Wealthion Macro Bites 6-2
Axios reports President Trump’s Monday phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an expletive-laden rant on Trump’s part, which apparently led to Netanyahu’s agreement to postpone planned attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. Trump posted, “He turned his troops around. Thank you Bibi!” While not a permanent resolution, Lebanon subsequently announced a partial ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in which Israel will refrain from Beirut strikes while Hezbollah would halt Israeli strikes.
President Trump claimed talks with Iran are back on “at rapid pace,” while Iran’s Tasnim news agency stated Tehran had suspended all negotiations. On Monday, Iran initiated fresh attacks on neighboring Kuwait (and released video of a ballistic missile launch), while the U.S. bombed Iranian drone and missile sites in retaliation for Iran shooting down a U.S. drone over the weekend. Trump posted, “Just sit back and relax, it will work out well in the end—It always does!”
As the late-June deadline for a U.S. decision on whether to impose refined copper tariffs approaches, the widening arbitrage between the CME’s duty-paid copper contract and the LME’s international price is drawing large amounts of metal into the U.S., tightening supply everywhere else. The CME spot premium is a modest 3% of the LME price, but the front-month (June ’25) forward is trading near a $600 premium (4.5%) and March ’27 forward premium is close to $1k/t (7.2%). CME copper inventories have soared to a record 642k short tons (up 56kt since 4/14)
On Monday, President Trump signed a proclamation (“Further Adjusting the Tariff Regimes for Imports of Aluminum Steel and Copper into the U.S.”) modifying his Section 232 metals tariffs. Rather than the June ’25 tariff calculation method based on the value of contained metals, the new tariff framework applies to the full entered value of the imported product (based on the product’s HTS classification.
Additionally, Trump temporarily reduced the tariff rate from 25% to 15% for certain agricultural equipment as well as heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems for residential use. The same applies to selected construction and industrial machinery from certain trading partners. However, two new product categories will be added to the tariff regime (aluminum lithographic plates and steel racks).
U.S. crude oil exports surged to a record 5.6M bpd in May (up 400k bpd m/m), however Energy Aspects expects U.S. exports to fall by 1M bpd in June due to a shortage of VLCC’s and rapid drawdown of U.S. inventories. Separately, Venezuelan oil exports rose to 1.25M bpd in May, the 3rd consecutive month of increase and up 61% y/y.
Euro Stoxx 50 +1.3%, S&P futures -0.2% and Nasdaq futures -0.1%. European bonds trading higher with yields falling 5bps-7bps across the board. 10-year Treasury yield -2.6bps (4.428%). DXY dollar index -0.1%,, spot gold +1.0% and spot silver +2.0%. Brent futures -1.2% ($93.86) and WTI futures 1.2% ($91.07).
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