Latest news for 25 July 2025

CHINA

Yoink!

A single Anhui-based company (‘Gate of the Era’) has managed to smuggle $400M of advanced US-designed Nvidia B200 chips to data centres in China, after DC initially banned China sales of the much-slower H20 chip earlier this year. (FT $)

Comment: It’s more evidence that Nvidia is both a) wrong to claim there’s no proof of its chips getting smuggled into China, but also b) right to claim that maybe US chip export controls aren’t the right move in this porous chip race. The article above has a banger quote from an end-user in China, noting chip supplies continue unchanged, meaning the only winners here are the middle-men.

UNITED STATES

Surprise!

In some amusing extraordinary scenes, President Trump and his own Fed appointee Jerome Powell have squabbled in front of the cameras during the first Fed visit by a sitting president in decades. Things got testy when Trump produced a paper from his jacket pocket as evidence of cost overruns, prompting a brusque dismissal from Powell, arguing the president was counting a Fed building built five years ago. (CBS)

Comment: The president has openly mused about firing Powell given the banker’s refusal to cut rates, but Trump keeps stepping back from the brink — his advisors will have warned such a move would entail litigation while rocking markets that hold central bank independence as sacred. So the president might be hinting that this Fed construction delay could be legal “cause” for Powell’s dismissal. Whatever’s going on, there’s an influential paper on central bank independence, warning that even if Powell resists political pressure, the damage to the Fed might already be done.

FRANCE

It’s time.

President Macron has announced he’ll recognise the State of Palestine at the UN in September, as part of France’s “historic commitment to a just and lasting peace”. That’d make France the ~148th country — and the first major Western power — to do so. Israel’s Netanyahu has condemned the move, arguing it rewards terror: “the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel.” (President Macron and PM Netanyahu on X)

Comment: These announcements coincided with DC and Israel withdrawing from the protracted Hamas ceasefire talks, accusing the group of bad faith. Israeli media outlets suggest the withdrawal could be a coordinated move to pressure Hamas.

NEPAL

World aid.

China’s aid chief has visited Kathmandu this week, pledging more investment into Himalayan infrastructure under China’s signature Belt & Road Initiative. (SCMP)

Comment: Nepal — landlocked between rival giants China and India — was long considered India’s turf. But years of China’s infrastructure investment are now paying dividends — the most visible sign was Nepal’s new leader breaking tradition by visiting China (rather than India) on his first trip abroad earlier this year. Delhi has voiced concerns, but whining won’t win.

VIETNAM

Arms deals.

Vietnam’s police ministry is set to purchase two Lockheed Martin choppers in a landmark security deal, and is also mulling C-130 military transports. (Strait Times)

Comment: It’s been a decade since the US lifted an arms embargo on its former foe. So why now? Fierce regional competition means Vietnam is keener to diversify its arms supplies, while the US is keener to broaden its friends in countering China. We’re guessing parallel tariff talks will have nudged this deal over the line too.

PERU

Mercury retrograde.

Authorities have seized a record 4-ton shipment of illegal mercury hidden in gravel bags bound for Bolivia, exposing a vast smuggling network enabling the Amazon’s illegal gold trade (which relies on toxic mercury processing). (AP)

BENIN

Welcome, ambassador.

Benin has appointed American filmmaker Spike Lee and his producer-author wife Tonya Lewis Lee as cultural ambassadors to African-Americans in the US, hoping to increase tourism and diaspora ties with the Western African country. Benin launched a website last year offering citizenship to descendants of enslaved Africans, an opportunity reportedly taken up by Ms Lewis Lee. (BBC)