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Tag: Economic policy

  • Global inflation pressures could become harder to manage in coming years, research suggests

    Global inflation pressures could become harder to manage in coming years, research suggests

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    JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming — Rising trade barriers. Aging populations. A broad transition from carbon-spewing fossil fuels to renewable energy.

    The prevalence of such trends across the world could intensify global inflation pressures in the coming years and make it harder for the Federal Reserve and other central banks to meet their inflation targets.

    That concern was a theme sounded in several high-profile speeches and economic studies presented Friday and Saturday at the Fed’s annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

    For decades, the global economy had been moving toward greater integration, with goods flowing more freely between the United States and its trading partners. Lower-wage production overseas allowed Americans to enjoy inexpensive goods and kept inflation low, though at the expense of many U.S. manufacturing jobs.

    Since the pandemic, though, that trend has shown signs of reversing. Multinational corporations have been shifting their supply chains away from China. They are seeking instead to produce more items — particularly semiconductors, crucial for the production of autos and electronic goods — in the United States, with the encouragement of massive subsidies by the Biden administration.

    At the same time, large-scale investments in renewable energies could prove disruptive, at least temporarily, by increasing government borrowing and demand for raw materials, thereby heightening inflation. Much of the world’s population is aging, and older people are less likely to keep working. Those trends could act as supply shocks, similar to the shortages of goods and labor that accelerated inflation during the rebound from the pandemic recession.

    “The new environment sets the stage for larger relative price shocks than we saw before the pandemic,” Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, said in a speech Friday. “If we face both higher investment needs and greater supply constraints, we are likely to see stronger price pressures in markets like commodities — especially for the metals and minerals that are crucial for green technologies.”

    This would complicate the work of the ECB, the Fed and other central banks whose mandates are to keep price increases in check. Nearly all central banks are still struggling to curb the high inflation that intensified starting in early 2021 and has only partly subsided.

    “We are living in this world in which we could expect to have more and maybe bigger supply shocks,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said in an interview. “All of these things tend to make it harder to produce stuff and make it more costly. And that is definitely the configuration that central banks dislike the most.”

    The shifting patterns in global trade patterns sparked the most attention during Saturday’s discussions at the Jackson Hole conference. A paper presented by Laura Alfaro, an economist at Harvard Business School, found that after decades of growth, China’s share of U.S. imports fell 5% from 2017 to 2022. Her research attributed the decline to tariffs imposed by the United States and the efforts of large U.S. companies to find other sources of goods and parts after China’s pandemic shutdowns disrupted its output.

    Those imports came largely from such other countries as Vietnam, Mexico and Taiwan, which have better relations with the United States than does China — a trend known as “friendshoring.”

    Despite all the changes, U.S. imports reached an all-time high in 2022, suggesting that overall trade has remained high.

    “We are not deglobalizing yet,” Alfaro said. “We are seeing a looming ‘Great Reallocation’ ” as trade patterns shift.

    She noted that there are also tentative signs of “reshoring” — the return of some production to the United States. Alfaro said the United States is importing more parts and unfinished goods than it did before the pandemic, evidence that more final assembly is occurring domestically. And the decline of U.S. manufacturing jobs, she said, appears to have bottomed out.

    Yet Alfaro cautioned that these changes bring downsides as well: In the past five years, the cost of goods from Vietnam has increased about 10% and from Mexico about 3%, adding to inflationary pressures.

    In addition, she said, China has boosted its investment in factories in Vietnam and Mexico. Moreover, other countries that ship goods to the United States also import parts from China. Those developments suggest that the United States hasn’t necessarily reduced its economic ties with China.

    At the same time, some global trends could work in the other direction and cool inflation in the coming years. One such factor is weakening growth in China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States. With its economy struggling, China will buy less oil, minerals and other commodities, a trend that should put downward pressure on the global costs of those goods.

    Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan, said during a discussion Saturday that while China’s sputtering growth is “disappointing,” it stems mainly from rising defaults in its bloated property sector, rather than changes to trade patterns.

    Ueda also criticized the increased use of subsidies to support domestic manufacturing, as the United States had done in the past two years.

    “The widespread use of industrial policy globally could just lead to inefficient factories,” Ueda said, because they wouldn’t necessarily be located in the most cost-effective sites.

    And Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, defended globalization and also denounced rising subsidies and trade barriers. Global trade, she asserted, often restrains inflation and has helped significantly reduce poverty.

    “Predictable trade,” she said, “is a source of disinflationary pressure, reduced market volatility and increased economic activity. …Economic fragmentation would be painful.”

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  • Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hints at more bad news for borrowers | CNN Business

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hints at more bad news for borrowers | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Additional interest rate hikes are still on the table and rates could remain elevated for longer than expected, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.

    Delivering a highly anticipated speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell again stressed that the Fed will pay close attention to economic growth and the state of the labor market when making policy decisions.

    “Although inflation has moved down from its peak — a welcome development — it remains too high,” Powell said. “We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective.”

    The Fed chief’s annual presentation at the symposium, which has become a major event in the world of central banking, typically hints at what to expect from monetary policy in the coming months.

    Powell’s speech wasn’t a full-throated call for more rate hikes, but rather a balanced assessment of inflation’s evolution over the past year and the possible risks to the progress the Fed wants to see. He made it clear the central bank is retaining the option of more hikes, if necessary, and that what Fed officials ultimately decide will depend on data.

    US stocks opened higher before Powell’s speech, tumbled in late morning trading and then rose again.

    The Fed raised its benchmark lending rate by a quarter point in July to a range of 5.25-5.5%, the highest level in 22 years, following a pause in June. Minutes from the Fed’s July meeting showed that officials were concerned about the economy’s surprising strength keeping upward pressure on prices, suggesting more rate hikes if necessary. Some officials have said in recent speeches that the Fed can afford to keep rates steady, underscoring the intense debate among officials on what the Fed should do next.

    Financial markets still see an overwhelming chance the the Fed will decide to hold rates steady at its September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool, given that inflationary pressures have continued to wane.

    Here are some key takeaways from Powell’s speech.

    Chair Powell said there is still a risk that inflation won’t come down to the Fed’s 2% target as the central bank faces the proverbial last mile in its battle with higher prices.

    “Additional evidence of persistently above-trend growth could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy,” Powell said.

    Concerns over the economy running too hot for the Fed’s comfort only recently emerged.

    Economic growth in the second quarter picked up from the prior three-month period and the Atlanta Fed is currently estimating growth will accelerate even more in the third quarter.

    That could be a problem for the Fed, since the central bank’s primary mechanism for fighting inflation is by cooling the economy through tweaking the benchmark lending rate.

    Generally, if demand is red hot, employers will want to hire to meet that demand. But many firms continue to have difficulty hiring, according to business surveys from groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business. In theory, that could prompt wage increases in order to secure talent — and those higher costs could then be passed on to consumers.

    “if you’re a policymaker, you’re looking at the level of output relative to your estimate of what’s sustainable for maximum employment and 2% inflation,” William English, finance professor at Yale University who worked at the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2010 to 2015, told CNN. “So what does that mean for monetary policy? That may mean that they need rates to be higher for longer than they thought to get the economy on to that desirable trajectory, but there are a lot of questions around that force, and a lot of uncertainty.”

    Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester is one of the Fed officials backing a more aggressive stance on fighting inflation.

    “We’ve come come a long way, but we don’t want to be satisfied, because inflation remains too high — and we need to see more evidence to be assured that it’s coming down in a sustainable way and in a timely way,” Mester said in an interview with CNBC after Powell’s remarks.

    Meanwhile, some other officials think there will eventually be enough restraint on the economy and that more hikes could cause unnecessary economic damage. The lagged effects of rate hikes on the broader economy are a key uncertainty for officials, since it’s not clear when exactly those effects will fully take hold. Research suggests it takes at least a year.

    “We are in a restrictive stance in my view, and we’re putting pressure on the economy to slow inflation,” Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told Bloomberg in an interview Friday after Powell’s speech. “What I’m hearing — and I’ve been around my district all summer talking to people — is ‘you’ve done a lot very quickly.’”

    Powell pointed to the steady progress on inflation in the past year: The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — rose 3% in June from a year earlier, down from the 3.8% rise in May. The Commerce Department officially releases July PCE figures next week, though Powell already previewed that report in his speech. He said the Fed’s favorite inflation measure rose 3.3% in the 12 months ended in July.

    The Consumer Price Index, another closely watched inflation measure, rose 3.2% in July, a faster pace than the 3% in June, though underlying price pressures continued to decelerate that month.

    In his speech Friday, Powell stood firmly by the Fed’s current 2% inflation target, which was formalized in 2012 — at least for now. The Fed is set to review its policy framework around 2025, which could be an opportunity to establish a new inflation target.

    Harvard economist Jason Furman said in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal this week that the central bank should aim for a different inflation goal, which could be something slightly higher than 2% or even a range of between 2% and 3%.

    For now, Powell has made it clear he is sticking with the stated inflation target.

    Still, inflation’s progress has hyped up not only American consumers and businesses, but also some Fed officials.

    Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee reiterated to CNBC Friday that he still sees “a path to a soft landing,” a scenario in which inflation falls down to target without a spike in unemployment or a recession.

    Powell also weighed in on an ongoing debate among economists about whether the “neutral rate of interest,” also known as r*, is higher since the economy is still on strong footing despite the Fed’s aggressive pace of rate hikes.

    In theory, the neutral rate is when real interest rates neither restrict nor stimulate growth. The Fed chair said higher interest rates are likely pulling on the economy’s reins, implying that r* might not be structurally higher, though he said it’s an unobservable concept.

    “We see the current stance of policy as restrictive, putting downward pressure on economic activity, hiring, and inflation. But we cannot identify with certainty the neutral rate of interest, and thus there is always uncertainty about the precise level of monetary policy restraint,” Powell said.

    Either way, while the Fed chief hinted that more rate hikes might be coming down the pike, there’s no guarantee either way.

    The Fed paused its historic inflation fight for the first time in June, mostly based on uncertainty over how the spring’s bank stresses would affect lending. The central bank could decide to pause again in September over uncertainty as it waits for more data.

    “We think that the Fed is more likely to take a wait-and-see approach with the data and try to understand a little bit more about why the labor market is remaining so strong, even despite the inflationary experience that we’ve had and the higher interest rates in the economy,” Sinead Colton Grant, head of investor solutions at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, told CNN in an interview.

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  • Stock market today: Asian shares are mixed ahead of Fed Chair speech and Nvidia earnings

    Stock market today: Asian shares are mixed ahead of Fed Chair speech and Nvidia earnings

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    TOKYO — Asian markets were trading mixed Wednesday ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s highly anticipated speech later in the week.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 0.5% to finish at 32,010.26. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4% to 7,148.40. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.5% to 2,503.28. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4% to 17,861.58, while the Shanghai Composite dropped 1.0% to 3,090.68.

    Powell is set to speak Friday at an event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the site of several major policy announcements by the Fed. The Fed has already hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001 in hopes of grinding high inflation down to a 2% target. High rates work by slowing the entire economy bluntly and hurting prices for investments.

    Inflation has come down considerably from its peak above 9% in summer 2022, but economists say getting the last percentage point of improvement may be the most difficult.

    The hope among traders is that Powell would indicate the Fed is done hiking interest rates for this cycle and that it could begin cutting them next year. But strong reports on the economy recently have hurt such hopes. A solid job market and spending by U.S. households could be feeding more fuel into pressures that push upward on inflation.

    Robert Carnell, ING’s head of research for the Asia-Pacific region, noted attention is also on what the People’s Bank of China might do next on monetary policy. Earlier this month, the central bank unexpectedly cut a key interest rate in a sign of growing official urgency about shoring up economic growth.

    “The tug of war between markets and the PBoC will remain a focus in Asia today,” he said.

    Analysts say trading in Asia remains subdued as investors are also waiting for U.S. chipmaker Nvidia’s earnings report later in the day. Nvidia, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, swung from an early gain to a loss of 2.8% Tuesday.

    Nvidia has been at the center of Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, which investors believe will create immense profits for companies. Nvidia’s stock has already more than tripled this year, and it likely faces a high a bar to justify the huge move.

    Analysts expect Nvidia to say on Wednesday that its revenue swelled by nearly $4.5 billion to $11.19 billion during the spring from a year earlier.

    Wall Street finished mostly lower, with the S&P 500 slipping 0.3% to 4,387.55 to give back some of its rare August gain from a day before, which was powered by Big Tech stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% to 34,288.83, and the Nasdaq composite edged up 0.1% to 13,505.87.

    In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield ticked down to 4.32% from 4.34%. It’s the center of the bond market and helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.

    The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more on expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose to 5.04% from 5.00%.

    In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude fell 37 cents to $80.35 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, stood unchanged at $84.03 a barrel.

    In currency trading, the U.S. dollar edged down to 145.63 Japanese yen from 145.85 yen. The euro cost $1.0859, up from $1.0848.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed from New York.

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  • Stock market today: Asian shares are mixed ahead of Fed Chair speech and Nvidia earnings

    Stock market today: Asian shares are mixed ahead of Fed Chair speech and Nvidia earnings

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    TOKYO — Asian markets were trading mixed Wednesday ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s highly anticipated speech later in the week.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 0.5% to finish at 32,010.26. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4% to 7,148.40. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.5% to 2,503.28. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4% to 17,861.58, while the Shanghai Composite dropped 1.0% to 3,090.68.

    Powell is set to speak Friday at an event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the site of several major policy announcements by the Fed. The Fed has already hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001 in hopes of grinding high inflation down to a 2% target. High rates work by slowing the entire economy bluntly and hurting prices for investments.

    Inflation has come down considerably from its peak above 9% in summer 2022, but economists say getting the last percentage point of improvement may be the most difficult.

    The hope among traders is that Powell would indicate the Fed is done hiking interest rates for this cycle and that it could begin cutting them next year. But strong reports on the economy recently have hurt such hopes. A solid job market and spending by U.S. households could be feeding more fuel into pressures that push upward on inflation.

    Robert Carnell, ING’s head of research for the Asia-Pacific region, noted attention is also on what the People’s Bank of China might do next on monetary policy. Earlier this month, the central bank unexpectedly cut a key interest rate in a sign of growing official urgency about shoring up economic growth.

    “The tug of war between markets and the PBoC will remain a focus in Asia today,” he said.

    Analysts say trading in Asia remains subdued as investors are also waiting for U.S. chipmaker Nvidia’s earnings report later in the day. Nvidia, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, swung from an early gain to a loss of 2.8% Tuesday.

    Nvidia has been at the center of Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, which investors believe will create immense profits for companies. Nvidia’s stock has already more than tripled this year, and it likely faces a high a bar to justify the huge move.

    Analysts expect Nvidia to say on Wednesday that its revenue swelled by nearly $4.5 billion to $11.19 billion during the spring from a year earlier.

    Wall Street finished mostly lower, with the S&P 500 slipping 0.3% to 4,387.55 to give back some of its rare August gain from a day before, which was powered by Big Tech stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% to 34,288.83, and the Nasdaq composite edged up 0.1% to 13,505.87.

    In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield ticked down to 4.32% from 4.34%. It’s the center of the bond market and helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.

    The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more on expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose to 5.04% from 5.00%.

    In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude fell 37 cents to $80.35 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, stood unchanged at $84.03 a barrel.

    In currency trading, the U.S. dollar edged down to 145.63 Japanese yen from 145.85 yen. The euro cost $1.0859, up from $1.0848.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed from New York.

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  • Customs officers seize over $380,000 worth of cocaine off bus from Mexico | CNN

    Customs officers seize over $380,000 worth of cocaine off bus from Mexico | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    US customs officers in Texas discovered nearly two dozen packages of cocaine on a commercial bus coming from Mexico.

    Field operations officers with the US Customs and Border Protection seized the “significant amount” of narcotics at the Roma International Bridge in Roma, Texas, the agency reported. Roma is along the Rio Grande in South Texas, roughly 50 miles northwest of McAllen.

    Officers came across the drugs on August 12, according to a news release Tuesday. After the bus arrived, officers conducted a canine and non-intrusive inspection.

    The examination uncovered 22 packages that contained nearly 50 pounds of cocaine, the agency said.

    The seized narcotics had a street value of more than $380,000, CBP said.

    The agency has seized more than 65,000 pounds of cocaine since October 2022, CBP data shows.

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  • China says it would welcome a visit by US commerce secretary after imposition of investment controls

    China says it would welcome a visit by US commerce secretary after imposition of investment controls

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    China says it would welcome a visit by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo following the imposition of foreign investment controls by her agency that have stung numerous Chinese companies

    FILE – Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo speaks during an event about high speed internet infrastructure, in the East Room of the White House on June 26, 2023, in Washington. China says it would welcome a visit by Raimondo following the imposition of foreign investment controls by her agency that have stung numerous Chinese companies, according to reports Thursday, Aug. 17. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

    The Associated Press

    BEIJING — China says it would welcome a visit by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo following the imposition of foreign investment controls by her agency that have stung numerous Chinese companies.

    Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting did not offer a date, but said the countries are in “close communication on arrangements,” according to reports Thursday.

    Media have speculated that a visit could come as early as later this month. Raimondo last met her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in Washington in May to discuss trade.

    President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Aug. 9 to block and regulate U.S. high-tech investment in China, reflecting the intensifying competition between the world’s two biggest economies.

    The order covers advanced computer chips, micro electronics, quantum information technologies and artificial intelligence.

    Senior administration officials said the effort is related to national security goals rather than economic interests and the categories it covers are intentionally narrow in scope. The order seeks to blunt China’s ability to use U.S. investments in its technology companies to upgrade its military while also preserving broader levels of trade that are vital for both nations’ economies.

    Shu said China is conducting a “comprehensive assessment of the impact of the U.S. executive order” on U.S. foreign investment and will “take the necessary response measures based on the results of the assessment.”

    The United States and China are increasingly locked in a geopolitical competition with a conflicting set of values, including over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, with its economic growth sliding to 0.8% for the three months ending in June, China appears far more willing to engage with Raimondo than with defense officials and diplomats, whom it has fully or partly rebuffed.

    Biden administration officials have insisted that they have no interest in economic “decoupling” from China, yet it also has limited the export of advanced computer chips and retained the expanded tariffs set up by former President Donald Trump.

    In response, China has accused the U.S. of “using the cover of ‘risk reduction’ to carry out ‘decoupling and chain-breaking.’”

    China has meanwhile engaged in crackdowns on foreign companies, prompting a loss of confidence and the shifting of investment plans by global companies to other countries.

    Calls by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and others for more economic self-reliance have left investors uneasy about their future in the state-dominated economy.

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  • China says it would welcome a visit by US commerce secretary after imposition of investment controls

    China says it would welcome a visit by US commerce secretary after imposition of investment controls

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    China says it would welcome a visit by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo following the imposition of foreign investment controls by her agency that have stung numerous Chinese companies

    FILE – Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo speaks during an event about high speed internet infrastructure, in the East Room of the White House on June 26, 2023, in Washington. China says it would welcome a visit by Raimondo following the imposition of foreign investment controls by her agency that have stung numerous Chinese companies, according to reports Thursday, Aug. 17. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

    The Associated Press

    BEIJING — China says it would welcome a visit by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo following the imposition of foreign investment controls by her agency that have stung numerous Chinese companies.

    Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting did not offer a date, but said the countries are in “close communication on arrangements,” according to reports Thursday.

    Media have speculated that a visit could come as early as later this month. Raimondo last met her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in Washington in May to discuss trade.

    President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Aug. 9 to block and regulate U.S. high-tech investment in China, reflecting the intensifying competition between the world’s two biggest economies.

    The order covers advanced computer chips, micro electronics, quantum information technologies and artificial intelligence.

    Senior administration officials said the effort is related to national security goals rather than economic interests and the categories it covers are intentionally narrow in scope. The order seeks to blunt China’s ability to use U.S. investments in its technology companies to upgrade its military while also preserving broader levels of trade that are vital for both nations’ economies.

    Shu said China is conducting a “comprehensive assessment of the impact of the U.S. executive order” on U.S. foreign investment and will “take the necessary response measures based on the results of the assessment.”

    The United States and China are increasingly locked in a geopolitical competition with a conflicting set of values, including over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, with its economic growth sliding to 0.8% for the three months ending in June, China appears far more willing to engage with Raimondo than with defense officials and diplomats, whom it has fully or partly rebuffed.

    Biden administration officials have insisted that they have no interest in economic “decoupling” from China, yet it also has limited the export of advanced computer chips and retained the expanded tariffs set up by former President Donald Trump.

    In response, China has accused the U.S. of “using the cover of ‘risk reduction’ to carry out ‘decoupling and chain-breaking.’”

    China has meanwhile engaged in crackdowns on foreign companies, prompting a loss of confidence and the shifting of investment plans by global companies to other countries.

    Calls by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and others for more economic self-reliance have left investors uneasy about their future in the state-dominated economy.

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  • Biden is set to mark the anniversary of his signing of a major climate, health and tax law

    Biden is set to mark the anniversary of his signing of a major climate, health and tax law

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    WASHINGTON — The White House is ramping up its efforts to illustrate the real-world impact of President Joe Biden’s signature climate, health care and tax law by showing how various Americans say they’ve benefited from his economic policies on the anniversary of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

    At a White House event Wednesday afternoon to celebrate a year since he signed the bill, Biden will stand alongside people — from union workers to small business owners to consumers — who the White House says have been aided by the law. That sweeping package, along with the bipartisan infrastructure law and a massive bill that bolsters production of semiconductor chips, make up the core of what the White House has branded “Bidenomics.” It’s aggressively promoting the concept as Biden seeks to improve his standing with voters amid his re-election campaign.

    Before the East Room event, the administration is rolling out a new online tool on invest.gov that relays stories from across the country about the impact of the president’s economic agenda.

    The White House is on a sprint to connect what they say is a popular economic agenda with an unpopular incumbent president, as polls show a majority of voters consistently disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy even amid signs of a U.S. economic upswing.

    The inflation rate has cooled over the past year to a more manageable 3.2% annually, while job growth has stayed solid and the economy has avoided the recession that many analysts said would be needed to bring down prices. On Tuesday, the Census Bureau reported that retail sales have climbed 3.2% over the past 12 months.

    That level of consumer spending led the investment bank Goldman Sachs to raise its expectations for overall growth in the third quarter to an annual rate of 2.2%. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow estimate jumped even higher with the forecast of third-quarter growth reaching 5%.

    The evidence of economic strength has yet to translate into political gains for Biden, who has devoted the past several weeks to traveling the U.S. He’s emphasized the roughly $500 billion worth of investments by private companies that have been spurred by his policies.

    Aides say the mood of the American electorate has been dampened in recent years by outside forces such as a once-in-a-century pandemic and the time it takes for laws signed by Biden to have an impact.

    “They’ll take time for people to feel,” Olivia Dalton, the principal White House deputy press secretary, said Tuesday as Biden traveled to Wisconsin. “But we believe we’re headed in the right direction and people are going to increasingly see that, and the president is going to keep talking about it.

    During his remarks Wednesday, Biden will lean into the climate provisions of the law, noting how the investments spurred by it have not only created jobs but given communities new resources to protect themselves from climate-related threats.

    But the name is the Inflation Reduction Act after all, despite the minimal impact that the law has had in actually taming cost prices over the past year. So the administration is also rolling out a new report from the Department of Energy that shows the law will cut electricity rates up to 9 percent and lower gas prices by up to 13 percent by the year 2030.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

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  • Russia’s ruble hits its lowest level since early in the war. The central bank plans to step in

    Russia’s ruble hits its lowest level since early in the war. The central bank plans to step in

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    LONDON — The Russian ruble on Monday reached its lowest value since the early weeks of the war in Ukraine as Moscow increases military spending and Western sanctions weigh on its energy exports.

    It led Russia’s central bank to announce an emergency meeting for Tuesday to review its key interest rate, raising the likelihood of an increase in borrowing costs that would support the flagging ruble.

    The Russian currency had passed 101 rubles to the dollar, continuing a more than 25% decline in its value since the beginning of the year and hitting the lowest level in almost 17 months. The ruble recovered slightly after the central bank’s announcement.

    The meeting was set after President Vladimir Putin’s economic adviser, Maksim Oreshkin, blamed the weak ruble on “loose monetary policy” in an op-ed Monday for state news agency Tass. He said a strong ruble is in the interest of the Russian economy and that a weak currency “complicates economic restructuring and negatively affects people’s real incomes.”

    Oreshkin said Russia’s central bank has “all the tools necessary” to stabilize the situation and said he expected normalization shortly.

    Bank deputy director Alexei Zabotkin told reporters Friday that it is adhering to a floating exchange rate because “it allows the economy to effectively adapt to changing external conditions.”

    Analysts say the weakening of the ruble is being driven by increased defense spending — leading imports to rise — and falling exports, particularly in the oil and natural gas sector. Importing more and exporting less means a smaller trade surplus, which typically weighs on a country’s currency.

    The Russian economy is now “working on different types of state orders related to the war, such as textile enterprises, pharmaceuticals and the food industry,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and a former Russian central bank official.

    Pivoting the entire economy to a war footing not only drives up imports but also raises the prospect of worsening inflation, she said.

    To help lessen that prospect, the central bank said last week that it would stop buying foreign currency on the domestic market until the end of the year to try to prop up the ruble and reduce volatility.

    Russia typically sells foreign currency to counter any shortfall in revenue from oil and natural gas exports and buys currency if it has a surplus.

    The central bank also enacted a big increase of 1% to its key interest rate last month, saying inflation is expected to keep rising and the fall in the ruble is adding to the risk. The next meeting to discuss Russia’s key interest rate was planned for 15 September.

    On Monday, some Russians in Moscow appeared concerned about the weakening currency.

    “Prices will rise, which means that the standard of living will fall. It has already fallen, and it will fall even more — there are definitely more poor people,” said Vladimir Bessosedny, 63, a retired teacher.

    Others hoped the fall of the ruble was temporary and that it would stabilize.

    In January, the ruble traded at about 66 to the dollar but lost about a third of its value in subsequent months.

    After Western countries imposed sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ruble plunged as low as 130 to the dollar, but the central bank enacted capital controls that stabilized its value. By last summer, it was in the 50-60 range to the dollar.

    Zabotkin on Friday dismissed speculation that capital flight from Russia also was to blame for the ruble’s fall, saying the idea was “not substantiated.”

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  • Ruble touches 99 to the US dollar, continuing the Russian currency’s monthslong fall

    Ruble touches 99 to the US dollar, continuing the Russian currency’s monthslong fall

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    The Russian ruble, steadily losing exchange value in a long fall since the beginning of the year, has hit 99 to the dollar

    ByThe Associated Press

    August 11, 2023, 11:12 AM

    The Russian ruble, which has been steadily losing exchange value in a long fall since the beginning of the year, hit 99 to the dollar in Friday trading, its lowest level since the early weeks of the Ukraine war.

    In January, the ruble traded at about 66 to the dollar but lost about a third of its value in subsequent months amid continuing concern about the Russian economy.

    After Western countries imposed wide sanctions in the wake of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the ruble plunged to as low as 130 against the dollar, but the Russian Central Bank enacted capital controls that stabilized its value. By last summer, it was in the 50-60 range to the dollar.

    International sanctions cut off a significant part of imports to Russia, which Central Bank deputy director Alexei Zabotkin said has contributed to the ruble’s fall.

    “Activation of domestic demand also contributes to an increase in demand for imports, which, with limited exports, results in a weakening of the ruble, which also puts pressure on prices,” he said at a news conference on Friday.

    Zabotkin dismissed speculation that capital flight from Russia was contributing to the ruble’s fall.

    “The hypotheses that the exchange rate changes are associated with some significant capital transactions are not very substantiated at the moment,” he said.

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  • Biden is pitching his economic policies as a key to a manufacturing jobs revival

    Biden is pitching his economic policies as a key to a manufacturing jobs revival

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    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bringing back factory jobs is one of the most popular of White House promises — regardless of who happens to be the president.

    Donald Trump said he’d do it with tariffs. Barack Obama said companies would start “insourcing.” George W. Bush said tax cuts would do the trick. But factory jobs seemed to struggle to fully return after each recession.

    On Wednesday, President Joe Biden will make the case in a New Mexico speech that his policies of financial and tax incentives have revived U.S. manufacturing. His claim is supported by a rise in construction spending on new factories. But factory hiring has begun to slow in recent months, a sign that the promised boom has yet to fully materialize.

    That hasn’t stopped the White House from telling voters ahead of the 2024 election that the Democratic president’s agenda has triggered a “renaissance” in factory work.

    “Hundreds of actions coordinated through his entire government are sparking a manufacturing renaissance across the United States,” White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters ahead of Biden’s New Mexico speech, asking them to picture in their minds a crowded jobs fair in Belen, New Mexico, for the 250 workers that Arcosa plans to hire at a factory that makes wind towers.

    The president will speak as construction starts on Arcosa’s plant, which formerly made Solo cups and later plastics. The White House said that Arcosa had to lay off workers in Illinois and Iowa before the Inflation Reduction Act became law last year, but customers placed $1.1 billion in wind tower orders with the company afterward. The stock has risen more than 20% in the past 12 months.

    Biden’s message on jobs is one he’s been repeating frequently.

    At a Philadelphia shipyard last month, Biden offered his policies to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels as a way to create jobs. It’s a sign that he wants voters to process his social and environmental programs as being good for economic growth.

    “A lot of my friends in organized labor know: When I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden said. “I think union jobs. Not a joke.”

    Biden’s trip to the Southwest is shaded by his reelection campaign and the challenge posed by a majority U.S. adults saying that they believe the economy is in poor shape. The president is trying to break through a deep pessimism that intensified last year as inflation spiked. His trip included a Tuesday speech in Arizona and will end with remarks Thursday in Utah. In 2020, Biden won both Arizona and New Mexico, key states that he likely needs to hold next year to secure another term.

    The president does have a case to make to the public on employment. As the U.S. economy healed from the coronavirus pandemic, hiring has surged at factories. Manufacturing jobs have climbed to their highest totals in nearly 15 years. This is the first time since the 1970s that manufacturing employment has fully recovered from a recession.

    But the pace of job growth at manufacturers has slowed over the past year. Factories were adding roughly 500,000 workers annually last summer, a figure that in the government’s most recent jobs report fell to 125,000 gains over the past 12 months.

    Biden administration officials have said there are more factory jobs coming because of its infrastructure spending, investments in computer chip plants and the various incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Their argument is that the incentives encouraged the private sector to invest, leading to $500 billion worth of commitments to make computer chips, electric vehicles, advanced batteries, clean energy technologies and medical goods. They say that more factories are coming because, after adjusting for inflation, spending on factory construction has climbed almost 100% since the end of 2021.

    In April, the Economic Innovation Group, a public policy organization, issued a report that called construction spending for factories a “nationwide boom.” The report notes there are signs that manufacturing gains are most prominent outside the Midwest, which has historically identified with the sector, as more plants open in southern and western states. But EIG is less sure that a full-fledged restoration of manufacturing is in the works as the sector has been in decline for decades.

    Labor Department figures show that total factory employment peaked in 1979 at nearly 19.6 million jobs. With just under 13 million manufacturing jobs now, the U.S. is unlikely to return to that level because of automation and trade.

    Adam Ozimek, chief economist at EIG, said jobs can be a flawed way to measure a manufacturing revival. He said better metrics include an increase in factory output, whether the U.S. can shift to renewable energy to blunt climate change and whether the government can achieve its national security goals of having a stronger supply chain.

    “It’s way too early to declare anything like a manufacturing renaissance,” Ozimek said. “We are decades into structurally declining manufacturing employment. And it’s not at all clear yet whether the positive trends are going to outweigh that continuing headwind.”

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  • Why China has few good options to boost its faltering economy | CNN Business

    Why China has few good options to boost its faltering economy | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Every few days for the past several weeks, a parade of Chinese leaders and policymakers have publicly vowed to do more to boost the sputtering economy, usually by promising to support the beleaguered private sector.

    Sometimes investors appear to have gained confidence from these pledges, sending shares higher.

    More often though, they’ve ignored the flurry of official messaging, hoping for more tangible stimulus measures that economists and analysts tell CNN are now unlikely to come because China has become too indebted to just pump up the economy like it did 15 years ago, during the global financial crisis.

    “We have had plenty of vague promises already, which don’t amount to a great deal so far,” said Robert Carnell, regional head of research for Asia-Pacific at ING Group.

    Except for some incremental steps to help the property market, currently mired in its worst slump in history, and tweaks to interest rates, there have been few signs of the government providing real money to struggling consumers or businesses.

    “Chinese policymakers appear unlikely to enact any major monetary or fiscal stimulus, likely fearing doing so could exacerbate China’s growing debt risks,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based non-partisan think tank.

    “At most, we can expect meager, mostly-supply side measures ostensibly aimed at, among other things, attracting more private capital and boosting electric vehicle ownership,” he added.

    After a strong start to the year after Covid restrictions were lifted, the world’s second largest economy has lost momentum.

    Since April, a slew of disappointing economic data and population statistics has sparked concern that China may be facing a period of much slower growth and possibly even heading for a future comparable to Japan’s.

    China’s economy barely grew in the April to June months compared with the previous quarter, as an initial burst in economic activity following the end of pandemic restrictions faded. Signs of deflation are becoming more prevalent, sparking concerns that China could enter a prolonged period of stagnation.

    Based on Japan’s experience in the 1990s, there is the risk that China is entering “a liquidity trap,” a scenario in which monetary policy becomes largely ineffective and consumers hold on to their cash rather than spend it, said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific for Natixis, a French investment bank.

    “In other words, there is a risk that Chinese corporates and households, pushed by their very negative sentiment about the economic outlook, prefer to disinvest and de-leverage in the light of falling revenue generation.”

    To get the economy back on track, Beijing needs to match its words with action, according to analysts.

    China “conspicuously” refrained from the giant Covid-era support seen in developed economies, according to analysts at the UBS Global Wealth Management. Fiscal stimulus, for instance, amounted to just a third of the aid offered in the United States, with no nationwide cash handouts.

    While this helped China avoid the rampant inflation shock seen elsewhere, disposable household income fell as wages and property asset values simultaneously stalled, they said in a recent research note.

    Interest rate cuts are not enough, unless they are accompanied by fiscal measures to boost demand.

    “A comprehensive policy mix — covering monetary and fiscal stimulus, including infrastructure, property, and consumption, alongside structural reforms,” would be helpful to rebuild confidence, they said.

    China’s economic trajectory is of great concern for global investors and policymakers who are counting on it to drive global expansion. But, Beijing appears to have run out of ammunition.

    Back in 2008, Chinese leaders rolled out a four trillion yuan ($586 billion) fiscal package to minimize the impact of the global financial crisis. It was seen as a success and helped boost Beijing’s domestic and international political standing as well as China’s economic growth, which soared to more than 9% in the second half of 2009.

    But the measures, which were focused on government-led infrastructure projects, also led to an unprecedented credit expansion and massive increase in local government debt, from which the economy is still struggling to recover. In 2012, Beijing said it wouldn’t be doing it again. The costs were just too high.

    China’s debt woes have only deepened during the Covid-19 pandemic, when three years of draconian restrictions and a real estate downturn drained the coffers of local government.

    Analysts estimate China’s outstanding government debts surpassed 123 trillion yuan ($18 trillion) last year. Nearly $10 trillion of that figure is so-called “hidden debt” owed by risky local government financing platforms.

    In June, Zhu Min, a former senior official at the International Monetary Fund who previously served at China’s central bank, was quoted by Bloomberg as telling the Summer Davos forum in Tianjin that he didn’t believe China would unveil massive stimulus, as the nation was already struggling with high debt levels.

    “No [fiscal stimulus] has been announced, which seems to indicate that Chinese policymakers are still wary about a too rapid increase in public debt,” said Garcia-Herrero.

    And even if Beijing were to take action, it would be less effective than in 2008, Garcia-Herrero said.

    “An infrastructure-led fiscal stimulus would need to be much bigger to have the same economic impact,” she said.

    It also implies that, if action is taken, public debt in China would jump well above the current 100% of GDP, which would place the economy “among the most indebted in the world,” she added.

    What’s worse, under President Xi Jinping, Beijing appears to have doubled down on its strategy to strengthen the party’s control over the economy, analysts said.

    A “correct response” to the economic slump would be for Beijing to return to a pro-market reform path and let the private sector play a bigger role, according to Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

    But signs are “limited” that the government is considering that direction, he said.

    According to Singleton, “China’s new economic leadership team has few tools to meaningfully revive growth.”

    “Beijing’s steadfast, albeit unsurprising, refusal to acknowledge the role Xi’s economic mismanagement has played” in exacerbating China’s problems will gravely compound its broader systemic risks, he said.

    The property sector will likely be a drag on growth for years to come, Singleton said, adding that the country’s alarming debt levels and timid consumers domestically and abroad won’t help either.

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  • US Customs and Border Protection sends resources to remote Arizona area after increase in migrant crossings | CNN

    US Customs and Border Protection sends resources to remote Arizona area after increase in migrant crossings | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    US border officials are increasing personnel and transportation resources at Ajo, Arizona, one of the most isolated and dangerous areas on the Southwest border, to deal with a recent increase in migrants and an ongoing heat wave.

    “Border Patrol has prioritized the quick transporting of noncitizens encountered in this desert environment, which is particularly dangerous during current weather conditions, to Border Patrol facilities where individuals can receive medical care, food and water,” a spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.

    An excessive heat warning is in effect for Ajo until Sunday evening. “Dangerously hot conditions” and high temperatures of 106 to 112 degrees are expected, according to the National Weather Service.

    The spike in migration at Ajo is driven by human smuggling organizations shifting the flow of migrants to some of the most dangerous terrain, including the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Ajo, according to the Border Patrol.

    Currently, the average time in custody at the Ajo station is 15 hours, with some migrants spending a portion of those hours outside waiting to be transported, according to the Border Patrol. The agency said the fenced-in outdoor space is covered by a large canopy and migrants have access to large fans, meals, water, and bathroom facilities. The outdoor area is only used for adult men, while women, children, and members of vulnerable populations are held inside the station.

    “USBP has utilized outdoor shaded areas only when necessary and for very short times while they await onward transportation to larger facilities,” said the agency’s spokesperson. “The Ajo Border Patrol Station is not equipped to hold large number of migrants due to historic trends in this area.”

    After arriving at Ajo Station, migrants are screened and then transported to other locations for immigration processing, with the closest large Border Patrol facility or shelter 2.5 hours away, according to the Border Patrol.

    The agency would not disclose the Ajo facility’s capacity to CNN, citing security concerns.

    The Tucson Border Patrol sector encountered more than 24,000 migrants in June, making it the second-busiest sector on the southern border during the month, according to Border Patrol data.

    Border Patrol officials report no deaths have occurred at Ajo station or the surrounding areas since the beginning of the heat wave and since the increase in migrant encounters.

    Across the state, Arizonans have experienced extreme heat over the past weeks, with Phoenix recording 31 consecutive days with a high temperature of 110 degrees or above. The streak of high temperatures made July the hottest month on record for the city.

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  • Google’s antitrust showdown: What’s at stake for the internet search titan | CNN Business

    Google’s antitrust showdown: What’s at stake for the internet search titan | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Google will face off in court Tuesday against government officials who have accused the company of antitrust violations in its massive search business, kicking off a long-anticipated legal showdown that could reshape one of the internet’s most dominant platforms.

    The trial beginning this week in Washington before a federal judge marks the culmination of two ongoing lawsuits against Google that started during the Trump administration. Legal experts describe the actions as the country’s biggest monopolization case since the US government took on Microsoft in the 1990s.

    In separate complaints, the Justice Department and dozens of states accused Google in 2020 of abusing its dominance in online search by allegedly harming competition through deals with wireless carriers and smartphone makers that made Google Search the default or exclusive option on products used by millions of consumers. The complaints eventually consolidated into a single case.

    Google has maintained that it competes on the merits and that consumers prefer its tools because they are the best, not because it has moved to illegally restrict competition. Google’s search business provides more than half of the $283 billion in revenue and $76 billion in net income Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recorded in 2022. Search has fueled the company’s growth to a more than $1.7 trillion market capitalization.

    Now, the company is set to defend itself in a multiweek trial that could upend the way Google distributes its search engine to users. The case is expected to feature testimony from high-profile witnesses including former employees of Google and Samsung, along with executives from Apple, including senior vice president Eddy Cue. It is the first case to go to trial in a series of court challenges targeting Google’s far-reaching economic power, testing the willingness of courts to clamp down on large tech platforms.

    “This is a backwards-looking case at a time of unprecedented innovation,” said Google President of Global Affairs Kent Walker, “including breakthroughs in AI, new apps and new services, all of which are creating more competition and more options for people than ever before. People don’t use Google because they have to — they use it because they want to. It’s easy to switch your default search engine — we’re long past the era of dial-up internet and CD-ROMs.”

    The trial may also be a bellwether for the more assertive antitrust agenda of the Biden administration.

    In its initial complaint, the US government alleged in part that Google pays billions of dollars a year to device manufacturers including Apple, LG, Motorola and Samsung — and browser developers like Mozilla and Opera — to be their default search engine and in many cases to prohibit them from dealing with Google’s competitors.

    As a result, the complaint alleges, “Google effectively owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for roughly 80 percent of the general search queries in the United States.”

    The lawsuit also alleges that Google’s Android operating system deals with device makers are anticompetitive, because they require smartphone companies to pre-install other Google-owned apps, such as Gmail, Chrome or Maps.

    At the time the lawsuit was first filed, US antitrust officials did not rule out the possibility of a Google breakup, warning that Google’s behavior could threaten future innovation or the rise of a Google successor.

    Separately, a group of states, led by Colorado, made additional allegations against Google, claiming that the way Google structures its search results page harms competition by prioritizing the company’s own apps and services over web pages, links, reviews and content from other third-party sites.

    But the judge overseeing the case, Judge Amit Mehta in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, tossed out those claims in a ruling last month, narrowing the scope of allegations Google must defend and saying the states had not done enough to show a trial was necessary to determine whether Google’s search results rankings were anticompetitive.

    Despite that ruling, the trial represents the US government’s furthest progress in challenging Google to date. Mehta has said Google’s pole position among search engines on browsers and smartphones “is a hotly disputed issue” and that the trial will determine “whether, as a matter of actual market reality, Google’s position as the default search engine across multiple browsers is a form of exclusionary Conduct.”

    In January, meanwhile, the Biden administration launched another antitrust suit against Google in opposition to the company’s advertising technology business, accusing it of maintaining an illegal monopoly. That case remains in its early stages at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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  • Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization | CNN Business

    Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    US prosecutors opened a landmark antitrust trial against Google on Tuesday with sweeping allegations that for years the company intentionally stifled competition challenging its massive search engine, accusing the tech giant of spending billions to operate an illegal monopoly that has harmed every computer and mobile device user in the United States.

    In opening remarks before a federal judge in Washington, lawyers for the Justice Department alleged that Google’s negotiation of exclusive contracts with wireless carriers and phone makers helped cement its dominant position in violation of US antitrust law.

    The Google case has been described as one of the largest US antitrust trials since the federal government took on Microsoft in the 1990s, and involves some similar arguments about the tying of multiple proprietary products. The multi-week trial is expected to feature witness testimony from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as other senior executives or former employees from Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung.

    The effects of Google’s alleged misconduct are vast, DOJ lawyer Kenneth Dintzer told the court.

    “This case is about the future of the internet, and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” Dintzer said, adding that Google pays more than $10 billion a year to Apple and other companies to ensure that Google is the default or only search engine available on browsers and mobile devices used by millions.

    Also anticompetitive, the Justice Department said, are Google’s contracts to ensure that Android devices come with Google apps and services — including Google search — preinstalled.

    The deals guarantee a steady flow of user data to Google that further reinforces its monopoly, the US government said, leading to other consequences such as harms to consumer privacy and higher advertising prices.

    “This feedback loop, this wheel has been turning for 12 years, and it always turns to Google’s advantage,” Dintzer said. The practice ultimately affects what consumers see in search results and prevents new rivals from gaining scale and market share, he added.

    For Google’s opening statement, attorney John Schmidtlein said that Apple’s decision to make Google the default search engine in its Safari browser demonstrates how Google’s search engine is the superior product consumers prefer.

    “Apple repeatedly chose Google as the default because Apple believed it was the best experience for its users,” he said.

    The Google case “could not be more different” from the historic Microsoft litigation at the turn of the millennium, Schmidtlein continued.

    Where the Microsoft case revolved around that company’s alleged harms to Netscape, a small browser maker, the Google case is based on claims that Google search has harmed a much larger and more powerful entity: Microsoft and its Bing search engine, Schmidtlein said.

    “Google competed on the merits to win preinstallation and default status” on consumer devices and browsers, he insisted, attacking Microsoft as a failed search engine developer.

    “The evidence will show that Microsoft’s Bing search engine failed to win customers because Microsoft did not invest [and] did not innovate,” Schmidtlein added. “At every critical juncture, the evidence will show that they were beaten in the market.”

    And Schmidtlein argued that forbidding Google from being able to compete for default status on browsers and devices would lead to its own harms to competition in search, stating that contracts ensuring that Android devices come with certain apps preinstalled such as Google Maps and Gmail also promotes competition — against Apple.

    “Google’s Android agreements are important components of a business model that has sustained the most important competitor to Apple for mobile devices in the United States,” Schmidtlein said.

    Google has previously said that consumers choose Google’s search engine because it is the best and that they prefer it, not because of anticompetitive practices.

    But DOJ prosecutors said Tuesday that they plan to present evidence in the case that Google knew what it was doing was illegal and that the company “hid and destroyed documents because they knew they were violating the antitrust laws.”

    “The harm from Google contracts affects every phone and computer in the country,” Dintzer said.

    Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, and Rep. Ken Buck from Colorado were in attendance for the opening. Buck, a vocal tech industry critic, is the former top Republican on the House antitrust subcommittee — which in 2020 released a widely publicized investigative report finding that Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook enjoyed “monopoly power.”

    Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs and Chief legal officer of Alphabet Inc., arrives at federal court on September 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. Google will defend its default-search deals in an antitrust trial against the U.S. Justice Department which begins today.

    The trial marks the culmination of two ongoing lawsuits against Google that started during the Trump administration.

    In separate complaints, the Justice Department and dozens of states accused Google in 2020 of abusing its dominance in online search but were eventually consolidated into a single case.

    Google’s search business provides more than half of the $283 billion in revenue and $76 billion in net income Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recorded in 2022. Search has fueled the company’s growth to a more than $1.7 trillion market capitalization.

    “This is a backwards-looking case at a time of unprecedented innovation,” said Walker in a statement, “including breakthroughs in AI, new apps and new services, all of which are creating more competition and more options for people than ever before. People don’t use Google because they have to — they use it because they want to. It’s easy to switch your default search engine — we’re long past the era of dial-up internet and CD-ROMs.”

    The trial may also be a bellwether for the more assertive antitrust agenda of the Biden administration.

    At the time the lawsuit was first filed, US antitrust officials did not rule out the possibility of a Google breakup, warning that Google’s behavior could threaten future innovation or the rise of a Google successor.

    Separately, a group of states, led by Colorado, made additional allegations against Google, claiming that the way Google structures its search results page harms competition by prioritizing the company’s own apps and services over web pages, links, reviews and content from other third-party sites.

    But the judge overseeing the case, Judge Amit Mehta in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, tossed out those claims in a ruling last month, narrowing the scope of allegations Google must defend and saying the states had not done enough to show a trial was necessary to determine whether Google’s search results rankings were anticompetitive.

    Despite that ruling, the trial represents the US government’s furthest progress in challenging Google to date. Mehta has said Google’s pole position among search engines on browsers and smartphones “is a hotly disputed issue” and that the trial will determine “whether, as a matter of actual market reality, Google’s position as the default search engine across multiple browsers is a form of exclusionary Conduct.”

    In January, meanwhile, the Biden administration launched another antitrust suit against Google in opposition to the company’s advertising technology business, accusing it of maintaining an illegal monopoly. That case remains in its early stages at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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  • China is huge for chip designer Arm. That’s a risk for its new investors | CNN Business

    China is huge for chip designer Arm. That’s a risk for its new investors | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    As British chip designer Arm prepares to raise about $5 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) on Thursday, its China business has become a serious point of concern.

    The SoftBank-owned firm used many pages of its IPO prospectus to warn investors of risks related to its exposure to China at a time of rising tension between Washington and Beijing over chip technology.

    Its regulatory filing last month revealed that a quarter of its sales come from China, through an unusual relationship with an entity it does not control and with which it has a complex history.

    Arm China is “an entity that operates independently of us and is our single largest customer,” the company said in its prospectus. “Neither we nor SoftBank Group control the operations of Arm China.”

    Arm, which is based in Cambridge, added that the scale of its business in China made it “particularly susceptible to economic and political risks,” which could be worsened by tensions between the country and the United States or the United Kingdom.

    The company has long been vulnerable in this area, which may have already contributed to a lower market valuation than SoftBank was expecting.

    Arm blamed an economic slowdown in China as well as “factors related to export control and national security matters” for slower growth in royalty revenues from China in its fiscal year to March. Total revenue from China did increase in that period, however.

    Royalties are hugely significant for Arm, which gets a fee from each chip developed using its products. The company relies on royalties and licensing for most of its income.

    Arm said Wednesday it priced its shares at $51 each, raising as much as $4.9 billion. The tally could rise to $5.2 billion if banks exercise an option to buy additional shares, valuing the chip designer at as much as $54.5 billion.

    That’s less than the $64 billion valuation implied when SoftBank bought a remaining 25% stake in the company from its Vision Fund unit just last month.

    Arm has declined to comment.

    Concerns about China are likely to have been “built into IPO pricing expectations already, although a worst-case scenario of increased US sanctions [or] trade restrictions probably is not,” Kirk Boodry, an investment advisor at Astris Advisory, a Japanese investment research firm, told CNN.

    Arm was publicly listed until 2016, when Japan’s SoftBank bought it for $32 billion.

    Four years later, SoftBank tried to sell Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion, in what would have been the biggest chip deal of all time. But it didn’t pass muster with global antitrust regulators, and was called off in February 2022.

    Now, Arm’s return to the stock market is being closely watched as it promises to be the biggest US IPO since 2021.

    SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has touted it as an AI company that could have “exponential growth,” and promised that ChatGPT-like services will eventually be offered on Arm-designed machines.

    “The value of chips, and Arm’s technology, has maybe never been more in demand from the global economy,” said Kyle Stanford, lead venture capital analyst at PitchBook.

    But Arm is a middleman in the semiconductor industry, which is a key source of tension in US-China relations. Both countries are racing to boost their prowess in the sector, and each side has recently enacted export controls aimed at limiting the other’s capacity.

    “Chip tensions will never go away,” Stanford argued. “Political and regulatory pressure is likely to increase.”

    On Tuesday, former US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton told US lawmakers that large public companies with major exposure to China should be prompted to disclose specific risks associated with the country, “and what type of scenario planning they have done in the event of abrupt decoupling.”

    Although US officials have insisted that America is not seeking to decouple from China, they have pointed to the importance of reducing its reliance on the world’s second largest economy.

    In its filing, Arm said it held just a “4.8% indirect ownership interest in Arm China,” through a 10% non-voting stake in a SoftBank-controlled entity that owns less than half of the Chinese company.

    While such convoluted corporate structures aren’t unique in China, “in my view, it is very problematic,” said Ivana Delevska, founder and chief investment officer of asset manager Spear Invest.

    “Investors of other companies are just waking up to this fact in light of increased tensions,” she added.

    Arm has had trouble with Arm China before. In its filing, it said the business has a record of late payments.

    “Although these historical issues did not have a material impact on our operations, any future failure to pay us the amounts we are owed … could have a material adverse effect on our business,” Arm said.

    Arm China has also been subject to a legal battle with its former CEO, Allen Wu.

    Since April 2022, Wu and entities effectively controlled by him have lodged several lawsuits in Chinese courts against Arm China, “seeking to challenge certain aspects of Arm China’s corporate governance and the actions of Arm China’s board of directors,” Arm said in its filing.

    As of August, the cases had been resolved in favor of Arm China, it said, but the outcome could still be appealed. potentially hurting the British firm in the future.

    That hasn’t stopped many of the biggest names in global tech from jumping on board.

    Companies including Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOGL), Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), Samsung and TSMC (TSM) have indicated interest in acting as cornerstone investors in the offering, according to a filing last week.

    Delevska said the interest reflected Arm’s strong position in the industry and had helped to prop up its overall valuation.

    “I believe it is good timing for the IPO,” she added. “Investors will just have to price in the China risk.”

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  • US says it has no evidence that Huawei can make advanced smartphones ‘at scale’ | CNN Business

    US says it has no evidence that Huawei can make advanced smartphones ‘at scale’ | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says the US government has no evidence that Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips “at scale,” as it continues to investigate how the sanctioned Chinese manufacturer made an apparent breakthrough with its latest flagship device.

    On Tuesday, Raimondo told US lawmakers that she was “upset” by news of the launch of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro during her visit to China last month.

    “The only good news, if there is any, is we don’t have any evidence that they can manufacture 7-nanometer [chips] at scale,” she told a US House of Representatives hearing.

    “Although I can’t talk about any investigations specifically, I promise you this: every time we find credible evidence that any company has gone around our export controls, we do investigate.”

    Analysts who have examined the smartphone said it represented a “milestone” achievement for China, suggesting Huawei may have found a way to overcome American export controls.

    US officials have long argued that the company poses a risk to US national security, using it as grounds to restrict trade with the company. Huawei has vehemently denied the claims.

    TechInsights, a research organization that specializes in semiconductors and took the phone apart for analysis, says it includes a 5G Kirin 9000s processor developed by China’s leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

    That surprised many because SMIC, a partially state-owned Chinese company, has also been subject to US export restrictions for years. It has not responded to previous requests for comment from CNN.

    TechInsights also found two chips belonging to SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, inside the handset.

    A SK Hynix spokesperson told CNN earlier this month that it was aware of the issue and investigating how that was possible, since the South Korean firm “no longer does business with Huawei” because of US export controls.

    Huawei declined to comment on the capabilities and components of its phone.

    Raimondo said Tuesday that US officials were “trying to use every single tool at our disposal … to deny the Chinese an ability to get intellectual property to advance their technology in ways that can hurt us.”

    In 2019, Huawei was added to the US “entity list,” which restricts exports to select organizations without a US government license. The following year, the US government expanded on those curbs by seeking to cut Huawei off from chip suppliers that use US technology.

    That left the company, once the world’s second largest smartphone seller, in bad shape.

    As of the second quarter of 2023, Huawei was no longer in the top five of mobile phone vendors in China, let alone globally, according to Counterpoint Research.

    But its new phone is a big help for the company — and may pose a challenge to Apple’s (AAPL) market share in China, according to Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint.

    Huawei is scheduled to hold a product launch event next Monday, where new phones are expected to be the main focus, according to Toby Zhu, a Canalys mobility analyst.

    Other devices, like tablets or earphones, may also be shown off. Huawei has not publicly released details of the event.

    In the coming months, the firm plans to release another 5G phone, possibly under Nova, its mid-range lineup, Chinese news outlet IT Times reported Tuesday, citing unidentified industry sources. Huawei declined to comment.

    Zhu said the phone was widely expected to come with 5G capability, powered either by the “Kirin 9000s chip or another chip.”

    If it does, the new model could become even more popular than the Mate 60 Pro, which starts at 6,999 yuan (about $959), because of its relative affordability, he added.

    While Raimondo was unhappy with the timing of Huawei’s launch, analysts say it was unlikely to have been arranged to coincide with her presence in China.

    It was likely “a marketing campaign aimed at winning over customer interest before the iPhone 15 hits the market,” analysts at Eurasia Group wrote in a report.

    The move helped the Shenzhen-based company capture the second spot in China’s smartphone market in the first week of September, ahead of Apple’s big event, said Lam of Counterpoint.

    — Rashard Rose and Mengchen Zhang contributed to this report.

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  • US government and 17 states sue Amazon in landmark monopoly case | CNN Business

    US government and 17 states sue Amazon in landmark monopoly case | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The US government and 17 states are suing Amazon in a landmark monopoly case reflecting years of allegations that the e-commerce giant abused its economic dominance and harmed fair competition.

    The groundbreaking lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and 17 attorneys general marks the US government’s sharpest attack yet against Amazon, a company that started off selling books on the internet but has since become known as “the everything store,” expanding into selling a vast range of consumer products, creating a globe-spanning logistics network and becoming a powerhouse in other technologies such as cloud computing.

    The complaint alleges Amazon unfairly promotes its own platform and services at the expense of third-party sellers who rely on the company’s e-commerce marketplace for distribution.

    For example, according to the FTC, Amazon has harmed competition by requiring sellers on its platform to purchase Amazon’s in-house logistics services in order to secure the best seller benefits, referred to as “Prime” eligibility. It also claims the company anticompetitively forces sellers to list their products on Amazon at the lowest prices anywhere on the web, instead of allowing sellers to offer their products at competing marketplaces for a lower price.

    That practice is already the subject of a separate lawsuit targeting Amazon filed by California’s attorney general last year.

    Because of Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce, sellers have little option but to accept Amazon’s terms, the FTC alleges, resulting in higher prices for consumers and a worse consumer experience. Amazon also ranks its own products in marketplace search results higher than those sold by third parties, the FTC said.

    Amazon is “squarely focused on preventing anyone else from gaining that same critical mass of customers,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters Tuesday. “This complaint reflects the cutting edge and best thinking on how competition occurs in digital markets and, similarly, the tactics that Amazon has used to suffocate rivals, deprive them of oxygen, and really leave a stunted landscape in its wake.”

    The states involved in the case are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

    The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, and seeks a court order blocking Amazon from engaging in the allegedly anticompetitive behavior. Khan declined to say Tuesday whether the agency will be seeking a breakup of the company, saying the case is currently focused on proving Amazon’s liability under federal antitrust law.

    The suit makes Amazon the third tech giant after Google and Meta to be hit with sweeping US government allegations that the company spent years violating federal antitrust laws, reflecting policymakers’ growing worldwide hostility toward Big Tech that intensified after 2016. The litigation could take years to play out. But just as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his spectacular wealth have inspired critics to draw comparisons to America’s Gilded Age, so may the FTC lawsuit come to symbolize a modern repeat of the antitrust crackdown of the early 20th century.

    In a release, Khan accused Amazon of using “punitive and coercive tactics” to preserve an illegal monopoly.

    “Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them,” Khan said. “Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition.”

    “Today’s suit makes clear the FTC’s focus has radically departed from its mission of protecting consumers and competition. The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon’s store,”said David Zapolsky, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Global Public policy and General Counsel. “If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses—the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do. The lawsuit filed by the FTC today is wrong on the facts and the law, and we look forward to making that case in court.”

    For years, Amazon’s critics including US lawmakers, European regulators, third-party sellers, consumer advocacy groups and more have accused the company of everything from mistreating its workers to forcing its third-party sellers to accept anticompetitive terms. Amazon has unfairly used sellers’ own commercial data against them, opponents have said, so it can figure out what products Amazon should sell itself. And the fact that Amazon competes with sellers on the very same marketplace it controls represents a conflict of interest that should be considered illegal, many of Amazon’s critics have said.

    The lawsuit represents a watershed moment in Khan’s career. She is widely credited with kickstarting antitrust scrutiny of Amazon in the United States with a seminal law paper in 2017. She later helped lead a congressional investigation into the tech industry’s alleged competition abuses, detailing in a 450-page report how Amazon — as well as Apple, Google and Meta — enjoy “monopoly power” and that there is “significant evidence” to show that the companies’ anticompetitive conduct has hindered innovation, reduced consumer choice and weakened democracy.

    The investigation led to a raft of legislative proposals aimed at reining in the companies, but the most significant ones have stalled under a barrage of industry lobbying and decisions by congressional leaders not to bring the bills up for a final vote.

    Lawmakers’ inaction has left it to antitrust enforcers to police the tech industry’s alleged harms to competition. In 2021, President Joe Biden stunned many in Washington when he tapped Khan not only to serve on the FTC but to lead the agency, sending a signal that he supported tough antitrust oversight.

    Since then Khan has taken an aggressive enforcement posture, particularly toward the tech industry. Under her watch, the FTC has sued to block numerous tech acquisitions, most notably Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to acquire video game publisher Activision Blizzard. It has moved to restrict how companies may collect and use consumers’ personal information, and warned them of the risks of generative artificial intelligence.

    Throughout, the FTC has scrutinized Amazon — suing the company in June for allegedly tricking millions of consumers into signing up for Amazon Prime and reaching multimillion-dollar settlements in May with the company over alleged privacy violations linked to Amazon’s smart home devices.

    But the latest suit against Amazon may rank as the most significant of all, because it drives at the heart of Amazon’s e-commerce business and focuses on some of the most persistent criticisms of the company. In a sign of how threatening Amazon perceived Khan’s ascent to be, the company in 2021 called for her recusal from all cases involving the tech giant.

    Khan has resisted those calls. On Tuesday, the FTC said it held a unanimous 3-0 vote authorizing the lawsuit; Khan was among those voting to proceed.

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  • Microsoft, Amazon facing UK antitrust probe over cloud services | CNN Business

    Microsoft, Amazon facing UK antitrust probe over cloud services | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft and Amazon could be in hot water over apparently making it difficult for UK customers to use multiple suppliers of vital cloud services.

    The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the country’s antitrust regulator, said Thursday it was launching an investigation into the UK cloud infrastructure services market to determine whether players were engaged in anti-competitive practices.

    Cloud computing firms, such as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), use data centers around the world to provide remote access to computing services and storage. This “cloud infrastructure” forms the foundation for how software applications, such as Gmail and Dropbox, are developed and run.

    The CMA probe has been initiated following a report from Britain’s media and communications regulator Ofcom, which found that the supply of cloud infrastructure in the United Kingdom is highly concentrated and competition limited.

    “We welcome Ofcom’s referral of public cloud infrastructure services to us for in-depth scrutiny,” CMA CEO Sarah Cardell said in a statement.

    “This is a £7.5 billion market that underpins a whole host of online services — from social media to [artificial intelligence] foundation models. Many businesses now completely rely on cloud services, making effective competition in this market essential.”

    The CMA said it would conclude its investigation by April 2025.

    The probe is the latest evidence of increased scrutiny of big tech companies by European regulators, which have tightened rules in recent years in areas such as data protection and targeted advertising.

    The European Digital Services Act, which came into force at the end of August, reflects one of the most comprehensive and ambitious efforts by policymakers anywhere to regulate tech giants. It applies to companies including Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Snapchat, TikTok and Meta (META), the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

    According to Ofcom, last year Microsoft and AWS had a combined market share of 70-80% in the UK cloud infrastructure services market. Google is their closest competitor with a share of 5-10%.

    In its report, Ofcom identified features of the market that make it more difficult for customers to change providers or to use multiple providers, such as switching fees.

    “If customers have difficulty switching and using multiple providers, it could make it harder for competitors to gain scale and challenge AWS and Microsoft effectively for the business of new and existing customers,” Ofcom wrote.

    The report also raised concerns about the software licensing practices of some cloud providers, particularly Microsoft.

    Both Amazon and Microsoft said they would engage “constructively” with the CMA.

    But a spokesperson for AWS added that the company disagreed with Ofcom’s findings. “We… believe they are based on a fundamental misconception of how the IT sector functions, and the services and discounts on offer,” the spokesperson said, noting that “the cloud has made switching between providers easier than ever.”

    A spokesperson for Microsoft added: “We are committed to ensuring the UK cloud industry remains innovative, highly competitive and an accelerator for growth across the economy.”

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  • The world will pay a high price if China cuts off supplies of chipmaking materials | CNN Business

    The world will pay a high price if China cuts off supplies of chipmaking materials | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Just one month after China announced it would curb exports of germanium and gallium, both essential for making semiconductors, its overseas shipments of the materials fell to zero.

    Beijing says it has since approved some export licenses but the restrictions are a stark warning that China has a powerful weapon it can deploy in the escalating trade war over the future of tech. The curbs came after the United States, Europe and Japan restricted sales of chips and chipmaking equipment to China to cut off its access to key technology that can be used by the military.

    “It is still early to tell how tight the restrictions would be. [But] if China ends up blocking a large amount of exports, it will cause a disruption in the supply chain for the immediate consumers,” said Xiaomeng Lu, director for geotechnology at Eurasia Group.

    China enjoys a near monopoly on the production of the two elements. Last year, it accounted for 98% of the global production of gallium and 68% of refined germanium production, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

    While there are alternatives for the United States and its allies, constructing an independent supply chain for gallium and germanium processing could require a “staggering” investment of over $20 billion, according to Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney. And it could take years to develop.

    “Refining technologies and facilities for processing gallium and germanium cannot be built overnight, particularly considering the environmental implications of their extraction and mining,” she wrote in July.

    But there may be no other option but to do so.

    Although the minerals account for only “several hundred million dollars” in global trade, according to Zhang, they are critical to the supply chains of the international semiconductor, defense, electrical vehicle and communications industries, which are each worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

    China has dominated the production of both elements for at least a decade.

    Gallium is a soft, silvery metal and is easy to cut with a knife. It’s commonly used to produce compounds that can make radio frequency chips for mobile phones and satellite communication.

    Germanium is a hard, grayish-white and brittle metalloid that is used in the production of optical fibers that can transmit light and electronic data.

    Neither is found on their own in nature. They are usually formed as a byproduct of mining more common metals: primarily aluminum, zinc and copper.

    The processing of the elements can be “costly, technically challenging, energy-intensive and polluting,” according to Ewa Manthey, a commodities strategist at ING Group.

    “China dominates production of these two metals not because they are rare, but because it has been able to keep their production costs fairly low and manufacturers elsewhere haven’t been able to match the country’s competitive costs,” he said.

    From 2005 to 2015, China’s production of low-purity gallium exploded from 22 metric tons to 444 metric tons, according to data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

    Analysts from the think tank said China’s leading position in the aluminum industry has allowed it to establish a dominant share of global gallium production.

    Moreover, China’s government has implemented strategic policies to boost production, including a requirement for the country’s aluminum producers to create the capacity to extract gallium.

    This is why, over the past 10 years, manufacturing gallium has become essentially economically nonviable outside China.

    Between 2013 and 2016, Kazakhstan, Hungary, and Germany all ceased primary production of gallium. (Germany announced in 2021 it would restart production because of rising prices.)

    There are alternative suppliers, though.

    According to the USGS, Russia, Japan, and Korea produced a combined 1.8% of global gallium in 2022. For germanium, Canada’s Teck Resources is one of the world’s largest producers. American company Indium Corporation is also a top global manufacturer of germanium compounds and alloys.

    And Canada’s 5NPlus and Belgium’s Umicore produce both elements.

    But “it would take time to bring online alternative sources of supply,” Chris Miller, author of “Chip War” and an economic historian, told CNN.

    It could also be expensive.

    Global mining companies can get into the business of selling germanium and gallium if China seeks to choke off supply, said Gregory Allen, director of Wadhwani Center for AI & Advanced Technologies at CSIS.

    “This would not be instantaneous, but some global mining and refining firms have signaled their intent to do so.”

    In July, Russian state owned conglomerate Rostec told Reuters that it’s ready to boost output of germanium for domestic use after China announced curbs on exports.

    Netherlands-based Nyrstar also said it was looking at potential germanium and gallium projects in Australia, Europe and the United States.

    “Even if users run out of supplies of these minerals, gallium can be swapped for silicon or indium in the wafer making process,” Lu from Eurasia Group said.

    Zinc selenide is a lesser but functional substitute for germanium in certain applications, she added.

    Recycling is another option.

    Last year, the US Defense logistics Agency introduced a program to recycle optical-grade germanium used in weapon systems.

    “Factory floor scrap has already accounted for a source of supply. Germanium scrap is also recovered from decommissioned tanks and other military vehicles,” Lu said.

    In August, China didn’t sell any germanium or gallium outside its borders. The numbers could bounce back in September, as the Commerce Ministry said it had approved some export licenses for Chinese companies.

    Initially, prices for the two elements are likely to rise, Manthey said.

    Prices of gallium stood at 1,965 yuan ($269) per metric ton on Tuesday, up more than 17% from June 1, according to ebaiyin.com, a Chinese metal trading service website.

    Prices for germanium increased about 3% during the same period.

    “Higher prices will in turn increase competition by making production more cost-competitive again in countries like Japan, Canada and the US, which will in turn reduce China’s dominance in both markets,” Manthey said.

    “It will take time to build processing plants, but over time, the markets and supply chains will adjust,” he added.

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