Donald Trump said Japan would accept imports of Ford’s huge F-150 pickup trucks, in the latest sign that the two countries are at odds in their understanding of a trade agreement the U.S. President announced last month.

His comments came as Tokyo’s top negotiator headed to Washington to press the Trump administration to follow through on a pledge to reduce tariffs on cars and car parts to 15% from the current crippling 27.5%.

“They’re taking our cars,” Trump said of Japan in a phone interview broadcast by CNBC on Tuesday. “They’re taking the very beautiful Ford F-150, which does very well. And I’m sure we’ll do very well there and other things that do very well here, will also do well there.”

Confusion hangs over various details of a trade deal struck between the U.S. and Japan, sparking concern in Japan over its enforcement, particularly regarding cars. The Trump administration’s rhetoric over trade deals has often shown discrepancies with its partners, casting doubt over their viability.

“This is an extremely urgent matter, so the government will do its utmost to ensure its implementation,” Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said of the deal in a parliamentary session held Tuesday. 

U.S. auto tariffs on Japan are now set at 27.5%—a combination of a previous 2.5% rate and a new 25% applied by Trump. Although a cut to 15% would lessen the blow, that rate would still impact a sector that has long been a mainstay of Japan’s economy.

“It’s worth noting that the U.S.-UK agreement took 54 days to be implemented,” Japan’s negotiator Ryosei Akazawa told reporters when asked about the lowering of auto tariffs after arriving in Washington on Wednesday morning Japan time. 

Another question is whether the across-the-board 15% tariff is stacked on top of existing rates or whether all current levies will be standardized to 15%, in another potential divergence of the U.S. and Japan’s understandings of the trade deal. 

Although Akazawa has claimed that levies will be cut off at 15% rather than added on top of current rates, an executive order released last week indicated that the 15% cut off applied only to the European Union and would not be implemented for Japan. 

“There are many details involved with this tariff rate, so we are seeking to discuss these points in detail,” Akazawa added.

While Trump has long lamented the fact that U.S. cars are unpopular in Japan, most experts agree that is due to the lack of vehicles suitable for the market, rather than any barriers to trade. 

The Ford F-150 that Trump mentioned in the interview is more than two meters wide even without mirrors, likely limiting its usefulness on Japan’s roads, many of which are less than four meters wide for two car lanes, according to a government report released in 2012. 

In the same interview with CNBC, Trump called the $550 billion investment package agreed with Japan in the trade deal a “signing bonus” much like that of a baseball player. 

“I got a signing bonus from Japan of $550 billion. That’s our money. It’s our money to invest as we like,” he said. 

The Japanese side has said only 1% to 2% of the overall amount will be actual investment, with the rest being loans and loan guarantees. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has said that the investments will be made at the behest of private companies, and benefit both Japan and the U.S. 

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SoftBank Group Corp. is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the latest reflection of Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence. 

The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about $3 billion by the end of March, up from $1 billion in the prior quarter, according to regulatory filings. It bought around $330 million worth of TSMC shares and $170 million in Oracle Corp., they show.

That’s while SoftBank’s signature Vision Fund has monetized almost $2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of 2025, according to a person familiar with the fund’s activities. The Vision Fund prioritizes its returns on investment and there is no particular pressure from SoftBank to monetize its assets, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private information. A representative of SoftBank declined to comment.

At the heart of SoftBank’s AI ambitions is chip designer Arm Holdings Plc. Son is gradually building a portfolio around the Cambridge, UK-based company with key industry players, seeking to catch up after largely missing a historic rally that’s made Nvidia into a $4 trillion behemoth and boosted its contract chipmaker TSMC near a $1 trillion value. 

“Nvidia is the picks and shovels for the gold rush of AI,” said Ben Narasin, founder and general partner of Tenacity Venture Capital, referring to a concerted effort by the world’s largest technology companies to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to get ahead. SoftBank’s purchase of the U.S. company’s stock may buy more influence and access to Nvidia’s most sought-after chips, he said. “Maybe he gets to skip the line.”

SoftBank, which reports quarterly earnings Thursday, should’ve benefited from that bet on Nvidia—at least on paper. Nvidia has gained around 90% in market value since hitting a year’s low around early April, while TSMC has climbed over 40%.

That’s helping to make up for missing out on much of Nvidia’s post-ChatGPT rally—one of the biggest of all time. SoftBank, which was early to start betting on betting on AI long before OpenAI’s seminal chatbot, parted with a 4.9% stake in Nvidia in early 2019 that would be worth more than $200 billion today.

Crippling losses at the Vision Fund also hampered SoftBank’s ability to be an early investor in generative AI. The company’s attempts to buy back some Nvidia shares, alongside those of proxy TSMC, would help Son regain access to some of the most lucrative parts of the semiconductor supply chain.

The 67-year-old SoftBank founder now seeks to play a more central role in the spread of AI through sweeping partnerships. These include SoftBank’s $500 billion Stargate data center foray with OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi-backed investment fund MGX. Son is also courting TSMC and others about taking part in a $1 trillion AI manufacturing hub in Arizona.

As Arm’s intellectual property is used to power the majority of mobile chips and is increasingly used in server chips, SoftBank could carve out a unique position without being a manufacturer itself, according to Richard Kaye, co-head of Japan equity strategy at Comgest Asset Management and a long-time SoftBank investor.

“I think he sees himself as the natural provider of AI semiconductor technology,” he said. “What Son really wants to do is capture the upstream and the downstream of everything.”

Investors have cheered Son’s audacious plans, while analysts say they expect SoftBank to report a swing back to a net income in the June quarter. SoftBank shares marked a record high last month. SoftBank’s planned $6.5 billion deal to acquire U.S. chip firm Ampere Computing LLC and another $30 billion investment in OpenAI are further encouraging investors who see the stock as a way to ride the US startup’s momentum.

Son, however, remains dissatisfied, according to people close to the billionaire. Son sees the big projects in the U.S. as having the potential to help SoftBank leapfrog the current leaders in AI to become a trillion-dollar or bigger company, they said.

The stock continues to trade at a roughly estimated 40% discount to SoftBank’s total assets—which includes a roughly 90% stake in the $148 billion-valued Arm. SoftBank’s market capitalization stands at around $118 billion, a fraction of Nvidia’s $4.4 trillion valuation and that of other tech companies most closely associated with AI progress. 

Son, who in the past has seen Washington hamper or derail merger plans like the union of Arm and Nvidia, seeks to leverage his relationship with Donald Trump and is arranging frequent meetings with White House officials. Those efforts are now critical as AI and semiconductors become geopolitical flash points. SoftBank’s plan to buy Ampere is facing a probe by the Federal Trade Commission. 

Attention at its June quarter earnings will be on what other assets SoftBank might sell down to help it secure the liquidity it needs to double down on hardware investments. The Japanese company has so far raised around $4.8 billion through a sale of some of its T-Mobile share holding in June. Its Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto has cited the company’s end-March net asset value of ¥25.7 trillion ($175 billion), saying the company has ample capital to cover its funding needs.

In the business year ended March, the Vision Fund’s exits included DoorDash Inc. and View Inc., as well as cloud security company Wiz Inc. and enterprise software startup Peak, even as SoftBank bought up the stakes in Nvidia, TSMC and Oracle. 

“We’re after AI using an array of startups and group companies,” Son told shareholders in June. “We have one goal,” he said. “We’re going to become the No. 1 platformer in artificial super intelligence.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Indonesia’s second-quarter growth unexpectedly accelerated to the fastest pace in two years, with exports and investment helping an economy that’s beset by weak loan growth and mass job losses in manufacturing. 

Gross domestic product in the three months through June rose 5.12% from a year ago, the nation’s statistics office announced on Tuesday. That beat expectations of a slowdown to 4.8% growth, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. The rupiah was little changed at 16,384 to the dollar, while stocks increased gains to 1% after the data.

Economists were surprised. Outside of the pandemic, the discrepancy between forecast and actual data was the biggest since the first quarter of 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the economy may have benefited from interest rate cuts, government stimulus, and the Eid al-Fitr holiday season, analysts are divided over the outlook.

“I doubt if the investment growth will be sustained in the second half of the year,” said Ahmad Mikail Zaini, chief economist at PT Sucor Sekuritas in Jakarta, citing slowing loan growth and a contraction in foreign direct investment in June.

In contrast, Bank Danamon Indonesia economist Hosianna Evalita Situmorang said third-quarter figures “could continue this improvement,” thanks to government stimulus; spending on free school meals and other projects; supportive monetary policy; and resilient agricultural output. 

Gross fixed capital formation gained 6.99% in the second quarter, the fastest pace in four years, due to infrastructure development and machinery spending, BPS said.

Still, there are also questions over the reliability of the statistics.  

“We don’t have much faith in the data,” Capital Economics said in a report after the announcement. “We’ve long held concerns about the reliability of Indonesia’s GDP data. Before the pandemic, Indonesia went for nearly six years in which official GDP growth barely moved from 5% y/y. And in recent years GDP growth has, again, started to hover around the same rate.”

Private consumption, which accounts for over half of the country’s GDP, rose 4.97%. 

“This remains below the 5.0% trend in the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic—indicating that consumers remain cautious,” Tamara Mast Henderson wrote in a report for Bloomberg Economics, predicting another quarter-point cut in interest rates in the current quarter.

Indeed, there have been massive numbers of jobs lost in the textile and other industries as Chinese exporters have dumped goods in the nation of 280 million people. The U.S. imposition of tough tariffs may have added to pressure on Beijing to find new markets.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy expanded 4.04% on a quarterly basis, more than the 3.69% expansion forecast by economists. Exports increased 10.67%, helped by front-loaded shipments ahead of looming U.S. tariffs, which have been reduced to 19% from a threatened 32% for Indonesia.

Still, external risks persist due to the worsening trade war and the slower global economy, which could dampen the momentum of domestic demand and trade going forward. The higher tariffs on exports to the U.S. go into effect on Aug. 7.

Government spending dropped 0.33% in the second quarter from a year earlier, amid efforts by President Prabowo Subianto to repurpose some state spending to favored programs, including free school lunches. 

Prabowo is set to unveil the government’s spending plans for 2026 in his first budget speech on Aug. 15, along with the economic growth goal for the year. The government has already lowered the 2025 GDP growth outlook to 4.7%-5%, from an initial 5.2% forecast, and has said more fiscal incentives are being prepared to boost purchasing power through the end of the year.

More monetary support is also likely. Since September, Bank Indonesia has lowered its key interest rate by 100 basis points and pledged to continue cutting further to support economic growth and boost bank lending, which dipped to a two-year low in June.

“The stronger-than-expected print in Indonesia’s second-quarter growth—bolstered by investment and exports—is unlikely to last,” Bloomberg’s Henderson wrote. “The impact of higher U.S. tariffs has yet to land. When it does, growth will suffer.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin juggernaut is at it again, buying near the highs with the kind of capital-markets firepower no other crypto firm can match.

Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy Inc., disclosed Monday that it bought $2.46 billion of Bitcoin in the past week—its third-largest purchase by dollar value since it began accumulating the cryptocurrency five years ago. 

The company acquired 21,021 tokens between July 28 and Aug. 3, pushing its total holdings to 628,791 Bitcoin, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This takes the value of the company’s Bitcoin holdings to more than $71 billion at current prices.

Fueled by a steady stream of stock offerings and debt deals, Saylor has transformed his enterprise software company into the dominant corporate buyer of Bitcoin. Its latest acquisition came at an average price of $117,526 per token, the second-highest price Strategy has ever paid, just behind the $118,940 average last month, according to company data.

The move underscores how Saylor has turned public-company finance into a specialized vehicle to amass Bitcoin—and how Strategy keeps buying even as prices hover near record levels. Strategy is by far the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, according to a tally by BitcoinTreasuries.net, and has spurred a new industry of public companies following a so-called treasury strategy dedicated to buying and holding cryptocurrencies.

To fund the purchases, Saylor has employed a combination of common and preferred share sales, as well as debt. The company offers four different kinds of securities to investors—launching its latest preferred stock offering, dubbed Stretch, in late July. Strategy reported an unrealized gain of $14 billion in the second quarter, driven by a rebound in Bitcoin’s price and a recent accounting change that required the company to revalue its Bitcoin holdings.

Saylor recently promised he won’t issue new common shares at less than 2.5 times its net asset value, except to cover debt interest or preferred dividends. This comes after critics like Jim Chanos voiced concerns on the premium Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings have on its share price and the many security offerings the company offers.

Strategy’s stock has surged more than 3,000% since its first crypto purchase, outpacing Bitcoin itself as well as major stock indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. Its first and second largest purchases came in November last year totaling $5.4 billion and $4.6 billion, according to company data.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer sounded a cautiously optimistic note on discussions with China on rare earth flows, following trade talks that further steadied ties between the economies.

Greer said the key industrial components were a focus of negotiations in Stockholm last week that Beijing said led to an extension of their tariff truce. Without going into detail, he said the U.S. secured commitments about their supply on CBS’s Face the Nation aired Sunday.

“We’re focused on making sure that magnets from China to the United States and the adjacent supply chain can flow as freely as it did before the control,” Greer said in the interview, which was taped Friday. “And I would say we’re about halfway there.”

That assessment came some four months after China imposed export controls on rare earth magnets—used in products from home appliances to missiles—in retaliation for U.S. tariff threats. Beijing has agreed to speed up their shipments after Washington suspended sky-high levies on Chinese exports. 

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to make the final call on maintaining the tariff truce, which expires Aug. 12, Greer said.

“We’re working on some technical issues, and we’re talking to the president about it,” he said.

Flows of rare earth magnets from China to the U.S. rose to 353 tons in June, up from just 46 tons in May, according to the latest customs data. Total shipments were still substantially lower than before Beijing launched export controls in early April. 

Greer earlier said Trump’s trade team hopes to be done discussing magnets with China, after he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrapped up a third round of trade talks with Beijing in the Swedish capital end of July. If the U.S. can get over the magnets issue, it can move to a further discussion of the U.S.-China relationship, he added.

The discussions have helped stabilize relations between the world’s two largest economies, although many frictions remain, including over the U.S.’ curbs on exporting advanced AI chips to its main competitor.

Beijing authorities on Thursday summoned Nvidia Corp. to discuss alleged security vulnerabilities related to its H20 chips. The Trump administration only recently pledged to drop export restrictions on the less-advanced technology to China, in a reversal that spurred talk of a potential broader deal with Beijing.

The Cyberspace Administration of China cited comments by U.S. lawmakers about the need to install tracking capabilities into advanced chips sold to other countries. The agency asked staff at the world’s most valuable company to explain potential risks and provide documents as needed, the CAC said without elaborating.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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President Donald Trump’s firing of the chief labor statistician was criticized by her predecessor, who called it an unfounded move that will undermine confidence in a key data set on the US economy. 

“This is damaging,” William Beach, whom Trump picked in his first term to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

Trump on Friday fired Erika McEntarfer hours after labor market data showed weak jobs growth based in part on steep downward revisions for May and June. The move by Trump, who claimed the latest monthly report was “phony,” prompted an outcry from economists and lawmakers.

“I don’t know that there’s any grounds at all for this firing,” said Beach, whom McEntarfer replaced in January 2024. “And it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.”

Studies indicate that the agency’s data is more accurate than 20 or 30 years ago, including any revisions of the initial data, Beach said. Even so, he said he’ll trust future BLS data because people working for the agency are “some of the most loyal Americans you can imagine,” making the bureau “the finest statistical agency in the entire world.”

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, speaking Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, urged the US government to improve its data collection to avoid revisions that engender distrust.

“We watch what consumers really do. We watch what businesses really do,” Moynihan said, while not addressing the politics of the firing. “They can get this data, I think, other ways, and I think that’s where the focus would be.”

He noted the revision for May and June data, while not unusual, was one of the largest in seven years. “That creates doubt around it,” he said. “Let’s spend some money. Let’s bring the information together. Let’s find where else in the government money is reported.” 

McEntarfer was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan 86-8 vote. Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, voted to approve her nomination.

Kevin Hassett, Trump’s chief economic adviser at the White House, alleged that the large jobs data revisions were poorly explained and were evidence enough for a “fresh set of eyes” at BLS. He sought to contradict Beach’s portrayal of the agency as politically neutral. 

“The bottom line is that there were people involved in creating these numbers,” Hassett said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Read More: Trump Fires Labor Statistics Head, Prompting Concerns About Data

Pressed on whether Trump would fire anyone offering data he disagreed with, Hassett, who heads the National Economic Council, disagreed.

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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OPEC+ has agreed in principle on another bumper oil production increase for September, according to a delegate, completing the revival of a halted supply tranche as the group moves to reclaim global market share. 

Saudi Arabia and its partners plan to ratify the addition of 548,000 barrels a day for next month when they hold a video conference on Sunday, the delegate said. The increase would complete the reversal of a 2.2 million-barrel cutback made by eight members in 2023, and includes an extra allowance being phased in by the United Arab Emirates. 

The latest hike caps a dramatic shift from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners from defending prices to opening the taps. Their pivot has cushioned oil and gasoline futures against geopolitical tensions and strong seasonal demand, offering some relief for drivers and a win for President Donald Trump, but could swell a global supply surplus anticipated later in the year. 

OPEC+ had already tentatively agreed at last month’s meeting to finish the 2.2 million-barrel revival. Traders may now shift focus to the next layer of halted output, which amounts to 1.66 million barrels, and is formally scheduled to remain offline until the end of 2026.

“With the anticipated sunsetting of the 2.2 million barrel-a-day voluntary cut, we expect the producers to hit the pause button while they assess market conditions and broader macro factors,” said Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital LLC.

OPEC+ sent oil prices crashing to a four-year low in early April when it announced a sudden acceleration in its plan to unwind the current tranche of cuts, while markets were still reeling from Trump’s dramatic “Liberation Day” tariff announcements. The alliance has followed with a series of bumper monthly increases, and sped up even further in July. 

Crude prices have clawed back losses as demand strengthened over the summer, with Brent futures in London trading just below $70 a barrel on Friday — down 6.7% this year. However, analysts have warned the market faces a mounting surplus later this year, as supplies increase and slowing global growth weighs on demand. Benchmark retail gasoline prices in the US even edged lower last month. 

The decision comes against the backdrop of threats by Trump to target Russian oil exports by putting secondary tariffs on buyers of its supplies unless there is a swift ceasefire in the war in Ukraine. 

A disruption to Russian flows would threaten to drive up crude prices, and run counter to Trump’s repeated call for cheaper oil, as he pushes the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak made a rare visit to Riyadh on Thursday to discuss “cooperation between the countries” with Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. The two countries have jointly led OPEC+ since its creation almost a decade ago.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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