Anthropic on Tuesday said the U.S. Department of Commerce has lifted the export controls on its Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, putting an end to the latest dramatic standoff between the artificial intelligence company and the Trump administration.

“We’re grateful to our users for their patience, and to everyone who worked with us on redeploying the models,” Anthropic said in a post on X.

Anthropic disabled access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 in mid-June in order to comply with an export control directive from the government that cited “national security authorities.” The company said it was told to suspend all access “by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.”

The government’s crackdown on Anthropic coincided with a swift rise in Chinese open-source models that are proving to be almost as capable and significantly cheaper than some of the most powerful U.S. models. With the Trump administration limiting Anthropic’s rollout of its latest models, a number of tech executives and investors raised concern that Chinese developers were being gifted valuable time in their effort to catch up.

Tuesday’s announcement comes just days after U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick gave Anthropic permission to release Mythos 5 to a select group of companies and federal agencies. In a letter to the company that was viewed by CNBC, Lutnick said he had determined that “appropriate safeguards” were in place to permit certain “trusted partners” to access the model.

“Over the past two weeks, we have worked closely with Anthropic to analyze and approve Fable 5 to ensure alignment across the US Government and strengthen America’s leadership in AI,” Lutnick wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

Anthropic said it will begin restoring access to Fable 5 on Wednesday.

Days before the export control, Anthropic launched the models, touting them as state-of-the-art across a number of different industry benchmarks. Fable 5, in particular, marked the first time that Anthropic released such an advanced offering to the public.

The company, which has been at loggerheads with the White House much of this year, rushed to Washington, D.C., to negotiate with the Trump administration after it received the export control directive on June 12. Anthropic has remained tight-lipped in the weeks following, sharing minimal public updates about the state of the talks.

Tom Brown, an Anthropic co-founder, reportedly took the lead in negotiations with the Trump administration, replacing Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in that role. Amodei has been a target of the administration for his outspoken views on AI safety and because he was a vocal supporter of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

Lutnick’s letter on Friday was addressed to Brown, not…

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi embraced President Donald Trump on Thursday, and not just on policy grounds. The newly elected Japanese leader threw herself into the arms of the U.S. president when he greeted her at the White House.

“It is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world,” Takaichi said later as the two met in front of reporters in the Oval Office.

Beneath the flattery is an important truth. Trump is singlehandedly shaping the course of global events to a degree that far outstrips even the power he wielded in his first presidency. With his presidency unshackled, his military and other policy decisions are reshaping the economy in real time — and clouding the economic outlook.

Trump’s predecessors weren’t willing to make the choice he did in Iran. President Barack Obama‘s response to the risk that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon was to negotiate a multilateral arms deal. Trump scrapped it in his first term. President Joe Biden attempted to revive it, opting for negotiations and sanctions pressure even after Iran-backed Hamas massacred Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.

Trump’s decision to use his authority as the military’s commander-in-chief has essentially made him the lever that moves global energy prices up or down. Iran’s forces have attacked cargo ships and assailed its neighbors’ energy facilities. 

Traffic has stalled through the vital Strait of Hormuz. In normal times it carries 20% of the world’s crude oil. 

Gas prices in the U.S. have spiked by nearly a dollar, or 33%, over the past month, according to AAA. More economic turmoil is brewing. The strait is also a channel for fertilizer components that are rapidly becoming scarce. The possibility of fertilizer shortages has put U.S agriculture “in uncharted territory,” a Michigan farmer told CNBC this week.

Trump says he predicted gas prices would rise when he went to war, and sees it as a necessary price for neutering the threat of further Iranian aggression, nuclear and otherwise. The White House says prices will fall sharply when hostilities end. At the war’s outset, Trump said it would last days. Then weeks. On Friday, he said he is not interested in a ceasefire.

Prices may indeed fall after the war ends, but for now markets are pricing in a costly war. Futures markets show traders expecting the price of oil to stay above $80 a barrel through July 2027, according to FactSet data. 

The markets’ worry reflects the risk that for all his individual power Trump may no longer be able to quickly end the war. Iran can use cheap drones, boats and mines to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. It may take a ground invasion to stamp out that threat. Trump on Thursday said he wasn’t considering ground forces, but…

The biggest U.S. banks show no sign of capitulating to President Donald Trump’s mandate to slash credit card interest rates, setting up a confrontation just as the president is expected to take the world stage next week at Davos.

Executives at JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup warned this week that rather than offering cards at a 10% interest rate, as Trump has directed should happen by Jan. 20, the banks would simply close many customers’ accounts.

“An interest rate cap is not something that we would or could support,” Citigroup CFO Mark Mason told reporters on Wednesday.

It would “restrict access to credit to those who need it the most and frankly would have a deleterious impact on the economy,” he said.

On Tuesday, JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum indicated that the industry could defend itself in the courts if needed, saying “everything’s on the table” in terms of a response.

Trump, keen to address voters’ concerns over affordability ahead of midterm elections this year, began his broadside against banks in a late-Friday social media post by alleging that the industry was ripping off credit card borrowers. In media interviews and follow up posts, Trump has doubled down on his push and endorsed a separate bill that takes aim at the swipe fees paid by merchants.

But five days after the original threat, bankers and their lobbyists told CNBC that they have yet to receive any formal or written guidance from the Trump administration about the policy.

That gives some of them hope that the administration isn’t serious about pursuing the interest rate cap, according to industry insiders, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly.

Barring legislation, which is not likely, the industry will either dodge the caps entirely or be forced to offer concessions, similar to how Trump dealt with the pharmaceutical industry, Wolfe Research analysts led by Tobin Marcus said Tuesday in a note.

“We continue to view the drugmakers as the case study in how this kind of dealmaking-under-threat could go,” Marcus said. “In that case, Trump had enough leverage to secure some new pricing commitments, but not enough to extract truly painful commitments.”

The financial sector is keenly focused on two upcoming events for a sense of how the credit card battle will unfold, sources tell CNBC.

The first is Senate meetings this month where bills being worked on could see the addition of Trump’s rate cap or the push to limit interchange fees. But that path is murky, given that several Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have already indicated they wouldn’t support price controls on credit cards.

The other looming date is next Wednesday, the…

The arrest of Nicolás Maduro has thrown one of the world’s most politically fraught oil industries back into focus, forcing investors to reassess who controls Venezuela’s crude resources and whether they can be meaningfully revived after decades of decline.

For now, the answer may seem straightforward. “Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-owned oil company, controls the majority of the oil production and reserves,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates. 

American energy corporation Chevron operates in the country through its own production and a joint venture with PDVSA, while Russian and Chinese firms also participate through partnerships, though “majority control is still with PDVSA,” Lipow said. 

Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s, which led to the creation of PDVSA. Oil output peaked at about 3.5 million barrels per day in 1997, but has since plunged to an estimated 950,000 barrels per day, with around 550,000 barrels per day exported, data provided by Lipow Oil Associates showed.

If a more pro-U.S. and pro-investment government takes shape in Venezuela, Chevron would be “best placed” to expand its role, said Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Financial. European companies like Repsol and Eni could also benefit, given their existing positions in Venezuela, he said.

“Since it is unclear at this time who is in charge in Venezuela, we might see exports completely halt as the buyers don’t know to whom to send the money,” said Lipow. He added that the latest round of U.S. sanctions on a shadow fleet of tankers has severely affected exports, forcing Venezuela to cut production.

The shadow fleet refers to tankers that operate outside traditional shipping, insurance and regulatory systems to move crude from sanctioned countries. These vessels are commonly used to transport oil from nations such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran, which face U.S. restrictions on energy exports.

Lipow expects Chevron to continue exporting 150,000 barrels per day, limiting any immediate supply impact. Still, he said the broader uncertainty could add a short-term risk premium of about $3 per barrel.

That bump would come against a market that many analysts see as adequately supplied, at least for now. “The oil market currently is trending towards oversupply,” Rapidan Energy Group’s Bob McNally said, calling the immediate impact “almost a nothing burger.”

Venezuela’s longer-term…

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday and that the two men discussed chip export restrictions, as lawmakers consider a proposal to limit exports of advanced artificial intelligence chips to nations like China.

“I’ve said it repeatedly that we support export controls, and that we should ensure that American companies have the best and the most and first,” Huang told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers were considering including the Guaranteeing Access and Innovation for National Artificial Intelligence Act in a major defense package, known as the National Defense Authorization Act. The GAIN AI Act would require chipmakers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices to give U.S. companies first pick on their AI chips before selling them in countries like China.

The proposal isn’t expected to be part of the NDAA, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Huang said it was “wise” that the proposal is being left out of the annual defense policy bill.

“The GAIN AI Act is even more detrimental to the United States than the AI Diffusion Act,” Huang said.

Nvidia’s CEO also criticized the idea of establishing a patchwork of state laws regulating AI. The notion of state-by-state regulation has generated pushback from tech companies and spurred the creation of a super PAC called “Leading the Future,” which is backed by the AI industry.

“State-by-state AI regulation would drag this industry into a halt and it would create a national security concern, as we need to make sure that the United States advances AI technology as quickly as possible,” Huang said. “A federal AI regulation is the wisest.”

Trump last month urged legislators to include a provision in the NDAA that would preempt state AI laws in favor of “one federal standard.”

But House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told CNBC’s Emily Wilkins on Tuesday the provision won’t make it into the bill, citing a lack of sufficient support. He and other lawmakers will continue to look for ways to establish a national standard on AI, Scalise added.

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