🚀 Trump Tariffs on Iran Suppliers

In partnership with

Market Overview
Read time 1.4 minutes

Year To Date Performances:

1. President Donald Trump announced a sweeping new trade policy, threatening immediate 50% tariffs on "any and all" goods from countries found to be supplying military weapons to Iran. In a series of Truth Social posts, the President emphasized that the levy would be enforced with no "exclusions or exemptions," positioning the measure as a critical tool to isolate the Iranian regime from external military support as the U.S. enters a fragile two-week ceasefire with Tehran. While the administration discusses potential tariff and sanctions relief for Iran itself, the threat against third-party arms suppliers—specifically targeting established supply chains involving China and Russia—adds a significant new layer of economic pressure to the region.

2. Oil prices plummeted on Wednesday morning, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) falling 18% to $92.50 USD and Brent crude dropping over 16% to $91.25 USD. This massive sell-off followed a dramatic 11th-hour diplomatic breakthrough where President Trump agreed to a 14-day suspension of military strikes in exchange for Iran granting safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, facilitated by regional mediators including Pakistan, after nearly 40 days of intense conflict that severely disrupted global energy markets and critical infrastructure. Trump signalled a shift toward a "very productive regime change" and noted that upcoming negotiations would focus on a 15-point U.S. peace proposal, which includes demands for zero uranium enrichment and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

3. Advanced packaging has emerged as the critical bottleneck in the artificial intelligence supply chain, transforming what was once a secondary engineering step into a high-stakes geopolitical challenge. As transistor density approaches its physical limits, companies are shifting toward 3D integration—connecting multiple smaller "chiplets," such as logic and high-bandwidth memory, into a single, high-performance unit like an Nvidia GPU. While the U.S. has made strides in domestic chip fabrication, nearly all advanced packaging still occurs in Asia, forcing even the most advanced "made-in-USA" silicon to take a mandatory round trip to Taiwan or Southeast Asia before it can be used in a data center.

   Headlines

   1. Spain’s government continues to take a defiant approach to President Trump, even in response to the Iran ceasefire.

   2. The US Navy is struggling to compete with Walmart and Amazon, threatening its $2B retail business.