Live updates: Trump meets with Keir Starmer after EU trade announcement
President Donald Trump is meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Turnberry, Scotland, this morning to discuss trade. The U.S. and United Kingdom reached an agreement on tariffs in May.
Yesterday, Trump announced a trade deal with the European Union that would set tariffs at 15% for U.S. imports of most European goods.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, is meeting with Chinese officials in Stockholm, Sweden, today for another round of trade talks ahead of an Aug. 12 deadline for steep tariffs on goods from the U.S. and China to go into effect.
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Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
3 Numbers Investors Need to Pay Attention to When Investing in Stablecoins
Key Points The current size of the stablecoin industry is $250 billion, and it is growing exponentially. While there are more than 200 stablecoins to choose from, two of them (Tether, USDC) dominate 90% of the market. Tether generated a profit of more than $13 billion last year, despite having fewer than 200 employees. 10 stocks we like better than Circle Internet Group › Within the crypto market, stablecoins have emerged as one of the hottest investment themes of the year. In a July 29 Washington Post op-ed, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called stablecoins "a force multiplier for the U.S. dollar system." He referred to the rapid growth of the stablecoin industry as "a paradigm shift in digital finance." Clearly, stablecoins are a big deal these days. But why is everyone talking about them in such glowing terms? These three numbers help to explain why this has turned into the summer of the stablecoin. $250 billion The most important number to focus on is the size of the stablecoin industry. Five years ago, the size of the stablecoin industry was just $20 billion. Today, it's $250 billion. And, according to Bessent, the stablecoin industry could surpass $2 trillion within just a few years. That's truly exponential growth. Right now, stablecoins account for roughly 6% of the entire crypto market, which is valued at nearly $4 trillion. And that means a growing number of stablecoins now rank among the largest cryptocurrencies in the world. Tether (CRYPTO: USDT), for example, has a $164 billion market cap and ranks as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency. USDC (CRYPTO: USDC) has a market cap of $64 billion and ranks as the seventh-largest cryptocurrency. Other cryptocurrencies ranking among the top 25 include Dai (CRYPTO: DAI) and Ethena USDe (CRYPTO: USDE). 200 As new stablecoin research from The Motley Fool makes clear, the top two stablecoins -- Tether and USDC -- account for nearly 90% of the market cap of the stablecoin industry. However, there are now more than 200 stablecoins. The most popular stablecoins are those that are pegged 1-to-1 to the U.S. dollar. However, those are just the "vanilla" stablecoins, and the ones that the Treasury Department is focused on. There are more exotic flavors to choose from. That's because a stablecoin can be pegged to any fiat currency in the world, not just the dollar. For example, CoinGecko currently tracks four stablecoins pegged to the Japanese yen and more than 20 stablecoins pegged to the euro. Moreover, stablecoin issuers outside of the U.S. have plenty of options for how to back those stablecoins. There are fiat-backed stablecoins, gold-backed stablecoins, crypto-backed stablecoins, and even stablecoins backed by sophisticated algorithms. The choice of backing matters tremendously. When it comes time to exchange your stablecoin, you want to make sure that you get back your $1. What's particularly fascinating about the new stablecoin legislation (the Genius Act) is that it opens the door for many more stablecoin issuers to emerge, including a wide range of non-banks. Your favorite retailer might soon be offering one. Your favorite Silicon Valley tech giant might soon be offering one, also. My prediction is that we're about to see a vast Cambrian explosion of new stablecoins. Just as there are now thousands of different cryptocurrencies, there might soon be thousands of different stablecoins. Of course, buyer beware -- in the race to create new stablecoins, there are sure to be some real stinkers. $13 billion Being a stablecoin issuer is an immensely profitable business. In 2024, stablecoin giant Tether posted a profit of more than $13 billion. In this year's "Big Ideas" report for Ark Invest, Cathie Wood highlighted just how staggering that number is. The only institutions in the S&P Financial Services Select Sector Index that generated more net income in the first half of 2024 were Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC). And Tether did it with fewer than 200 employees. By way of comparison, says Wood, JPMorgan Chase employs more than 300,000 people. As Wood points out, "Tether's financial performance is stunning, both absolutely and relatively." If you graph net income per employee for all the top financial institutions in the world, Tether stands out as the clear leader. Its business model is simply unmatched. How to choose the right stablecoin for your portfolio? Even though stablecoins have become an enormously profitable business, you won't become rich by investing in stablecoins directly. That's because stablecoins are designed to always trade for $1. That's why I've always said that the best way to make money with stablecoins is to search out ways to invest in the issuers of the most profitable stablecoins. That way, you get exposure to the upside potential of the entire industry. If the entire industry is growing at an exponential rate, it's a good bet that the top stablecoin issuers will also be growing at an exponential rate. For now, my top pick is Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL), the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. The company went public on June 5 and is already up 130% since then. Until market leader Tether decides to go public, I can't think of a better pure play on the future growth of the stablecoin industry. Should you buy stock in Circle Internet Group right now? Before you buy stock in Circle Internet Group, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Circle Internet Group wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $624,823!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,820!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,019% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 178% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025 Wells Fargo is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Dominic Basulto has positions in Circle Internet Group and USDC. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Numbers Investors Need to Pay Attention to When Investing in Stablecoins was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Rep. Nancy Mace kicks off South Carolina GOP gubernatorial bid. She says she's 'Trump in high heels'
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina is running for governor, entering a GOP primary in which competition for President Donald Trump's endorsement — and the backing of his base of supporters — is expected to be fierce. Mace, who last year won her third term representing South Carolina's 1st District, made her run official during a launch event Monday at The Citadel military college in Charleston. Mace told The Associated Press on Sunday she plans a multi-pronged platform aimed in part at shoring up the state's criminal justice system, ending South Carolina's income tax, protecting women and children, expanding school choice and vocational education and improving the state's energy options. Official filing for South Carolina's 2026 elections doesn't open until March, but several other Republicans have already entered the state's first truly open governor's race in 16 years, including Attorney General Alan Wilson, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Rep. Ralph Norman. Both Wilson and Evette have touted their own connections to the Republican president, but Mace — calling herself 'Trump in high heels' — said she is best positioned to carry out his agenda in South Carolina, where he has remained popular since his 2016 state primary win helped cement his status as the GOP presidential nominee. Saying she plans to seek his support, Mace pointed to her defense of Trump in an interview that resulted in ABC News agreeing to pay $15 million toward his presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit. She also noted that she called Donald Trump early this year as part of an effort to persuade GOP holdouts to support Rep. Mike Johnson to become House speaker. 'No one will work harder to get his attention and his endorsement,' she said. 'No one else in this race can say they've been there for the president like I have, as much as I have and worked as hard as I have to get the president his agenda delivered to him in the White House.' Mace has largely supported Trump, working for his 2016 campaign but levying criticism against him following the Jan. 6, 2021, violence at the U.S. Capitol, which spurred Trump to back a GOP challenger in her 2022 race. Mace defeated that opponent, won reelection and was endorsed by Trump in her 2024 campaign. A month after she told the AP in January that she was 'seriously considering' a run, Mace went what she called 'scorched earth," using a nearly hour-long speech on the U.S. House floor in February to accuse her ex-fiancé of physically abusing her, recording sex acts with her and others without their consent, and conspiring with business associates in acts of rape and sexual misconduct. Mace's ex-fiancé said he 'categorically' denied the accusations, and another man Mace mentioned has sued her for defamation, arguing the accusations were a 'dangerous mix of falsehoods and baseless accusations.' 'I want every South Carolinian to watch me as I fight for my rights as a victim," Mace said, asked if she worried about litigation related to the speech. "I want them to know I will fight just as hard for them as I am fighting for myself.' Mace, 47, was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, the state's military college, where her father then served as commandant of cadets. After briefly serving in the state House, in 2020 she became the first Republican woman elected to represent South Carolina in Congress, flipping the 1st District after one term with a Democratic representative. "I'm going to draw the line, and I'm going to hold it for South Carolina, and I'm going to put her people first," Mace said. ___ Kinnard can be reached at
The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
We must loosen China's chokehold on battery supply chains
A ceasefire in the U.S.-China trade war doesn't change the fact that Americans are subject to Beijing's whims when it comes to critical supplies of everything from magnets to minerals. This is not an accident but the result of decades of Beijing's deliberate practices to build monopolies, dominate supply chains, stifle competition, and foster resource dependencies. But the U.S. and its allies can break China's stranglehold on the battery supply chain, if they work together now to build the components and mine the minerals that go into advanced batteries, while fighting back against China's market manipulation. In our new report, Unplugging Beijing: A Playbook to Reclaim America's Advanced Battery Supply Chains, we lay out the scale and scope of China's non-market practices in battery supply chains — dumping, price manipulation, intellectual property theft, monopolies, and forced technology transfers — and, more importantly, say what America can do about it. One key way in which China controls the battery market is through intentional overproduction — making too much of everything — driving prices below profitability in ways that push out competition. For 2025, Chinese analysts are projecting that China will make twice as many electric cars as the entire global demand from last year. While enormous subsidies and state support cushion Chinese companies, American companies cannot sustain unprofitable production. China's decision to dump cheap batteries and underlying minerals on global markets sustains their monopolies but harms free markets and open competition. Beijing may finally be acknowledging that its massive overproduction of just about everything is fueling a race to the bottom. But as the central government frets about what Xi Jinping has labeled 'disorderly price competition,' local governments in China are still backing absurd strategies to juice production, such as state-sponsored programs to sell brand new cars as 'zero-mileage' used cars — sold at a loss and dumped on foreign markets, but allowing companies to inflate sales numbers to justify factories operating at full tilt. While Beijing deploys a suite of non-market tactics at scale, its price manipulation is especially damaging. Advanced batteries depend on a host of refined minerals — lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite — that are responsible for most of the cost of the resulting battery. China's intervention in nickel markets, for instance, has saddled Western producers with unsustainable costs. In lithium, Beijing has driven prices up or down at will, undermining competing U.S. projects. To counter this, we propose creating a critical minerals and metals exchange, backed by physical assets and a U.S. strategic stockpile. This would offer offtake guarantees above a price floor to support domestic processors. China's monopolies on mineral processing have also become a weapon in the broader trade war. Beijing has imposed export restrictions on key minerals, including graphite — of which it controls more than 95 percent of global battery-grade processing. To reduce these choke points, we advocate for the creation of special economic zones that co-locate processing, infrastructure, and energy access near known reserves. These zones could take advantage of colocation synergies around large reserves, such as the Salton Sea, and could feature pre-vetted environmental analysis and rigorous safety protocols to localize mining, on-site processing, downstream fabrication, energy, and water needs for all related infrastructure. We also recommend expanding the U.S. Development Finance Corporation's risk appetite to back more processing projects internationally. Beyond supply and demand, China's record on intellectual property theft is extensive. Most Chinese espionage cases involve attempts to acquire commercial technology. The battery sector is a repeated target: the Justice Department has charged Chinese actors with stealing battery tech from Tesla and Phillips 66. Many of China's non-market tactics — from forced labor to environmental shortcuts — thrive in secrecy. To increase transparency, we recommend that the U.S. bar foreign firms from selling into American markets unless they meet strict digital customs and trade data standards. U.S.-listed companies should also be required to map their full supply chains to expose any hidden reliance on forced labor. To compete with all this, the U.S. must invest in cleaner, more efficient, and higher-performing manufacturing processes. We propose increased academic research in battery science in exchange for low-cost licensing to U.S. companies, full cost recovery for research and development in the tax code, and publicly owned modular testing facilities to reduce innovation barriers for smaller firms. There is a way forward — if we choose to act boldly. New supply chains won't emerge from one nation alone. We need domestic reindustrialization and international ally-shoring. Both require upgraded infrastructure and reliable access to the raw inputs of advanced manufacturing — minerals, chemicals, and tooling. Strengthened trade rules, coordinated tariffs, and harmonized regulations among market economies are essential. Most importantly, this effort must be spearheaded by strong American leadership and a dynamic, integrated North American trading bloc. Rebuilding America's supply chains will take industrial work and political will, but we must commit to the hard tasks now to protect our economic security and resilience for the long term. The future of American prosperity depends on it. Elaine Dezenski is senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Joshua Birenbaum serves as deputy director.
