Deadly storms that have disrupted copper mines in Chile could amplify market strains, strategists say, as the U.S. and China battle for supply of the critical industrial metal, in turn pushing prices higher.

Although the immediate outages appear limited, mining disruption in Chile — which accounts for more than a fifth of global copper production — has landed in a market already distorted by U.S. tariff expectations, tighter scrap availability in China and surging demand for refined metal used in power grids and AI infrastructure, strategists say.

Heavy snow, flash flooding and high winds have swept across the South American nations over the past week, killing 13 people and disrupting operations run by major producers including Anglo American, Antofagasta, Lundin Mining and state-owned Codelco.

Antofagasta, the London-listed Chilean major, has halted mining and processing at its Los Pelambres operation, while Toronto-headquartered global miner Barrick evacuated employees because of the extreme weather.

Lundin Mining said Monday that operations at its Caserones mine in Chile’s northern Atacama region could take two to three weeks to restart. Power lines serving the mine were damaged by heavy snowfall, forcing the Vancouver-based company to suspend operations on July 18.

Rainfall also disrupted Lundin’s Candelaria mine, although the site continued operating using existing ore stockpiles, later returning to full capacity.

Nearly a month into the Iran war, the United States is preparing to send thousands of additional soldiers to the Middle East, expanding a military footprint that already has tens of thousands of American personnel in the region.

But the buildup signals something other than preparation for a ground offensive, according to analysts who suggested it is an exercise in coercive diplomacy — designed to increase leverage as President Donald Trump turns up the pressure for Iran to come to the negotiating table.

“President Trump is essentially saying either you — the Iranians — can cut a deal now or face potentially more intense consequences down the road,” Raphael Cohen, a senior political scientist at RAND school of public policy, told CNBC via email. The military buildup gives the president optionality, not just to strike, but to bargain from strength, Cohen noted.

Washington and Tehran have struggled to find a path to start negotiations over peace terms, with each side insisting it holds the upper hand in the conflict while portraying the other as the more desperate one.

The U.S. has circulated a 15-point peace plan, demanding what would amount to a complete termination of Iran’s nuclear program and sharp limits on the reach and size of its missile arsenal — similar to the ones touted in February, before negotiations fell through and led to a joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran.

The Iranian government, for its part, has declared it will not end the conflict unless Washington pays war reparations and recognizes Tehran’s “exercise of sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier on Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that no negotiations were taking place between Tehran and Washington.

Pakistan has offered to facilitate peace talks in pursuit of a “comprehensive settlement” of the ongoing war. But neither Washington nor Tehran has confirmed such discussions.

At the same time, the U.S. ordered on Tuesday to send thousands more soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the region that could be rapidly deployed for possible additional military action, such as seizing the Kharg Island oil port or reopening the strait, if negotiations falter.

Those forces may give the president more leverage in his negotiations, but also risk fueling Tehran’s resentment and provoking a harsher response, analysts say.

“Diplomacy is almost always backed up by force,” Iranian-American historian Arash Azizi said in an email to CNBC, adding that under Trump, this is done even “more openly and more crudely.”

The administration has been notably inconsistent in its messaging, with Trump reportedly saying that he wants a speedy end to the war while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has kept up his warlike warnings,…

Prices for metals fell sharply across the board Thursday as investors worried about the impact rising oil prices due to the U.S.-Iran war will have on the global economy.

Gold fell nearly 6%, while silver was off 8%. The sell-off extended beyond just those two, as industrial metals like copper and palladium came under pressure, declining 2% and 5.5%, respectively. 

While the selling intensified on Thursday, gold and silver have been falling since the war in Iran began, despite the former being viewed as a safe-haven asset. Surging oil prices have created concerns that inflation will reignite and keep interest rates higher. Higher rates weaken the appeal of the bullion, which is non-yielding. 

A stronger dollar as a result of the higher rates has also weighed on gold, as it cheapens the metal.

“The risks to inflation taking away the Fed rate cuts that were priced in, and seeing interest rate increases across the world, and real rates rising, that has been the drag on gold,” said Peter Boockvar, CIO at One Point BFG Wealth Partners. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield at one point on Thursday crossed 4.300%.

Meanwhile, copper and palladium, after declining at the onset of the war, stayed relatively stable.

But that has changed as growth concerns begin to weigh on these industrial metals. 

Wall Street consensus has generally been that the longer the war goes on, the greater is the risk that oil prices remain elevated for long enough that it alters the spending habits of consumers and businesses and leads to a recession. 

It’s the “demand destruction” phase of an energy shock that traders and investors are chattering about.

“On the industrial metal side… people are now really worried about the recession risks,” Boockvar said. 

And slower growth combined with higher inflation is a “stagflation” scenario. But while investors begin to make “stagflation” trades, others see the possibility as extremely unlikely.

Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, wrote in a Tuesday note that “oil shocks are less likely to trigger the kind of sustained stagflation seen in the past, particularly during the 1970s,” referencing the economic consequences of the 1973 OPEC embargo. He noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, while it caused an oil shock and higher inflation, didn’t lead to a recession. 

It’s a belief that Fed Chair Jay Powell repeated in a press conference on Wednesday. “I would reserve the term stagflation for a much more serious set of circumstances.”

While Boockvar thinks the war needs to end for industrial metals’ prices to stabilize, he said gold…

The Strait of Hormuz shutdown caused by the war in Iran is jacking up fertilizer prices, hitting farmers in their pocketbooks and threatening to raise food prices.

Now, Democrats trying to win the U.S. midterm elections in November see another new opportunity to pound the affordability crisis and turn the tide after years of losses in the states that produce crops and livestock.

The Strait of Hormuz is a critical channel for fertilizer, including about 50 percent of global nitrogen-rich urea fertilizers, according to the Fertilizer Institute, the industry’s trade association. The Strait has been effectively impassable since President Donald Trump launched the assault, which is now dragging into its third week with no end in sight.

The closure has spiked fertilizer prices just before planting season, potentially scrambling decision-making for farmers across the U.S. And it comes on top of already low commodity prices that have lingered for years and eaten into farmers’ margins.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” Matt Frostic, a Michigan farmer who sits on the board of the National Corn Growers Association, said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s like a code red.”

Frostic said he purchased nitrogen fertilizer, critical for corn crops, in January for around $350 per ton. That same product, he said, is now closing in on $600 per ton.

The murky farm outlook also comes eight months before the midterm elections that could cost Trump control of both the House of Representatives and Senate. Democrats, who are trying to win competitive seats in farm-heavy states like Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, are jumping on the high fertilizer prices as a new example of the affordability issue that continues to haunt Trump and Republicans.

“There are tons of people just like me in our district who are like, I don’t get it. I don’t understand. It was already hard, and now they’re making it harder, and nobody knows why,” said Jake Johnson, a public schoolteacher who is running for Congress in Minnesota’s first district against incumbent Republican Rep. Brad Finstad.

“Our number one job as a campaign and what we want to talk about to every single person we talk to is we need ways to make things cheaper,” Johnson said.

The rural entreaties from Democrats come after years of bleeding support in the country’s rural, agrarian states in the middle of the country. Trump in 2024 won nearly every state in the Midwest, with exceptions in Minnesota and Illinois. He also dominated the county-by-county contest according to the Center for Politics, winning 2,660 counties compared to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 451, which were centered in the most populated parts of the U.S.

China has set its lowest growth target in decades, acknowledging domestic challenges and pointing to global uncertainty, while keeping some stimulus measures in place to counter a possible ramp up in external shocks.

Beijing on Thursday announced its GDP growth target for 2026 at 4.5% to 5%, the least ambitious goal since early 1990s.

The lower target range leaves room for policymakers to “react to the external environment, which has seen increased uncertainty this year,” Danyang Shen, head of the team that drafted the target-setting report, told reporters Thursday, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.

“Factors that are uncertain and difficult to predict may turn out to be more numerous than anticipated,” he said, noting that “everyone has seen the latest global trend.”

Barely three months into 2026, Beijing is facing heightened economic risks as the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, a critical oil supplier to China, risks Beijing’s energy supply — that comes against the backdrop of the ouster of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, another major oil supplier to China.

China has reportedly ordered the largest state oil refiners to suspend exports of diesel and gasoline amid worries that the ongoing Iran conflict could disrupt easy access to energy. The U.S. military action in Middle East has also led to concerns over whether a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this month would take place as planned.

The lowered GDP target also recognizes the seriousness of persistent domestic growth headwinds.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang made a rare acknowledgement of the U.S. tariff impact during his presentation on the country’s economic targets on Thursday. He also painted a stark picture of business struggles, along with persistent local government financial difficulties that have at times even led to delayed salary payments to employees.

The report was “surprisingly candid” that weak consumption and investment have weighed heavily on growth momentum,” said Han Shen Lin, China country director at The Asia Group.

But it’s “ultimately a matter of confidence about the future,” Lin said. “Nothing in the plan really addresses this concern so the market’s takeaway will be ‘more deflation in the horizon.'” Chinese consumer prices remained flat last year, compared with “around 2%” growth target.

Although Beijing lowered its headline GDP target range, it kept other goals such as consumer inflation and fiscal spending largely in line with last year, when the targeted economic growth was around 5%.

“I think people already feel the economy is not growing [at] 5%,” said Liqian Ren, director of Mordern Alpha at U.S.-based fund manager WisdomTree. Lowering the GDP target…

A new race to secure critical minerals is unfolding across the global economy.

From Washington’s proposed $12 billion Project Vault stockpile to expanding buffers in Asia and the European Union, governments are moving to secure access to metals increasingly viewed as essential to national security and industrial policy.

“In metals and minerals is where the newest wave of stockpiling is most visible,” said Patrick Schröder, senior research fellow at Chatham House. Governments are seeking to reduce exposure to concentrated supply chains and export controls, he said.

In the U.S., officials recently outlined a roughly $12 billion strategic mineral reserve dubbed Project Vault. The initiative aims to bolster supply-chain resilience for American industry by building stockpiles of rare earths and other essential metals for electrification, defense and advanced manufacturing.

Project Vault complements other initiatives such as the “Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE),” a partnership to coordinate critical mineral policy pricing and projects, as well as Pax Silica, which centers on safeguarding the AI-related supply chain.

Australia in January announced plans to formalize a state-backed stockpiling strategy through an $800 million strategic critical minerals reserve, prioritizing antimony, gallium and rare earth elements.

The European Union is also advancing plans to build a joint reserve of critical raw materials under its RESourceEU strategy. Italy, France and Germany are expected to lead the effort, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing sources familiar with the matter.

As recently as last weekend, India and Brazil agreed to deepen cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths, as New Delhi seeks to diversify supply sources and reduce reliance on China. The pact is aimed at strengthening bilateral trade and building more resilient supply chains for materials critical to clean energy, technology and defense industries.

South Korea earlier this year rolled out a comprehensive critical minerals strategy backed by about $172 million in state support. Under this strategy, the government plans to expand stockpile volumes and infrastructure.

“We certainly see a shift to a more resource nationalist mindset amongst many countries,” said Schröder. “At this point, it’s a slippery slope and strategic stockpiling could become hoarding when measures become coercive, lack transparency and become weaponized.”

‘Resource nationalism’ in the works?

The strategic pivot marks what several analysts describe as a structural shift in commodity policy.

“Metal supply chains are fragile,” said Ewa Manthey at ING, pointing to years of underinvestment, long timelines…

LONDON — European stocks opened higher on Friday as traders parsed through more economic data and earnings reports, while monitoring tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.1% shortly after the open, and London’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.3%, while Germany’s Dax traded flat.

Friday will see more European companies reporting earnings, including Air Liquide, Danone, Sika, Anglo American, and Kingspan Group.

Mining giant Anglo American reported adjusted core earnings of $6.4 billion for 2025, up from $6.3 billion the prior year, driven by strong performance in copper and premium iron ore, as well as significant cost savings amounting to $1.8 billion for the year. Its net debt decreased to $8.6 billion.

However, the group reported a $3.7 billion net loss, largely due to a $2.3 billion pre-tax impairment on its De Beers diamond unit, amid challenging market conditions. Anglo American’s CEO Duncan Wanblad said the company is progressing with the separation of De Beers.

Traders are also parsing through economic data, including U.K. retail sales figures, German producer price figures, and PMI flashes for the U.K., France, Germany, and the euro zone.

The U.K.’s retail sales figures were estimated to have risen 1.8% in January 2026, up from a 0.4% increase in December 2025, pointing to an uptick in the economy, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. Additionally, sales volumes rose by 4.5% over the year.

Britain’s public finances, released Friday, showed that the public sector recorded a £30.4 billion ($40.8 billion) surplus in January 2026, which is double the level recorded a year earlier. Public borrowing stood at £112.1 billion since the start of the fiscal year in April 2025, 11.5% less than the same period a year ago.

The British pound was down 0.1% against the dollar, trading at $1.344, following the release of the data. British government bond yields, known as gilts, edged higher. The 10-year Gilt was up less than a basis point to 4.376%, while the 2-year Gilt rose 1 basis point to 3.588%.

Geopolitical tensions are also in focus after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would decide whether to take military action against Iran in the next 10 days.

U.S. futures climbed overnight as key economic data is due to be released, including the personal consumption expenditures index, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, and the gross domestic product report for the fourth quarter.

Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Friday, after the three major Wall Street indexes were down overnight amid a drop in private credit stocks and the tensions in the Middle East.