Wealthion Macro Bites 4-23

The U.S. is awaiting response from Iran before peace talks can restart, but Iran has said it will not resume negotiations while the U.S. naval blockade of its ports remains in place. The U.S. Navy intercepted the two Iranian supertankers (Hero II and Hedy) trying to slip through Hormuz as well as three additional Iranian-flagged tankers in Asian waters (near India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka).

In advance of an expected June update on potential U.S. tariffs on refined copper, Comex copper futures have been trading at significant premiums to the LME global benchmark in recent weeks reopening an arbitrage that incentivizes shipments to the U.S. exchange. Consequently, Comex reports warehouse inventories rose to an all-time record 603,745t on Tuesday (with 414,984t in the New Orleans storage hub).

Reuters reports U.S.-based Virtus Minerals and Indian partner Lloyds Metals plan to restart full production at Congolese copper and cobalt miner Chemaf in January 2027. As the first deal in the U.S./DRC critical minerals partnership, Virtus bought Chemaf’s mines in March for $30M and assumption of $900M in outstanding debt.

Chart of the Week: Energy think tank Ember reports exports of Chinese solar products (incl. modules, cells and wafers) hit a record 68GW in the single month of March ’26, more than double the Feb. total and an amount roughly equivalent to Spain’s entire operational solar capacity. Ember notes that regions “most affected” by the energy crisis have seen “some of the sharpest increase in demand” for Chinese solar products. Exports to India grew 6.6GW, a 141% m/m increase and the largest volume increase to any country. While volumes were smaller, exports to the African continent experienced the fastest growth (+176%) with Nigeria +519%, Ethiopia +391%, Kenya +207%.

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