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Confidence grows over Hormuz

Oil prices fell to their lowest level since the US-Israel war with Iran, as growing signs of a tentative return to normality through the Strait of Hormuz soothed markets. Buyers are “suddenly awash with supply,” Bloomberg said. Growing numbers of ships — many of which had gone dark in order to quietly traverse the strait — are now navigating the waterway with their transponders on, and maritime insurers are slashing their rates, as confidence builds after last week’s interim truce between Washington and Tehran. Still, weeks of disruption are likely to leave their mark, Goldman Sachs economists warned: Stocks of refined products are lower than their recent average, with gasoline in particularly short supply.

Saudi, Qatar woo Iran; UAE digs in

The geopolitical split between Gulf powers is increasingly on show over their response to the aftermath of the US-Iran war. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are moving toward reconciliation: Riyadh is reportedly arranging a peace summit, while Doha wants to initiate talks on resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. But the UAE — which suffered the vast majority of Iranian attacks, rocking its reputation as a business hub — is not in a hurry to move on. A diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president warned against “imposing a fait accompli born of aggression.” It falls to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to keep everyone happy: He will be in Bahrain today to shore up support for the interim truce.

Bahrain’s Shiite crackdown

Bahrain imposed sweeping restrictions on its Shiite community ahead of a major holiday commemoration, the latest in a string of curbs on minorities across the Gulf since the US-Iran war. The crackdown emphasizes a point made recently by Semafor’s Gulf editor: The conflict’s most enduring legacy in the region, whose ruling monarchies are Sunni Arab, may be renewed tensions with Shiite populations because of perceived links to Shiite-majority Iran. Any dissent now risks being recast as treason. Manama recently stripped 69 Shiites and their relatives of citizenship, attempting to deport most to Iran, and have banned public mourning for Tehran’s late supreme leader; authorities in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have also cracked down on alleged Iran-linked militants and sympathizers.

Trump attacks NATO (again)

US President Donald Trump voiced frustration with NATO allies for failing to back his war against Iran, deepening transatlantic tensions ahead of a key summit of the military alliance. Trump has repeatedly criticized the group’s members for failing to spend enough on defense, and frequently suggested he would not adhere to its collective defense commitment. His latest remarks, made while seated alongside NATO’s secretary-general, came as the alliance’s biggest European members said they would step up their partnership, two weeks ahead of the closely watched summit. The NATO chief, for his part, sought to assuage Trump with a series of charts underscoring increased European defense spending, before appealing to the American president: NATO allies “want to hear your lead.”

Politics looms over Ukraine summit

A conference focused on rebuilding Ukraine risks being overshadowed by diplomatic disputes between Kyiv and its neighbors. Politicians, executives, and activists gather today in the Polish city of Gdańsk with defense and infrastructure ostensibly atop the agenda. But Warsaw and Kyiv are locked in a row over Ukraine renaming a military unit after World War II insurgents that killed thousands of Poles. Though Poland has insisted its support for its neighbor in the war with Russia remains unequivocal, it nevertheless stripped Ukraine’s president of an award. The EU has, meanwhile, lowered its accession ambitions for Kyiv following opposition from Hungary — despite the election of a new government in Budapest that has signaled a warming of ties with Ukraine.

Anthropic hits out at Alibaba

Anthropic accused Alibaba of illicitly accessing its Claude AI model, the latest in a number of new fronts in the US-China tech rivalry. The AI firm said the Chinese e-commerce giant had created fake accounts to get past restrictions to carry out “distillation attacks,” using Claude’s responses to train Alibaba models. The allegations come after the Chinese company this week sued the Pentagon to be removed from a blacklist of firms allegedly linked to the PLA. The US is trying to reduce its reliance on Chinese tech supply chains in everything from raw materials to chips, creating the “Pax Silica” effort to bolster alternative sources; several European governments and the EU joined those efforts this week.

SK Hynix eyes $29B US listing

SK Hynix is planning a $29 billion US stock offering, a bet on continued AI semiconductor demand. The South Korean chipmaker has outperformed rivals, including compatriot Samsung, to control much of the global memory-chip market; fellow memory giant Micron recently posted a 15-fold profit surge. Others are also trying to get in on the chip boom: OpenAI said it had begun testing its own processors, and SpaceX is building a huge chip fabrication factory in Texas. But investors are anxious and the market is volatile. SK Hynix’s Korean share price has swung wildly this week, and Elon Musk’s personal worth fell by $240 billion as SpaceX’s valuation dropped following its IPO — ending (presumably temporarily) his stint as a trillionaire.

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Tech price rises drive inflation

The AI data center boom is causing a new wave of inflation, data suggested. As oil prices drop with the Iran war quiescent, US consumers might hope price rises could level off. But demand for chips and energy is driving up costs for everything from smartphones to electricity. The inflationary pressure will be lower than that caused by US tariffs, COVID, or the Iran war — tech and energy are a small fraction of most people’s spending — but it could “keep inflation broadly elevated,” The Wall Street Journal said. And the data center boom is unlikely to stop: Meta and Microsoft alone have committed tens of billions of dollars, while Amazon and Google are leading the race for new power sources.

WHO plans Ebola drug trials

The WHO announced two trials of experimental anti-Ebola drugs to combat the fast-moving outbreak. More than 1,000 cases and 277 deaths have so far been confirmed, most of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo, from the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccines or treatments. The US will provide one of the new drugs, a shift in stance after previously saying it would only be available for at-risk Americans. This Ebola strain may be spreading faster than previous outbreaks because its symptoms are milder, doctors said, with initial data suggesting only 10% of patients develop the extensive bleeding usually associated with the disease — good news for those infected, but potentially making it harder to detect and thus control.