Posted by BW Actual on Aug 11th 2025
BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF
Coming up this week
- July U.S. consumer price index (CPI) data comes out tomorrow. Analyst consensus estimates predict a 2.8% year-over-year rise in overall prices due to the effect of new tariffs on imported goods.
- Tomorrow is also the end of the 90-day tariff pause Pres. Trump agreed with China to temporarily reduce U.S. tariffs on most Chinese imports from a punishing 145% to a more tolerable 30%. Envoys have aligned on an extension in principle, but it still needs to be formalized.
- Presidents Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday. More on that below.
- Beijing hosts the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games starting Friday. Over 500 humanoid "athletes" will compete in 538 events within 26 different disciplines, ranging from track and field to 5-a-side football (soccer).
Commodity and coin market prices
- Aluminum: $2,609/ton
- Antimony (trioxide min. 99.65% fob China): $30,950/ton
- Bitcoin: $120,596
- Cobalt: $33,335/ton
- Copper: $9,762/ton
- Ethereum: $4,198
- Gold: $3,363/toz - [Gold futures rose after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency unexpectedly ruled that one-kilo and 100-ounce gold bars would be subject to new import tariffs - including a 39% levy on imports from Switzerland, a top exporter of gold to the U.S. Markets then calmed after the White House said it will soon issue an executive order "clarifying misinformation" about tariffs on gold bars.]
- Lead: $2,008/ton
- Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.92/MMbtu
- WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $64.00/barrel
- Zinc: $2,827/ton
Ukraine
- Following U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff's meetings in Moscow last week, the White House announced that Presidents Trump and Putin will meet in person in Alaska this Friday (Aug. 15) to discuss ideas for ending the war in Ukraine.
- Trump noted that a possible ceasefire proposal would involve "some swapping of territories," which analysts took to mean that Ukraine would be asked to cede some of its eastern regions to their Russian occupants.
- Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the idea of a land swap, and Pres. Zelensky pre-emptively reiterated that position yesterday in advance of Friday's talks. Zelensky wasn't invited to Alaska on Friday, and Ukrainians are worried that Trump will make unwanted concessions to Putin on their behalf.
- [Zelensky also pointed out the irony of the Putin-Trump meeting - in which Putin hopes to reestablish control over eastern Ukraine largely on the basis that it was once Russian territory - taking place in Alaska, which was also previously Russian territory. A cash-strapped Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 for $7.2 million (about $154 million today), and thus far Putin hasn't mentioned wanting to take it back.]
- Seven European leaders - including France's Pres. Macron and Germany's Chancellor Merz - penned a joint statement standing behind a sidelined Ukraine and declaring that "the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine." European foreign ministers will meet today to align their support for Ukraine ahead of Friday's summit excluding it.
Russia, Libya, and Migration
- The UK's Telegraph reported that Russia appears to be reviving a program it launched in 2021 to destabilize the European Union (EU) by facilitating illegal migration through the bloc's back door.
- According to EU officials, there's been a recent rise in flights from Benghazi, eastern Libya, to Minsk, Belarus, which is under the authoritarian rule of Pres. Putin's closest ally (some would say puppet), Alexander Lukashenko.
- Back in 2021, Belarus flew migrants to Minsk under a similar scheme and sent them to makeshift camps along the EU border. There, Belarusian troops allegedly taught the migrants how to illegally cross into the EU, where their presence would trigger an outcry to distract from Russian troops gathering at the Ukrainian border.
- While the current influx is still just a trickle compared to the tens of thousands of migrants who flooded into Europe from Belarus in 2021, EU officials worry it could expand and trigger another migrant crisis in Europe.
- Officials also worry that the apparent cooperation of Libya's eastern strongman, Khalifa Haftar, in flying migrants to Belarus signifies a strengthening alliance between Haftar and Moscow.
- Haftar has also recently welcomed weapons and military kit that Russia evacuated from Syria - some of which apparently leaked through Libya's southeastern border and into the hands of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces paramilitary to reinforce its civil war against the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Gaza
- Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu doubled down on his military's plan to expand its control over all of Gaza, despite widespread criticism of the plan from abroad - and even among top Israeli military brass, who worry the plan is a "trap" and will put the remaining ~20 hostages in Gaza at risk.
- Netanyahu overruled their objections and declared yesterday that the bold plan is "the best way to end the war."
- Netanyahu's critics say he doesn't actually want to end the war, since doing so under terms Hamas could accept (specifically, ending the war without completely dismantling Hamas) would alienate his far-right base and jeopardize his premiership.
- Germany is one of the most vocal critics of Israel's escalation plan. In response to the plan's approval by Israel's security cabinet on Friday, Chancellor Merz announced a moratorium on exporting arms to Israel that "could be used in the Gaza Strip.”
- Separately, an Israeli airstrike killed five Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza City yesterday. The Israeli military was unapologetic and said it had intentionally targeted one of the journalists, Anas al-Sharif, for being a member of Hamas.
China
- Under pressure from Pres. Trump, chip-making majors Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) agreed to pass 15% of the proceeds from sales of certain artificial intelligence chips to China on to the U.S. government for the privilege of being allowed to continue selling chips to China. The U.S. could earn up to $2 billion from its cut of the deals.
- Nvidia and AMD still won't be allowed to sell their most advanced chips to China: these deals cover only Nvidia's less powerful H20 chip - which Nvidia specifically developed for the Chinese market and hobbled to assuage China hawks' concerns - and AMD's similarly weakened MI308 chip.
- The U.S. government had already indicated it would start allowing sales of both chips to China to resume, but it dragged its feet on issuing the export licenses necessary to reopen sales. With the 15% deal done, it has now reportedly begun to approve H20 export licenses.
North Korea
- The NYT analyzed several state media images of Kim Jong Un and his 12-year-old daughter, Kim Ju-ae, including one of the pair looking sleek in coordinated shades and leather outfits - and notably featuring Ju-ae front and center, with her father standing behind her.
- In the absence of factual reporting by independent media, symbolism is significant in the Hermit Kingdom. NYT analysts say Ju-ae's prominence in photos like this suggests that "she is perhaps being groomed to take the reins of the isolated, nuclear-armed regime one day."
DRC
- On Friday, Pres. Tshisekedi reshuffled his cabinet and appointed two opposition figures to relatively senior posts: ex-Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito - who leads the opposition New Momentum Party - will become Tshisekedi's vice prime minister in charge of the budget, and Floribert Anzuluni - who leads another minor opposition party, Alternative Citoyenne - will be his minister for regional integration.
- Analysts say Tshisekedi's inclusion of two opposition leaders within his government is a way to broaden his base ahead of his campaign for reelection in 2028.