The EU is increasingly united on the need for a tough approach to China. Europe has long been nervous about cheap, state-subsidized Chinese goods undermining the continent’s manufacturing industries. Paris has led efforts to respond, calling for new tariffs and other measures, but Berlin has been more wary, since Chinese ...
Month: June 2026
Global central banks grapple with warGlobal central banks grapple with war
Global central banks’ responses to the Iran war’s energy crisis reveal different underlying concerns. The US Fed held rates steady and hinted at future hikes; the ECB last week increased rates, as did Japan’s central bank on Tuesday, all of them trying to tamp down the Iran war-fueled inflation. While ...
Trump defends Iran deal after markets forced his handTrump defends Iran deal after markets forced his hand
US President Donald Trump defended the Iran deal that offers several concessions to Tehran, saying Wednesday he wanted to avoid an “economic catastrophe.” It was an admission that the markets forced his hand, with the war driving up inflation and energy costs. Terms in the US draft include reopening the ...
The Fed’s Warsh era starts with a flurry of change, but steady ratesThe Fed’s Warsh era starts with a flurry of change, but steady rates
The News New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh rolled out many new initiatives at the central bank on Wednesday, from balance sheet management to public communications — and a potential rebrand for more hawkish policy. “I am pleased to report that members of the FOMC are unambiguous and unanimous: This ...
What’s in the US-Iran agreement that’s now in effectWhat’s in the US-Iran agreement that’s now in effect
The 14-paragraph memo includes an end to fighting, an agreement that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and a $300bn redevelopment package for Iran. ...
Read the Iran deal, as told by the USRead the Iran deal, as told by the US
Islamabad memorandum of understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have jointly agreed in good faith on such and such a date on the following: Paragraph one: The United States of America and ...
Research pulls back curtain on ClaudeResearch pulls back curtain on Claude
Anybody who’s been playing around with AI this year in any meaningful way will have noticed that the “models” have taken a back seat to the “orchestration layer,” the non-AI operational tasks that allow the technology to function in the real world (If this were a fancy restaurant, the AI ...
Meta pursues muddled AI strategyMeta pursues muddled AI strategy
Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth’s apology to staff Monday for the company’s massive layoffs and AI missteps may be a first move to addressing sapped morale but it belies a bigger problem: its AI strategy still doesn’t seem to make sense. The company is borrowing like mad to build massive ...
Anthropic takes the path of most resistanceAnthropic takes the path of most resistance
Reed’s view Anthropic has, once again, found its future in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. None of this is necessary. The thing most people don’t realize is that Anthropic isn’t fundamentally opposed to the current administration’s economic goals. It isn’t the “woke” or anti-capitalist caricature that the administration has ...
The tech behind agentic commerceThe tech behind agentic commerce
It’s getting harder to tell the agents apart from the humans. For cybersecurity companies, identifying a digital agent crawling a website used to be enough evidence of malicious activity. Now, digital agents are representing human users and making purchases online, prompting sellers to reconfigure their businesses to better serve agents ...