull run to continue, albeit with more volatility and resulting in mid-single digit returns.”
While things remain subdued in equities, silver’s gyrations continue. Wild price swings are prompting CME Group to raise margins on precious-metal futures for the second time in a week. After an almost unstoppable rise, the two metals have recorded a series of swings in December and erased some gains as investors booked profits. Both commodities remain on track for their best year since 1979.
Elsewhere, Xi Jinping said China is set to meet its economic targets for 2025, with growth expected to reach “about 5%” even though in reality it is a fraction of that. China also blasted Western criticism of its most intrusive military drills ever around Taiwan as its armed forces appeared to wrap up the maneuvers.
The end of 2025 also means that Warren Buffett’s famed tenure as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway is officially coming to a close, as the 95-year-old hands over the reins to successor Greg Abel into the new year.
In Europe, the CAC 40 is down 0.6% while the FTSE 100 drops 0.2%, with both indexes set to close early. Bourses in Germany and Italy are shut all day. Mining and technology stocks are leading declines on the Stoxx 600.
Asian equities wrapped up their best year since 2017 on a more hesitant note. Most regional indexes are under pressure, with Hang Seng Tech and ChiNext leading the retreat. Taiex is a bright spot following an almost 1% rally. Several markets are already shut for the year, including Japan and South Korea.
In FX, the dollar is steady as it heads for an annual decline of about 8%, the steepest since 2017, rattled first by Trump’s tariffs then by Fed rate cuts. The recent advance did little to prevent the greenback from heading toward its worst annual retreat in eight years, with investors saying more declines are coming if the next chief of the Federal Reserve opts for deeper interest-rate cuts than currently expected. The kiwi is the weakest of the G-10 currencies, falling 0.4% against the greenback
In rates, treasuries weakened after of the final economic data release of 2025, with the 10-year yield rising 3 basis point to 4.15% after earlier falling 2bps. Applications for US unemployment unexpectedly tumbled to just 199K in the week ended Dec. 27, far below estimates of 218K.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin traded near $88,800. The digital currency has settled into a range of roughly $85,000 to $95,000 following a crash in October that has put it on pace for a first annual loss in three years. After kicking off 2025 with a rally that was spurred by optimism about the crypto-friendly policies of the second Trump administration, Bitcoin was hit by the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs.
In commodities, silver drops 6% to around $72/oz after the CME Group said they will raise margins on precious-metal futures for the second time in the space of a week. Gold falls 0.7%. Oil headed for its steepest annual loss since the start of the pandemic in 2020, in a year that has been dominated by steadily rising supplies across the globe. Brent steadied close to $62 a barrel, with traders’ near-term focus on an OPEC+ meeting at the weekend, a bearish US industry report and American policies toward Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
Market Snapshot
S&P 500 mini -0.3%
Nasdaq 100 mini -0.4%
Russell 2000 mini -0.3%
Stoxx Europe 600 -0.2%
CAC 40 -0.6%
10-year Treasury yield -1 basis point at 4.11%
VIX +0.6 points at 14.88
Bloomberg Dollar Index little changed at 1204.03
euro -0.1% at $1.1733
WTI crude +0.3% at $58.14/barrel
Top Overnight News
OpenAI Is Paying Employees More Than Any Major Tech Startup in History: WSJ
Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure from Trump: RTRS
Xi Touts China’s AI, Chip Wins In Triumphant New Year’s Speech: BBG
Xi Declares China’s Economy Set to Hit 5% Growth Goal in 2025: BBG
From battleships to buildings: Trump’s name is everywhere: RTRS
Bankers Are Gearing Up for Another Onslaught of Monster Deals in 2026: WSJ
Meta created ‘playbook’ to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers, documents show: RTRS
US Virgin Islands sues Meta over ads for scams, dangers to children: RTRS
Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue: RTRS
World’s Richest Added a Record $2.2 Trillion in Wealth This Year: BBG
Oil Tanker Pursued by U.S. Seems to Claim Russian Protection: WSJ
Boston Went Big on Luxury Condos. The Buyers Didn’t Show Up: WSJ
Finland Takes Control of Ship Suspected of Undersea Cable Damage: BBG
Trump’s Latest Venezuela Tactic: Revealing a Secret Strike to the World: WSJ
Palestinian Authority Sparks Fury by Cutting Prisoner Payments: BBG
US Event Calendar
8:30 am: Dec 27 Initial Jobless Claims 199k, est. 218k, prior 214k
8:30 am: Dec 20 Continuing Claims 1866k, est. 1901.74k, prior 1923k
Silver Stumbles On (More) Margin Hikes, Export Restrictions
As we detailed earlier in the week, the immediate catalyst for silver’s sudden slump was not a single factor but a multitude that cracked the massively overbought precious metal (including export restrictions, US and China margin hikes, ETF flows, etc).
Many, including us, warned that during the holiday period, traders could experience bouts of extreme volatility given the lower liquidity, but prices were expected to rise overall.
That ‘volatility struck over the weekend with Monday’s big price retreat: silver prices did take a significant downward presumably because of another increase in margin levels at the CME during a very illiquid time of year, and positions being adjusted, with initial margins jumping $3,000/oz from $22,000/oz to $25,000/oz. This followed an increase on Dec 12th, 2025, with a 10% increase in margins to the $22,000/oz level.
And overnight we saw more volatility (downside price pressure) for silver as CME Group raised margins on precious-metal futures for the second time in the space of a week following a volatile period of trading that saw prices spike then retreat.
Margins for gold, silver, platinum and palladium contracts will increase after the close of business on Wednesday, the group said in a statement dated Dec. 30. The decision was made based on a review of “market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage,” it said.
The hikes mean that traders need to put up more collateral when they trade precious-metals futures to ensure they can meet their obligations. Earlier, higher margins kicked in from Monday.
Finally, as we detailed earlier in the week, China is set to tighten controls on silver exports from Thursday, expanding restrictions on the once-ordinary metal critical to the U.S. industry and defense supply chains.
But, the rules are not new. China’s Commerce Ministry first announced the new measures in October to strengthen oversight of rare metals, on the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in South Korea. At the time, Beijing agreed to a one-year pause on certain rare earth export controls, while the U.S. rolled back tariffs.
As CNBC reports, earlier this month, China released a list of 44 companies approved to export silver under the new measures in 2026 and 2027. The new rules in 2026 also restrict exports of tungsten and antimony, materials dominated by China’s supply chain and widely used in defense and advanced technologies.
While China hasn’t explicitly announced a blanket ban on silver exports, the state-run Securities Times on Tuesday cited an unnamed industry insider, who said the new policy formally elevates the metal from an ordinary commodity to a strategic material, placing its export controls on the same regulatory footing as rare earths.
Nevertheless, the imminent change has prompted hectic scenes of physical demand in China…
A glimpse of 15 kg SGE #Silver slabs selling at the Shuibei (水贝) Shenzhen Luohu District China’s premier gold and jewelry hub. pic.twitter.com/mjvzVpxuTR
While there has been much talk of Silver being in a bubble, SocGen explained here why they disagree with the ‘models’, and we now note that silver no longer officially ‘overbought’…
In conclusion, Alasdair Macleod warns that the derivative difficulties advertised so loudly in silver contracts tell us that there is a wider and larger commodity pricing problem. Baskets of other commodity and raw material categories are also telling us that if they are to normalize, their dollar prices will rise dramatically in 2026-2027.
It is the currencies which are the problem. Meanwhile, there is nothing likely to stop silver prices rising much further. We can only hope it happens in an orderly fashion.
For now, the decline is stable and hardly indicative of a herd rushing for the exits. But a thin liquidity holiday-shortened week could exacerbate any moves.
The number of Americans filing for jobless claims for the first time plummeted last week to 199k – the lowest since the Thanksgiving week plunge and pretty much the lowest since
Source: Bloomberg
Sub-200k levels are rare and go back to 1969 lows…
Source: Bloomberg
Continuing jobless claims also dipped last week and is below the 1.9 million Maginot Line…
Source: Bloomberg
The ‘no hire, no fire, no quits’ labor market continues.
Michael ‘Big Short’ Burry Reveals He “Is Not Short” Tesla
“Big Short” investor Michael Burry revealed on X that he is not shorting Tesla stock, despite calling Elon Musk’s car, robotics, battery storage, and AI company “ridiculously overvalued” in a separate post.
Early Wednesday morning, Burry posted on X about a prior credit default swap trade he made with Bill Ackman. In response, an X user asked, “Would you short Tesla here?”
Burry replied: “I am not short.”
On Tuesday, Burry posted a screenshot on X of a Bloomberg article covering Tesla delivery estimates from sell-side analysts that showed continued gloom. He added, “Tesla is ridiculously overvalued.”
Burry may be correct on valuation, but many investors appear to be looking beyond near-term vehicle deliveries and instead focusing on robotaxis, humanoid robots, AI, and battery storage.
In late November, Burry deregistered his hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, moving his trading into stealth mode after criticism from X users.
Michael Bury is arguably the worst investor of our generation. Here are 12 of his most smooth brained predictions.
Jan 2017 – Predicted a global financial collapse and WW3 were imminent.
Sep 2019 – Claimed index funds were the next CDOs, ready to implode like 2008.
“I am still running my money and active in markets,” Burry said at the time, later telling a Bloomberg reporter that he was managing capital only for “friends and family.“
Tesla shares are up 12.5% year to date as of Tuesday’s close. The stock has broken above a four-year lateral trading range, with $400 now the key level to hold.
Recall that Burry previously wrote, “On to much better things Nov 25th,” which, for now, appears to include not shorting Tesla.
ByteDance Plans $14 Billion Nvidia H200 AI Chip Buying Spree As Computing Demand Soars
ByteDance plans to purchase 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) in AI chips in 2026, up from 85 billion yuan in 2025, with the bulk of spending directed toward Nvidia hardware, according to the South China Morning Post. The plan hinges on Beijing approving sales of Nvidia’s H200 GPUs in China. If approval is granted, Nvidia would need to scale up production of the China-tailored H200 with its manufacturing partner, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).
The Trump administration recently authorized exports of H200 AI chips to China under a controlled licensing rule, marking a significant shift from prior export curbs. Despite U.S. approval for exports, Beijing has not yet formally approved purchases of H200s by Chinese firms, and reports indicate that access may be restricted or that imports of AI chips may be discouraged to protect its domestic semiconductor industry.
SCMP reports that ByteDance is planning a massive AI capex push, with H200-related spending in the neighborhood of $14 billion. This comes despite the company operating a 1,000-person internal chip design team, which has made progress on a new processor but has not yet matched Nvidia’s performance.
Demand for computing power is surging across TikTok, Douyin, its cloud unit Volcano Engine, and its large language models, driving the need for more advanced chips.
Doubao, ByteDance’s chatbot, now processes more than 50 trillion tokens daily, up from 4 trillion in late 2024, while Volcano Engine serves over 100 enterprise clients and will be a top AI cloud partner for China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala.
In a separate report, Reuters said Chinese technology companies have shown strong interest in Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chip and hope shipments can begin before the Lunar New Year.
Reuters also noted that Nvidia holds about 700,000 H200 AI chips in inventory, while Chinese technology firms have ordered more than 2 million units for next year, prompting Nvidia to ask TSMC to increase production.
Beijing now faces a strategic balancing act: ensuring its tech giants use best-in-class chips to compete in the AI race against the West, while simultaneously promoting the adoption of domestic alternatives, including products from Huawei Technologies’ Ascend unit, Moore Threads Technology, MetaX Integrated Circuits, and Cambricon Technologies.
Watch: Destroying Kamikaze Drones With Cheap Autonomous Turrets
Kamikaze drones, particularly FPV and loitering munitions, have introduced a new dimension to modern warfare, as demonstrated in the Russia-Ukraine war and other active conflict zones globally. These low-cost, off-the-shelf systems are increasingly assessed as a credible threat to civilian targets in the Western world, as highlighted by a recent U.S. government threat assessment warning of potential drone attack risks surrounding Chicago’s upcoming New Year’s Eve fireworks.
For months, we have tracked tech weapons startup Sentradel, which is developing a low-cost, easily deployable counter-unmanned aircraft system (CUAS) designed to engage drones using inexpensive kinetic interceptors, such as bullets.
“In today’s threat landscape, a $500 FPV drone can easily destroy a $10M tank,” Sentradel stated on its website, warning, “We’re losing this asymmetric cost warfare. The solution is not $100,000 missiles; it’s affordable systems like Sentradel.”
From time to time, Sentradel releases new demonstration videos showing the rapid progress of its CUAS platform.
“Here is another update on Sentradel, our counter-drone robotics company. Since the last video, we have made several upgrades to the system. We improved tracking to handle faster-moving drones operating at greater distances. Additionally, we focused on intercepting drones flying perpendicular to the field of view. The vision stack now includes several new thermal cameras, allowing the system to operate in nighttime and low-visibility conditions. We are currently working on multi-drone tracking and neutralization,” Sentradel said.
The West may have found an unexpected way to chip away at communist China’s dominance in the production of critical minerals: extracting metals from oil wells, waste streams, and discarded electronics in an attempt to scale up processing technologies at home.
Instead of waiting years for new mines to open, a wave of startups is turning to existing resources to recover metals that Beijing has controlled for decades.
“Chevron’s wells in just three [Texas] counties can actually produce the world supply of rhodium,” Eric Herrera, CEO of MaverickX, recently told The Epoch Times.
Rhodium is the world’s most valuable precious metal, prized for its ability to neutralize toxic emissions.
It sits alongside a wider class of materials that make up the hidden components in smartphones, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and even weapons.
Geostrategic Weaponized Tools
Rare-earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium are not actually rare. They are abundant but difficult to separate, while minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and tungsten are deemed “critical” because modern economies and defense systems cannot function without them.
Currently, China controls roughly 90 percent of global capacity for the processing, smelting, and separation of all such materials, as well as for the manufacturing of magnetic materials.
This means that while the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, and parts of Africa are racing to establish new mines, most of their concentrates will still have to travel to Chinese refineries.
Beijing knows the leverage this monopoly provides and used it most recently during a trade spat with the United States by restricting exports of rare earths, germanium, and other critical materials this year.
In 2010, China cut off rare-earth exports to Japan for about two months during a territorial dispute.
Meanwhile, Western companies are seeking to confront China’s processing advantage by leapfrogging it.
Herrera’s company is developing methods to recover more metal from existing ore and waste, juicing rocks and discarded electronics for all they are worth.
He told The Epoch Times that he also believes that part of the solution lies under American oil fields.
He said his process can use oil wells to yield not only rhodium, but also titanium, nickel, vanadium, cobalt, copper, and more.
“The oil here in Texas is 19,000 feet deep, about 110 stages,“ he said. ”Each stage has about 110,000 gallons or 20,000 gallons of water to use that’s already permitted, that’s already set up, and the infrastructure is already deployed.”
“All we have to do is add our chemical to take the metals out, and then separate the chemicals. … That’s much, much faster, much cheaper as well,” he said.
Herrera said the oil industry can also move more quickly than traditional mining operations. For major companies, it takes at least five to 10 years for a new technology to reach a mine site.
It also uses existing infrastructure. Moreover, unlike a mining project, a well can be shut down with minimal disruption, whereas killing a copper mine is far more consequential, he said.
That speed, Herrera said, may allow Western companies to compete with China’s processing advantage in a “slow and steady” way.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen all at once,“ he said. ”I think it’ll be subtle, a couple of wells first, more wells, then fields, then entire plains of oil, all of those will have to be going at full capacity to take it away from China.”
“We’re not at that level yet, I think in a couple of years we can get to that level, and if we all do it at once, then yes, then China would absolutely respond,” he said, noting that the same technology could be deployed in other major countries with metal-rich geology, including Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia, whose hot shales are known to contain extractable uranium.
At Rice University in Houston, chemist and nanotechnologist James Tour has pioneered a method for quickly extracting rare-earth metals.
Tour developed a technique capable of breaking down electronic waste, ash, tailings, and more to rapidly recover rare-earth metals and other critical minerals, with a minimal environmental footprint.
His method uses flash Joule heating technology, a patented process that raises material temperatures to thousands of degrees within milliseconds and uses chlorine gas to extract rare-earth elements from magnet waste in seconds without needing water or acids.
Tour said his flash Joule heating technology is already commercially proven in the company Universal Matter, which was spun out of his lab, and in other contexts with graphene, a one-atom-thick form of carbon used to strengthen materials, improve battery performance, and enhance electronics.
“People never really knew how to scale that, and we came up with a process to do this using flash Joule heating,“ he told The Epoch Times. ”That company is up and running and making 1 ton per day of graphene, and it’s already introduced into concrete and asphalt markets.”
The rare-earth version is close behind with a Texas factory that has licensed the method for metal recovery.
He said Flash Metals USA, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Australia’s Metallium, is aiming to process 1 ton per day of print circuit boards by January 2026 and 20 tons per day by September 2026 to recover the rare-earth elements and critical metals they contain.
Electronic waste can contain metal concentrations up to 1,000 times higher than those found in natural ores.
“It’s easier to just deal with things that we already have separated, that we have already deployed into our current electronics and magnets that we’re throwing away,“ Tour said. ”This is [a] treasure, it’s an absolute gold mine.”
The technologies behind modern rare-earth separation were developed in the United States during the Manhattan Project led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Solvent extraction methods were later adopted to isolate individual rare-earth elements.
The United States dominated global production through the 1960s and 1970s via California’s Mountain Pass Mine but lost that position after the mid-1980s as China, initially lacking expertise in heavy rare-earth refining, expanded mining and processing.
A key turning point occurred in 1995 when General Motors sold its magnet subsidiary Magnequench, the last U.S. company making rare-earth magnets, to a Chinese-led consortium. The sale was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and resulted in the transfer of technologies and operations to China, marking the end of U.S. leadership in rare-earth production.
The deal was condemned in 2005 by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) for leaving the United States without a domestic neodymium magnet supplier during Washington’s broader economic opening to Beijing under President Bill Clinton.
Tour said China’s monopoly has also bred its environmentally destructive refining methods.
“This is a horrendously messy process in China, and they’ve contaminated the cities and the rivers in those cities and the water systems in those cities,” he said.
Tour said the Trump administration is treating the issue of rare-earth processing with great importance.
“President [Donald] Trump’s very serious, and it’s this type of thing that can prevent wars,” he said.
“[But] if we don’t have access to these elements, we will go to war. This is the stuff you fight over.”
With guaranteed pricing, Tour said, the U.S. government will counter China’s tactic of artificially depressing prices and bankrupting competitors by flooding markets with cheap material to render Western projects uneconomic.
“The U.S. government will stand behind us, make sure that we get paid a fair price for this, so that the Chinese cannot just artificially drop the price and put us out,” he said.
A former U.S. Army officer said she views the rare-earths issue as “the free world against the not-free world.”
Jessica Lewis McFate, who is now senior director of intelligence solutions at Babel Street, focusing on open-source intelligence and national security, said the implications around sourcing rare earths are profound.
McFate told The Epoch Times that if a Fortune 500 company were to lose access to rare earth-dependent components such as gallium for six months, the impact would extend well beyond a shortage of high-performance chips used in high-intensity computing or radio-frequency applications, including weapons and radar systems.
Gallium, she said, is also critical in medical technologies, meaning that disruptions would ripple across both national security and civilian sectors.
“It scales out to our smartphones, it scales out to MRI machines,” she said.
“And it becomes this requirement for CEOs to all of a sudden really ask how much they know, and ask their vendors tough questions [such as] ‘Where did you get the circuit board?’”
“The Chinese perspective is that they are fighting a war,” she said.
“I think it’s a lot safer for humanity if we fight back by non-lethal means for what we believe in. So I think it’s OK to be deeply competitive and even clever in our competition for advantage.”
‘Momentum Is Clearly Shifting’
Billions of dollars in federal funding are now moving into the sector.
The Department of Energy has announced nearly $1 billion in funding opportunities aimed at supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths, covering mining, processing, manufacturing, recycling, and byproduct recovery.
Under the Trump administration, Washington now holds stakes in MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElement Technologies, and Lithium Americas, and has struck critical minerals deals with more than a dozen countries.
Australia is becoming the strongest non-Chinese processing hub through Lynas’s expansion, Iluka’s Eneabba refinery, and Arafura’s Nolans Project.
Below is my column in The Hill on the move by the Trump Administration against five leading figures in the European censorship movement, including Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy. The United States is finally responding to what is an existential threat to American values. It is worth noting, as I discuss in my new book, Rage and the Republic, that the EU is not only exporting its censorship rules but threatening American companies that do not meet its environment, social and governance (ESG) policies. It is time for Congress to follow suit and get into this fight.
“We are the free world now.”
Those words from Raphael Glucksmann, a French socialist member of the European Parliament, captured the pearl-clutching outrage of Europeans after the Trump administration did what no prior administration has ever done — stand up to Europe to defend the freedom of speech.
This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred five figures closely associated with European censorship efforts from traveling to the U.S. This includes Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy.
In a post on X, Rubio declared that the U.S. “will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship” and will target “leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States.”
Breton achieved infamy as one of the architects of the massive EU censorship system, which is now being globalized. Armed with the notorious Digital Services Act, Breton and others threatened American companies and officials that they would have to yield to European standards of free speech. After Breton learned that Musk was planning to interview Trump before the last presidential election, he even warned the X owner that he would be “monitored” and potentially subject to EU fines.
Socialist Glucksmann is now irate at “this scandalous sanction against Thierry Breton.”
“We are Europeans,” he declared.
“We must defend our laws, our principles, our interests.” In other words, this is a war over whether Europe or the U.S. Constitution will dictate the scope of free speech for American companies and citizens.
Breton and his colleagues are finally being treated as what they are: a clear and present danger to the “indispensable right” that defines all Americans.
The E.U. enthusiastically took up the challenge. This year, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, which boosted the slogan, “A New World Order with European Values.” Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Americans cheered on the European efforts.
The Digital Services Act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” When it was passed over the condemnations of many of us in the free speech community, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager celebrated by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore — that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”
It is indeed a “real thing.”
In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss the challenges facing our republic in the 21st century, including the EU and its transnational governance model. Many on the left are supporting the erosion of national laws and values in favor of standards set by global experts and elites.
This cadre of American enablers has been increasingly vocal in Europe. Notably, late-night ABC host Jimmy Kimmel delivered a Christmas Eve address in Great Britain denouncing the U.S. as a global threat. He declared that “from a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year. Tyranny is booming over here.”
It was crushingly ironic.
Many of us have been writing for years about how free speech has been eviscerated in the United Kingdom, where people are being prosecuted for “toxic ideologies” and an ever-lengthening list of unacceptable political viewpoints.
Yet that is where a comedian, who is paid millions and attacks Trump and conservatives nightly, went to complain about the threat to free speech in the U.S.
Both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary Rubio have delivered major speeches warning the EU about its effort to export censorship systems, particularly targeting American citizens and companies. After years of encouragement and enabling from the Obama and Biden administrations, the U.S. government is finally in this fight.
That is why Europe is up in arms, denouncing the move to bar these officials as an attack on its own sovereignty.
In other words, an effort to defend our own free speech values is a threat to the proclaimed “New World Order with European Values.”
In reality, I do not like travel bans. I prefer that these figures come to this country and face free-speech advocates. Yet despite our calls for Congress to get into this fight, it has done nothing due to opposition from Democratic members. We cannot wait as the EU weaponizes and globalizes censorship.
Glucksmann is right about one thing. This is a fight over who today can be rightfully called the “free world.” In the U.S., we continue to cling to the quaint notion that the free world should be based on … well, freedom.
Latvia Hails Completion Of 175-Mile Fence Along Russian Border
Latvia has finally finished building a long anticipated nearly 175-mile fence along its border with Russia, according to regional media on Tuesday, which cited the state-linked company responsible for managing the project.
The fence cost an equivalent of nearly $20 million, and so at that price points to it being defensively minimal and low-tech, however some additional work is still underway on supporting infrastructure – which is expected to include support items such as footbridges over marshy terrain, observation towers, and engineering installations.
The country’s Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis said Latvia is now deploying advanced surveillance and monitoring systems along the frontier for an eventual “modern border security system” on the European Union’s eastern edge.
This will also complement the previously erected 90-mile fence along Latvia’s border with Belarus, which has been a partner of Moscow in the Ukraine war.
A little over a year ago, Latvia had reached 80% completion of the border wall with Russia. It represents the general attitude of the Baltic neighborhood – that Russia can’t be trusted and is an ‘aggressor’ state bent on expansion.
There’s also been a rise in Baltic armies hosting war games, and exercises which are integrated with NATO, which is fast becoming a ‘new normal’.
Other countries in both eastern and northern Europe are racing to construct their own walls. For example Finland has committed $143 million to a greatly expanded fence along its southeastern boundary.
Helsinki has further announced plans for additional defensive structures, including bunkers and shelters designed to withstand direct artillery or missile attacks.
Poland too has erected electronic surveillance barrier along its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, and recent reports have said it is reintroducing land mines after long being part of an international ban on the controversial weapons.
Polish authorities have also wanted to reduce the risk of migration pressure, pointing to the launch of flights to Kaliningrad as well as Belarus from the Middle East and Africa.
