Wealthion Macro Bites 6-3

In the most serious threat to the Iranian ceasefire to date, Iran fired several ballistic missiles at the main U.S. naval base in Bahrain, as well as Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem airbase and Kuwait’s civilian airport (where significant damage delayed flights and killed one person). After earlier “disabling” an oil tanker heading to Iran, the U.S. struck a communications tower on the Iranian island of Qeshm. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows in stating negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program would be “highly technical” and could take months.

The U.S. Trade Representative Office proposed on Tuesday a new tariff structure on 60 countries (from which 99.4% of U.S. imports are shipped) based on findings from a Section 301 (Trade Act of ‘74) review of foreign government acts, policies or practices which are “unreasonable or discriminatory” and burden or restrict U.S. commerce. USTR findings focus on failure of cited countries to “impose a legal prohibition on the importation of goods produced wholly or in part with forced labor.”

The USTR proposal (subject to a 1-month public review period) would most notably apply a 10% blanket tariff rate on imports from 15 countries (incl. Canada, Mexico, EU, Taiwan and the U.K), and a 12.5% tariff on 45 countries (incl. China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland), with the differential accruing between countries who have failed to enforce enacted laws prohibiting forced-labor imports (10%) and countries “that have failed to impose” such restrictions entirely (12.5%).

A separate raft of 301 investigations is currently being conducted to review U.S. trading partners’ “excess manufacturing capacity,” and these reviews could result in additional tariffs “stackable” on top of proposed forced-labor levies.

Following a Bloomberg Economics report that the Reserve Bank of India “likely” sold $12B of its gold reserves in the two weeks ended May 22 (while buying $7.5B of foreign-currency assets), the RBI issued a statement on Wednesday firmly denying the report and stating its physical gold stock remains unchanged at 880.52t. Separately, an Indian government order issued on Tuesday added “grain and powder forms” of 99.9%-purity silver products to the list of restricted silver imports and mandated prior authorization licenses from India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

Euro Stoxx 50 -0.5%, S&P futures -0.1% and Nasdaq futures +0.2%. European bonds trading lower with yields rising 3bps-5bps across the board. 10-year Treasury yield +3.5bps (4.477%). DXY dollar index +0.1%, spot gold -0.6% and spot silver -0.75%. Brent futures +2.2% ($98.00) and WTI futures +2.0% ($95.66).

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