Crypto bills set to advance this week take industry closer to mainstream
The House of Representatives is set to pass a series of crypto-related bills in a week which the Republican majority has dubbed "crypto week." The most notable is a bill that would establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins and is likely to advance to President Donald Trump's desk.
That bill - and another the House is considering that would define when a crypto token is a commodity - is a huge win for the crypto industry, which has been pushing for federal legislation for years and poured money into last year's elections in order to promote pro-crypto candidates.
"Historically, when lawmakers advance industry-backed frameworks, institutional sentiment strengthens. We expect capital that was previously sidelined due to regulatory uncertainty to re-enter," said Jag Kooner, head of derivatives at crypto exchange Bitfinex.
"Crypto week" also comes as bitcoin has scaled record highs in recent days as investors dive back into risk assets on the back of tariff-related news, as well as expectations that legislation could potentially unlock capital in the crypto space.
The big ticket item the House is set to vote on this week is a bill that would create a set of federal requirements for stablecoins.
Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents say they could be used to send payments instantly.
The bill, dubbed the GENIUS Act, received bipartisan support in the Senate, with several Democrats joining most Republicans to back the proposed federal rules. It is expected to pass the House and would then head to Trump, who has said he will sign it into law.
The bill would require tokens to be backed by liquid assets - such as U.S. dollars and short-term Treasury bills - and for issuers to disclose publicly the composition of their reserves on a monthly basis.
Crypto proponents say those rules could legitimize stablecoins, making banks, retailers and consumers more comfortable with using them to transfer funds.
Ahead of the bill's final passage, many companies across sectors are already considering how they might incorporate stablecoins into their business, said Julia Demidova, head of digital currencies product and strategy at FIS, a financial technology solutions provider.
"I think everyone is realizing, look, this is moving forward and they need to have a stablecoin strategy," she said. "They need to think how banks themselves will position against some of these novel, new, emerging fintech-issued stablecoins as well."
Still, many Democrats have argued that the GENIUS Act would not prevent big tech companies from issuing their own private stablecoins, and have called for stronger anti-money laundering protections and prohibitions on foreign stablecoin issuers.
Many Democrats fiercely oppose both the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, arguing that they have too few consumer protections and would be a giveaway to Trump's own personal crypto ventures by enabling softer-touch regulation.
Democratic members are expected to offer several amendments to both the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act on the House floor next week, according to a source familiar with the matter, but it is unclear whether any of them will be considered.
The House will also vote next week on a bill that would prohibit the U.S. from issuing a central bank digital currency, which Republicans say violate Americans' privacy. The bill has not been considered in the Senate and the Federal Reserve has not indicated a desire to develop a central bank digital currency.
MARKET STRUCTURE
The House this week is also expected to pass a bill that aims to develop a regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies and would expand the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's oversight of the digital asset industry and is backed by the industry.
If signed into law, the bill would define when a cryptocurrency is a security or a commodity and clarify the Securities and Exchange Commission's jurisdiction over the sector, something crypto companies heavily disputed during the Biden administration. That could help crypto companies avoid the oversight of the SEC, which under the Biden administration sued a number of crypto exchanges for flouting its rules.
Crypto companies have argued that most crypto tokens should be classified as commodities, rather than securities, which would enable platforms to more easily offer those tokens to their customers.
That bill, called the CLARITY Act, has yet to be considered in the Senate, where it would need to pass before heading to Trump for final approval.
Trump has sought to overhaul U.S. cryptocurrency policies after courting cash from the industry during his presidential campaign. The sector spent more than $119 million backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year's elections.
Trump's crypto ventures include a meme coin called $TRUMP, launched in January, and a business called World Liberty Financial, a crypto company owned partly by the president.
The White House has said there are no conflicts of interest and that Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children.
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Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Biden says he made the clemency decisions that were recorded with autopen
In an interview with The New York Times on July 10, former US President Joe Biden said the claims that his aides had used an autopen to grant pardons without his authorisation were untrue. WASHINGTON – Former US President Joe Biden is escalating his battle against Republican claims that he might not have been in control of high-profile clemency decisions issued under his name at the end of his term and, more generally, that his cognitive state impaired his functioning in office. In an interview with The New York Times, Mr Biden said he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term, calling US President Donald Trump and other Republicans 'liars' for claiming his aides had used an autopen to do so without his authorisation. 'I made every decision,' Mr Biden said in a phone interview on July 10, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because 'we're talking about a whole lot of people.' The interview was Mr Biden's first about the parallel investigations begun by the Trump White House, the Justice Department and Congress into a series of clemency decisions made by Mr Biden in his final weeks in office and his mental acuity during his term. Republicans in Congress have demanded sworn interviews with former Biden aides, prompting them to hire their own lawyers. Some lawyers are said to have warned their clients not to talk publicly and about the dangers of testifying because the Justice Department under Mr Trump might be eager to bring perjury charges over any inconsistency, no matter how minor. Mr Biden's former White House doctor, who has said his medical evaluations showed he was fit to serve, invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions from lawmakers last week. His lawyers cited the pending Justice Department inquiry and the risk of being ensnared in ambiguous circumstances. But Mr Biden, as a former president, has greater constitutional defences against being subpoenaed by Congress. The full picture of what Mr Biden did on pardon and clemency decisions, and how much he directed those decisions and the actions of his staff, including the use of the autopen, may come down to tens of thousands of Biden White House emails that the National Archives has turned over as part of the investigation by the Trump White House and the Justice Department. Those emails contain keywords like 'clemency,' 'pardon' and 'commutation' from November 2024 through January 20, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. The Times has reviewed several dozen of those emails, which discussed each of the major grants of clemency that were recorded by an autopen near the end of Mr Biden's term. But the Times has not seen the full extent of the emails, so it is impossible to capture the totality of information they contain or what else they might show about Mr Biden's involvement in the pardon and clemency decisions. But those that were reviewed by the Times show that the Biden White House had a process to establish that Mr Biden had orally made decisions in meetings before the staff secretary, Ms Stefanie Feldman, who managed use of the autopen, would have clemency records put through the signing device. Asked what evidence the Trump White House has that Mr Biden did not authorise the clemency actions, a spokesperson, Mr Harrison Fields, said on July 13 that Mr Biden 'should not be trusted,' adding, 'The truth will come out about who was, in fact, running the country.' While Mr Biden had previously criticised the GOP claims that he did not make the clemency decisions as 'ridiculous and false' in a written statement, he spoke to the Times as he and his team are stepping up efforts to counter the attack by Mr Trump and his congressional allies. Mr Trump, asked by a reporter last month whether he had uncovered evidence that anything had been illegally signed without Biden's knowledge, said no. But he cited his rival's debate performance in June 2024, when Mr Biden, 81 at the time, delivered halting and meandering answers . Mr Biden withdrew soon after from his reelection bid. 'I've uncovered, you know, the human mind,' Mr Trump said. 'I was in a debate with the human mind, and I didn't think he knew what the hell he was doing.' Age-related cognitive decline is a spectrum. At one end, many older people become more prone to blanking on names or losing their train of thought when speaking at length, but remain able to process information and make reasoned decisions. At the other, some develop profound dementia. Republicans are positing an extreme version, claiming that Mr Biden was incapacitated. They are speculating that his staff conspired to use the autopen to make presidential decisions in his name. At the end of his term, Mr Biden reduced the sentences of nearly 4,000 federal convicts and preemptively pardoned politically prominent people he considered potential targets of Trump for criminal investigations. Mr Biden said in the July 10 interview that he had his staff use an autopen for the warrants because he had granted clemency to so many people; the autopen was used, in all, on 25 pardon and commutation warrants from last December to January. Some of the individual warrants included large batches of names because they all fell into the same broad policy category, such as reducing the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders who met standards Mr Biden established. Mr Trump and his congressional allies are focused in particular on trying to delegitimise Mr Biden's final batch of clemency actions. That set extended preemptive pardons to many people Mr Trump perceives as enemies , including General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci and members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot. Mr Trump has claimed on social media that the January 6 committee pardons are invalid, asserting, without offering evidence, that Mr Biden 'did not know anything about them!' In the 10-minute interview, which the Times requested as part of its reporting on the investigations, Mr Biden said he shielded those people, along with members of his family, so they would not have to run up large legal bills from politically motivated investigations by the Trump Justice Department. 'Everybody knows how vindictive he is, so we knew that they'd do what they're doing now,' Mr Biden said, adding, 'I consciously made all those decisions.' 'The president makes the final decision' On October 30, 2024, the emails reviewed by the Times show, Mr Biden's White House counsel, Ed Siskel, notified senior staff to expect a flood of lobbying for clemency grants at the administration's end and laid out a process for an orderly review. The final step, he wrote: 'The president makes the final decision on the final pardon and/or commutation slate.' Over the next three months, Mr Biden made four major sets of clemency actions that were recorded with an autopen. The emails reviewed by the Times included discussions about all four batches. Three applied to broad categories of people. He reduced the sentences of inmates sent to home confinement during the pandemic and certain nonviolent drug offenders. And he turned the death sentences of 37 of the 40 federal inmates on death row to life without parole. That echoed the criteria he had used in 2021 when he imposed a moratorium on carrying out federal executions but excluded death row inmates convicted of terrorism or mass-murder hate crimes. In the interview, Mr Biden explained that he decided against commuting the sentences of three death-row inmates convicted of such crimes to life sentences, too, even though 'some thought I should have.' Their offences affected American society as a whole, Mr Biden said, so commuting their sentences would have been 'a bridge too far.' The fourth set was announced on Mr Biden's last day. They included preemptive pardons for members of his own family and various people who have drawn Mr Trump's ire. The emails reflect White House activity surrounding each of those tranches, including the dates of the meetings at which White House officials indicate Mr Biden made decisions and the names of the senior aides in attendance. They also show that use of the autopen was managed by Mr Biden's White House staff secretary Feldman. She wanted to receive written accounts confirming Mr Biden's oral instructions in the meetings before having it used to produce the warrants recording the clemency actions, the emails show. The aides referred to those written accounts of meetings at which Mr Biden delivered oral decisions as 'blurbs.' The accounts were drafted by aides to the senior advisers who had participated in the key meetings – including Mr Biden's chief of staff Jeffrey D. Zients, and Mr Siskel. The assistants who drafted the blurbs were not themselves in the room with Mr Biden, according to the lists of meeting participants. The emails imply that Mr Siskel and Mr Zients relayed what Mr Biden had said to the assistants, who then documented it. The assistants circulated the drafts to Mr Siskel, Mr Zients and other meeting participants before sending the final versions to Mr Feldman, again copying the meeting participants. For the earlier sets of large-scale clemency actions, the process sometimes took place several days after the meeting with Mr Biden. For two crucial meetings at the end of his term, it took place on the same days. The emails also show that when the White House was preparing to announce clemency grants, communications staff drafted statements explaining the decisions. Mr Biden had to be shown the drafts, and they could not be released until an aide said he had approved them. On at least one occasion, wording was tweaked because of what an email said was feedback from Mr Biden. Mr Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed. Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence. Even after Mr Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list. Rather than ask Mr Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said. By contrast, Mr Biden said in the interview, he discussed each of the high-profile individuals with aides. He used Gen Milley as an example. 'We know how vindictive Trump is and I've no doubt they would have gone after Mark for no good reason,' Mr Biden said. 'The general, you know. So they may read off his name – what'd I want? I told them I wanted to make sure he had a pardon because I knew exactly what Trump would do – without any merit, I might add.' Mr Biden completed the list of high-profile clemency decisions over two meetings, the emails show. One, on January 18, included Mr Zients, Mr Siskel and another aide, Bruce Reed. Another, on the evening of January 19, his final night as president, was with Mr Siskel, Mr Reed and three other top aides, Mr Anthony Bernal, Mr Steve Ricchetti and Ms Annie Tomasini. The emails show that Mr Biden added the preemptive pardons for his family at the January 19 meeting. They also suggest that he changed some of his thinking. The summary of the first meeting said Mr Biden had decided to grant a pardon to Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama who was convicted in 2006 of federal corruption charges. The summary of the second said the president had decided to rescind his approval of a pardon for Siegelman. Notably, President Barack Obama was heavily lobbied to pardon Siegelman and never did. In the interview, Ms Biden said he changed his mind after reflecting 'on it a bit more,' noting that many people apply for pardons and that Siegelman was out of prison and not in any jeopardy. The January 19 summary also showed that Mr Biden made a late decision to pardon Mr Ernest W. Cromartie II, a former city councilman in Columbia, South Carolina. In 2010, he had pleaded guilty to a tax evasion charge and later served a year in prison. Mr Biden started that day in South Carolina, attending a church service with a close political ally, Representative Jim Clyburn, who former aides say lobbied him afterward to help Mr Cromartie. In the interview, Mr Biden acknowledged that was what had happened. 'I agreed with Jim and I pardoned him,' he said. At the January 19 meeting, which took place in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House residence, Mr Biden kept his aides until nearly 10pm to talk through such decisions, according to people familiar with the matter. The emails show that an aide to Mr Siskel sent a draft summary of Mr Biden's decisions at that meeting to an assistant to Mr Zients, copying Mr Siskel, at 10.03pm. The assistant forwarded it to Mr Reed and Mr Zients, asking for their approval, and then sent a final version to Mr Feldman – copying many meeting participants and aides – at 10.28pm. Three minutes later, Mr Zients hit 'reply all' and wrote, 'I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.' Expanding investigations This spring, Mr Ed Martin, a Trump loyalist who was then the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, sent letters to Mr Biden's former aides asking for more information about Mr Biden's role in the pardon decisions. Mr Martin's nomination for that role later collapsed in the Senate, and he has since become the Justice Department's pardon attorney. The Trump administration's scrutiny of the use of the autopen intensified last month, when Mr Trump signed an order on June 4 directing his White House counsel and attorney general to investigate Mr Biden's mental acuity and whether Mr Biden's aides had illegally used the device. Two days earlier, Reuters reported, Mr Martin told his staff that he had been directed to run such an investigation and wrote in an email that he was focused on Mr Biden's preemptive pardons to his family members and his reduction of the death sentences to life without parole. That scrutiny, he wrote, included whether Mr Biden 'was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of autopen or other means.' The executive branch investigation led to the Trump administration request for all emails about clemency issues from the Biden White House near the end of Mr Biden's term. Under National Archives procedures, Mr Biden could have raised objections but did not, according to the people familiar with the matter. At the same time, Representative James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the House Oversight committee, and Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have begun their own investigations into whether Mr Biden and his aides concealed mental deficiencies that made him unable to perform presidential duties. To assist with those inquiries, the Trump White House preemptively issued a waiver saying that Mr Biden could not invoke executive privilege to shield his White House's internal information from Congress. Many of Mr Biden's aides and allies dismiss the investigations as baseless, and they see them as part of Trump's wide-ranging retribution campaign against people and institutions he does not like. But the investigations have entangled a broad group of former Biden administration officials, and they have enlisted a flight of white-shoe lawyers from around Washington. The firms, some of which are performing the work at no cost, include Latham & Watkins, Covington & Burling, Cooley and Steptoe, according to people familiar with the matter. Latham & Watkins is among the law firms that cut a deal with Mr Trump to avoid being targeted by his executive orders. Mr Michael Bromwich, a senior counsel at Steptoe, criticised the inquiry. 'The fact that this Biden 'investigation' is the obsessive focus of the House Oversight Committee simply highlights the decline and fall of the congressional oversight function,' he wrote in an email. Latham & Watkins and Cooley declined to comment. A spokesperson for Covington & Burling did not respond to a request for comment. Most former Biden officials have selected their own lawyers at different firms, and although there has been some communication among them, there is no unified legal strategy – and so the former aides have, at times, charted different paths in responding to the requests from Capitol Hill, according to the people familiar with the matter. Mr Comer's committee has requested interviews with more than a dozen of Biden's former aides, including Mr Ron Klain, Mr Mike Donilon, Ms Anita Dunn, Mr Reed, Mr Ricchetti, Mr Zients and Ms Tomasini. Mr Comer has so far subpoenaed two of the aides: Dr. Kevin O'Connor, the president's White House physician, and Mr Bernal, the top aide to former first lady Jill Biden. Dr O'Connor refused to answer questions on July 9, citing both physician-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Mr Bernal did not appear for his interview that had been scheduled for last month, but he is now subpoenaed to appear on July 16. The first to testify was Ms Neera Tanden, who served as staff secretary for part of Biden's presidency and as domestic policy adviser at the end of his administration; she sat for an interview last month. Ms Ashley Williams, an aide to the president, participated in an interview on July 11, and the interviews are scheduled to continue into September. In the Senate, Mr Johnson's committee has requested interviews with the Cabinet officials, and Mr Tom Vilsack, the former agriculture secretary, has already appeared for an interview. Mr Biden himself has hired a new personal lawyer, Ms Amy Jeffress of Hecker Fink. He had been without one since he and his former personal lawyer, Mr Bob Bauer, quietly parted ways months earlier, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms Jeffress and Mr Bauer declined to comment. Mr Bauer's relationship with Mr Biden significantly cooled over the last year of his presidency, in part because of an extended clash with Mr Biden's son Hunter and his defence team over the political risks to the president created by aggressive public relations tactics they used in defending against congressional inquiries.
CNA
3 hours ago
- CNA
Despite tariffs, it's still America first for Asia's legacy automakers
SEOUL: Toyota and Hyundai Motor may have a beef with US protectionism, but they have one thing in common with President Donald Trump: when it comes to global car markets, it's America first for Asia's legacy automakers. Trump's tariffs on imported automobiles have upended the outlook for the global industry, yet the US remains by far the most important market for Japan's Toyota, South Korea's Hyundai and Asian rivals, including Honda and Nissan. North America accounts for at least 40 per cent of the revenue at both Toyota and Hyundai, filings show. The market's importance is unlikely to change any time soon, industry insiders and analysts said, especially with China, now the world's biggest auto market, dominated by homegrown electric vehicle makers such as BYD. Those Asian legacy carmakers with more robust margins and a strong hybrid lineup - such as Toyota, Hyundai, Kia Corp and to a lesser extent Honda - are more likely to weather the US tariffs storm, and potentially take market share from weaker players like Nissan, analysts said. "The environment that we're in now is becoming increasingly harsh and uncertain, starting with US tariffs," Mazda executive officer Noriyuki Takimura told reporters at an event in Tokyo last week. Mazda aims to strike a balance between "defensive" measures like cost-cuts and "offensive" ones like strengthening its product lineup, he said. Two Hyundai insiders and two Japanese auto executives separately told Reuters they had no intention of downsizing their US businesses in response to tariffs, even as they acknowledged the difficulties ahead. All four spoke on condition of anonymity. The US is Toyota's biggest market in terms of vehicles. It sold 2.3 million vehicles there in 2024, including its Lexus brand, accounting for more than a fifth of its global total. As a source of revenue, North America was second only to Japan in the last financial year. Hyundai's North American revenue was the highest in almost a decade last year. Kim Chang-ho, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, estimated it generates around 60 per cent of its profits from the US, thanks to higher vehicle prices. Mocked in the US in the 1980s for its perceived shoddy quality, Hyundai doubled down there around a decade ago, especially after tensions between Beijing and Seoul and the rise of domestic electric vehicle (EV) makers saw it start to lose ground in China. "After years of putting in effort, our brand is finally gaining recognition in the US," one of the Hyundai insiders said. "So we will not take our hands off the US" "GAME OF CHICKEN" The US has seen a surge in demand for hybrids as consumers have become more concerned about the battery range, price and charging hassles of EVs. Fuel-efficient models such as hybrids will be a key driver to gaining market share, said Morningstar analyst Vincent Sun. Toyota, Hyundai and Kia have particularly strong hybrid offerings. So far, most legacy Asian automakers have avoided raising prices in the US, and stronger players are likely to continue to hold off doing so, despite lower profitability, analysts said. Instead, the focus will likely be on taking market share from lower-margin rivals like Nissan and Stellantis, analysts said. 'It will shape up like a game of chicken," said Kim Sung-rae, an analyst at Hanwha Investment & Securities. "Those who will hold up well will emerge as winners.' Over time, tariffs could be a catalyst to help drive consolidation in the industry, or at least deepen existing tie-ups. Investors wonder if tariffs could push Nissan to revive merger talks with Honda that fell apart this year. Mazda, which is 5.1 per cent owned by Toyota, and Subaru, which is 21 per cent owned by Toyota, could become more reliant on the bigger company. MORE INVESTMENT? While Hyundai and Kia have three US factories, they still import about two-thirds of the vehicles sold there. Toyota manufactured 1.3 million vehicles in the US last year, equal to 54 per cent of the vehicles it sold there. Japanese automakers have invested more than US$66 billion in US manufacturing since the 1980s, building some two dozen plants, according to the JAMA auto lobby group. At a White House event attended by Trump in March, Hyundai announced a US$21 billion investment plan, including a new steel factory, and a plan to boost US production capacity to 1.2 million vehicles a year. The tariffs are likely to encourage Japanese and South Korean automakers to invest more into expanding production capacity and localising supply chains to protect their positions, said Justinas Liuima of research firm Euromonitor International. They will also continue to benefit from one aspect of US protectionism: higher tariffs on Chinese EVs, which means they don't face the same Chinese competition in the US that they do in emerging Asian markets, Liuima said. China ships very few cars to the US, which imposed a 100 per cent tariff on imported Chinese EVs under the previous administration of President Joe Biden. One of the Japanese executives said it was not a matter of simply boosting US production, as high costs, especially of labour, would also weigh on profitability. "It is really a game-changer," Julie Boote, analyst at Pelham Smithers Associates in London, said about the potential longer-term tariff impact. Some automakers have held off giving guidance that takes into account tariffs for the full year, meaning investors may be in store for a rude awakening as companies adjust forecasts as they report quarterly earnings, she said.
CNA
3 hours ago
- CNA
Oil edges down as market contemplates potential sanctions, tariffs
Oil prices edged down on Tuesday as the market digested U.S. President Donald Trump's 50-day deadline for Russia to end the Ukraine war and avoid sanctions on buyers of its oil, while worries continued to linger over Trump's trade tariffs. Brent crude futures fell 5 cents to $69.16 a barrel by 0000 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell to $66.89, down 9 cents. Both contracts settled more than $1 lower in the previous session. Trump announced new weapons for Ukraine on Monday, and threatened sanctions on buyers of Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a peace deal in 50 days. Oil prices had climbed at the news of potential sanctions, but later gave up these gains as the 50-day deadline raised hopes that sanctions could be avoided, and traders dwelled on whether the U.S. would actually impose steep tariffs on countries continuing to trade with Russia. "The pause eased concerns that direct sanctions on Russia could disrupt crude oil flows. Sentiment was also weighed down by rising trade tensions," ANZ senior commodity strategist Daniel Hynes wrote in a note to clients. Trump said on Saturday he would impose a 30 per cent tariff on most imports from the European Union and Mexico from August 1, adding to similar warnings for other countries and leaving them less than three weeks to hammer out framework deals that could lower the threatened tariff rates. Tariffs risk slowing down economic growth, which could sap global fuel demand and drag oil prices lower. Elsewhere, oil demand is set to stay "very strong" through the third quarter, keeping the market snugly balanced in the near term, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' secretary general said, according to a Russian media report. Goldman Sachs on Monday raised its oil price outlook for the second half of 2025, pointing to potential supply disruptions, shrinking oil inventories in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, and production constraints in Russia.
