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Also on the Bloomberg is what's going on out of the White House and about an upcoming meeting tim between the United States and Russia. This hasn't happened in a long long time, and certainly not on US soil.
Yeah, with what to expect, we have Bloomberg News National Security Team leader Nick Wadams. He joins us from our Washington, DC bureau. Nick, I'm curious about the not just the timing of this, but more importantly the placement of this
on US soil. It's something that we've spoken quite a bit about in recent days, but I'm wondering if the expectations have shifted with rhetoric that we've heard from President Trump just today and also what we've heard and what we've reported about the President of Ukraine and what he would and would not give up when it comes to some sort of deal with Vladimir Putin.
Right, I mean, there's a big question about what we're actually going to get out of this meeting. I mean, when these sort of things happen, you know, there's a lot of froth and ferment over the fact that the two leaders are going to be face to face staring each other down adversaries or maybe not adversaries in the case of Putin and Trump, and the expectation is that they're going to come out of this with some big deal. But Trump himself has shown he's very willing to come
out of these meetings with nothing. He walked away from a meeting with Kim Jong un in Vietnam some years ago in his first term. And then obviously there was the Biden Putin meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in twenty twenty one that results in a document and some proposals but
really achieve very little. So I think what you're seeing is the administration sort of crashing up against reality, where in some ways they've portrayed President Trump to be the deal maker and the problem solver who's going to get
this thing done. But then you know, given Russia's advances in Ukraine and President Putin's unwillingness to stop the war so far, you now see them trying to massage expectations a little bit, you know, to make sure that this is not seen as a failure when, as seems likely, there is not going to be a major announcement from it. So you've seen the President describe it as a feel
out meeting. Marco Rubio echoed this words, and then President Trump again said today we expect this to lead to another meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodimir Zelensky and maybe Trump as well, where they may get down to brass tax on a possible ceasefire agreement or some other deal that could lead to an end.
Of the fighting.
All Right, we're talking with Dick Wadams, Bloomberg News National Security Team leader. Here's just what President Trump had to say earlier today. When it comes to the upcoming meeting with President Putin.
There's a very good chance that we're going to have a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first, because the first is I'm going to find out where we are and what we're doing. Again, this is Biden's work. This isn't my work. He got us into this thing, and they should have never happened. This war would have never happened to viral president. But it is what it is, and I'm here.
To fix it, all right that of course, as President Trump earlier today, Nick wadhams, isn't it President Putin's war? And isn't it just something that he is very clear about wanting to expand his territory? And what I have heard from most folks who follow President Putin, who are experts at President Putin, even folks like yourself, like that he doesn't.
He's not going to give up. He still wants a.
Land grab, and he I don't know, wants to remain president forever. And I don't know whether by having this war keeps him as president. I don't know what's the intelligence briefing on this.
Well, you know, the big question that a lot of folks are asking the president is sort of what incentive does Vladimir Putin have to stop his campaign? He's continued to gain territory. I mean, and when you have a grinding war of attrition like this, this is something that plays to Russia's advantage. They have more troops, They have a bigger army, they have more materiel, they can really tap their own country to continue to fight this war,
whereas Ukraine's resources are much more limited. So when you look at the long term, it may be very, very costly for Russia and it really may squeeze the economy, But in the long run, experts largely agree that a
long term, grinding war does favor Russia. So then the question is what incentive does Vladimir Putin have to stop, which then raises the question, well, if President Trump eases off the gas on military supplies to Ukraine, is Vladimir Putin's beverage actually enhanced and he can really make some demands here? There is no incentive for him to essentially give anything up. Why would he withdraw from territory when
he continues to make advances. So that is why there's a lot of questions about why President Trump is holding this meeting in the first place. He theoretically would have plenty of staff other officials who could go to Russia or speak to intermediaries to understand what Putin wants. That's not really something that the president himself would need to do. And obviously, just the mere fact of having this meeting does give President Putin a bit of an advantage because
it essentially cuts out Ukraine. So he's going to try to do some sort of a deal with President Trump or at least get Trump to put more pressure on Vladimir Putin. Those are a lot of the concerns that we're hearing about this meeting taking place in the first place.
Yeah, just interesting to see.
I can't wait to see kind of the optics, you know, in terms of whatever they ultimately come out and say, hey, while we have you. Just one last thing, there's a story that Reuter's has been reporting out about the US secretly placing location tracking devices and targeted shipments of advanced AI semi conductors that are at risk of a legal diversion to China. This is citing two people familiar with the matter, and they talk about commerce usually involved homeland security.
FBI may also take a part. Would this be a surprising thing? I just think all countries are doing things back and forth.
But what's your read on that? Before you weak out right?
I mean, I think you have to see. It sort of fits into a broader spectrum of the push and pull between the US and China. I mean, there's so much sensitivity around these chips. Obviously, you know, they do not want to lose track of them, and there's just so many questions about whether these chips are actually going to go ahead. You know, we did have that deal where President Trump essentially extracted fifteen percent from Nvidia and
amb but so many unknowns around that. But you know, there are a lot of concerns about these chips entering the wrong hands, and obviously companies US government want to do everything you can to make sure that doesn't happen.
All right, so appreciate checking in with you.
Nick Wadhams, National Security Team leader there in our Washington, DC News Bureau.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch US Live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch US live on YouTube.
Well, under President Trump, the US has launched a multi pronged attack on China's economy. Since chair At Mauzadong's reign, China has seen it coming. A US system built around the ideal of openness and interdependence is facing off against a Chinese counterpart constructed as a fortress of control, both sides of powerful resources. Only one has been preparing for the fight for decades. And it's not the US that's right.
And so writes Tom Orlick, Eric Zhu and Jennifer Welch for Bloomberg Markets Magazine. I feel like, if you're listening, sit down and sit tight, because we know the US and China are at odds in a big way on many, many different levels. And this really gets into where China might have the advantage to him.
Jennifer Welchi's Bloomberg Economics Chief geoeconomics analyst. She previously served as the director for China and Taiwan on the US National Security Council that was under the Biden and Trump administrations, and as the advisor to Vice Presidents Harrison Pence on Asia and the Pacific. So yes, she knows what she's talking about. She joins us from our Washington, DC bureau. Jennifer,
good to have you with us this afternoon. A great story in Bloomberg Markets Magazine from you and our colleagues. How has China been preparing for this trade war?
Well, in a sense, as we wrote in that article, Beijing's been preparing for this for a long time. China has a long tradition of self sufficiency, dating back to the late Qing Empire, if you want to go that far back. And it is also a tradition in paranoia, dating back in particular to Chairman Mao, but more recently, China's long suspense that the United States was going to be out to contain its rise, and to many in Beijing, President Trump's first term and now his second term are
confirming a lot of those fears. So we've seen China, especially since his first trade war with Beijing, really emphasize reducing their reliance on the US market, building up its own leverage over the United States in the form of critical mineral exports, and trying to work around US export controls, in particular when it comes to technology like semiconductors.
I got to get to one number that's in the story that shocked me. And I know you're not an economist, but you look at US China relations, but it talked about it, says. Following Donald Trump's first trade war with China, China made an active effort to reduce its direct exposure to the US market. Chinese Exports to the United States now make up around three percent of GDP, down from
seven percent twenty years ago. US is still China's single largest market, you guys, right, and many of its goods go to the US throughout countries, suggesting more of its GPDTP could be at risk. But it really shows that if the US continues to pull back, China is not going to just fall apart.
Is that a fair assessment of that.
I think that's a fair assessment. And it's also what has borne out over the course of this trade war. I think President Trump came back into office thinking that he could use tariffs to really bring Beijing to its knees, and that's not how things played out. And in fact, that's when we saw Beijing kind of pull the ace out of its sleeve with the critical mineral controls and bring Washington to the negotiating table and force Washington to
make concessions on export controls. Not to be clear, China definitely does have vulnerabilities here, and not only is the US its single largest market, but many other countries are trying to close their doors to Chinese goods as well, the European Union being a key example. Beijing is also very concerned about Washington's efforts to embed in part of these trade agreements and effort to shut out Chinese transhipment.
So Beijing's not exactactly resting easy, but it's not in as weakened of a position as I think President Trump and maybe many of his aids thought it would.
Be Chinese transhipment.
That is, when Chin China ships to other countries, is that I make sure I understand, okay.
It ships through other countries, or the goods are largely manufactured in China, but perhaps a final sticker is put on them and say Vietnam, and then shipped from Vietnam to the US under the auspices of this being a
Vietnamese good. That's been one of the reasons why the Trump administration is so focused in part of these trade deals, especially with Southeast Asia, on trying to curb those practices and is starting to apply a much higher tariff rate to goods that its suspects are coming from outside of those individual countries.
How does it know.
That is a great question. Implementation is going to be extremely difficult here, and there's a lot of details that remain to be decided, like what percentage of a good has to be manufactured in a particular country for it to count as being made in that country, especially when some of these supply chains are so heavily integrated. So the devil's going to be in the details and in
the enforcement. But so far, it seems a couple of key Southeast Asian partners, including Vietnam and Indonesia, have accepted these terms as part of their trade deals with the US.
I want to know, based on your reporting and based on the team's reporting, to what extent its surprised leaders in Washington just how prepared China has been for a prolonged trade war with the US. As I mentioned to the top, you spent a lot of time in Washington. You're coming to us from Washington. You were director for China and Taiwan at the US National Security Council. You
worked under the Biden and Trump administrations. You advised Vice President Harris and Vice President Pence on Asia and the Pacific. Didn't we know this was coming?
I think many of us in the China watching community suspected this was coming. You know, certainly, China's dominance over critical minerals, in particular rare Earth, is not a secret Over a decade ago, Beijing employed this vulnerability against Japan over a territorial dispute that those two had, so that
there was a vulnerability out there. However, looking at the Trump administration's actions, it's hard not to interpret some of what happened there, and in particular that timeline events as suggesting there was some surprise that either Washington didn't think Beijing would go this far and exercising its control over those supply chains, or they didn't realize their inability to
shift to alternative sources in a timely manner. Because we saw a very quick turnaround from when Beijing started to put those export controls in place, when US companies started to complain that they weren't getting these key inputs to win, Washington was suddenly talking about maybe we should meet with the Chinese and try and find a way to de
escalate things. Part of that was about the pain the terrists are causing, but I think a good part of it was also about the pain that these critical mineral export controls were causing as well.
Today, how hip is Beijing when it comes to US moves and maneuvers. I think about all of a sudden advanced chips being allowed to go out to China, that China's saying no, maybe we don't want to buy your chips, and the whole thinking the reversal, it almost feels like in thinking is wait, don't give them.
Access to our sophisticated technology.
Oh wait, let's give them access to our sophisticated technology, because that means will be in control, will set the terms, will be advanced. China won't spend time developing their own high tech community. But China is smart and they are hipped to all of this, aren't.
They Also, they read the news just like all of us. So when you have, for example, top US officials going out there and saying no, our strategy is going to be that we make China dependent on the US tech stack, Beijing is able to read those words as well. But even before some of that language came out, Beijing's predominant thesis is that the United States would be using these reliancies,
these dependencies as sort of strategic leverage with China. So I don't think it requires usin Huang or David Sachs or others coming out to say that to sort of trip Beijing's concerns. But it certainly didn't help that case. I think Beijing also thinks about this from the perspective of what would I China do if someone was reliant on me for a particular good right, So that's the sort of mindset it applies when it thinks about its vulnerabilities with other countries.
So does the US then thing China stupid that they're not going to like as you say, they're reading the same headlines we all are like, I don't.
Know, I think, sorry, that's a great question. No, no,
it's a great question. And I can't speak for what the strategy might have been behind saying some of those things publicly, but I think regardless of whatever the intent was or whatever the merits of that particular idea was, Beijing's moves over the last few days to actively discourage companies from buying these foreign made chips, despite the fact that there's still an advantage and an edge over the domestic competitors, suggests that that strategy is not going to work,
That Beijing's not going to allow itself to become dependent on the US tech stack. It's going to continue to work towards having a domestic, indigenous solution, And so then the question becomes, if you're still shipping them these powerful chips that they can use to advance their AI models that they can perhaps base their domestic competitors on. Are you still playing to an advantage here or are you playing a losing game where eventually China's going to overtake you on these technologies?
Can the US become a self reliant as China has become?
You know, that's a great question that probably economists have a more sophisticated answer to. I would say China's approach takes a lot of costs under it, and it certainly comes with other costs beyond the economic realm, in terms of the social the political costs as well. I think most economists would say that autarchy is not a feasible solution for any country, but certainly for an economy is big and is well integrated into the global economy as
the United States. I think, actually, if you look at a lot of President Trump's strategies trying to bring manufacturing back to the United States, just this one aspect of self sufficiency, it's clear how many hurdles there are to just achieving that one LM element of it. So I don't think it's feasible, certainly not within the timeline of competition with China.
And it's a risky play for China as well.
Just got about thirty seconds, right, I mean, they've got their own economic challenges and pressure, so there is some risk for them as well in playing this game.
Absolutely, they've got property market problems, They've undergoing a demographic juranisition. Market sentiment has taken a real hit over the last few years post COVID. This is not necessarily a moment of great economic strength for them. They're feeling a lot
of vulnerability and weakness. But sometimes it's that sense of weakness and vulnerability that actually leads Chinese leaders to sort of buckle down, dig in their heels because they don't want other countries to think that they can be taken advantage of.
Unbelievable Thank you so much. It's a story we so wanted to do and we're so glad you could find time for us. Jennifer Welch, she's Bloomberg Economics Chief geoeconomics analyst there in DC.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty ROUBMUCO.
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All right, TikTok, everybody, About eighteen and a half minutes to go until we wrap up the trade on this Wednesday. Just heard from Bill Maloney and Charlie Pellett on where
we are in today's session. Just a little bit higher on the S and P five hundred and fourteen points at sixty four to fifty nine down Joe's industrial average again have almost one percent four and forty points to the upside, and then ask one hundred under a little bit of pressure, tim, it's down about sixteen points, so call it little changed on the day.
Hey, I want to bring in Gillian Wolf Bloomberg Intelligence Global Equity Strategy. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio, Jillian You and the team out with a note. It's all about how global text hot streak masks growing gaps and stock returns. It's all about the concentration. It's not a new story. Yeah, it's something that a lot of people have been concerned about. Is this a tale of two different markets right now?
I wouldn't say it's entirely a tale of two different markets, but I do think there is a little bit of masking going on with how much the largest stocks, just because of their sheer magnitude, are able to mask some issues in some of the smaller stocks. In the S and P five hundred. We're even seeing that today with the S and P five hundred at a new high. About sixty stocks or at a new high today. The rest have not hit new highs at all in August,
so there's definitely room for expansion. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. That said, there's definitely a distortion happening with what some of these larger stocks are doing.
You know, it's interesting too write the concentration.
We've been here before, right, and everybody's like broaden out by other stuff better valuations. And yet we come back and we see why people buy some of the big cap names, certainly in the tech sector, because that's where a lot of the momentum is.
Some of the numbers are off the charts. But is that I don't know is fundamentally still is that a smart story or not.
What we have found in our research is that there are plenty of opportunities in terms of forward earnings growth, in terms of valuation across the globe and in the US itself, of firms that have better forward earnings forecasts at cheaper valuations. I mean, one of the sectors that's done best over the last five days in the US and really across the globe is materials still quite cheap
amazing forward earnings forecasts. Particularly if you look even in the Canadian market, where they're very gold centric, you can find a lot of stocks that are doing better than the median US stock and even the median seven stock. I Mean, one thing we're noticing that we're gonna have a note out on shortly is that even though performance concentration is very concentrated, quality still exists pretty spread out
across the globe and across sectors right now. Everyone is just focusing on these largest stocks, and that's really what's driving the gain so much.
So valuations, Yes, I think a lot of people would argue that by many measures, valuations are high, yes, right now, but that's not across the board.
It's not across the board. I mean, I think one of the places valuations are getting high that people really aren't talking about enough honestly is financials. Price to books on Financials are getting quite high. Price to book on some of these tech forward price to sales and some
of these tech names are getting quite high. We do see a little bit of the US premium rearing its ugly head a bit in that the average US stock, even when it's weighted appropriately, trades out a premium to the average stock outside of the US, and that premium has grown pretty greatly over the past year. So the question isn't really is there a premium, it's how much
of a premium is warranted? Right There will always be a premium for US stocks they do broadly screen as higher quality, but whether or not the premium has gotten out of hand because investors don't feel as though there's another option, particularly with tariffs. Is the real question, right, Well, that's.
What I'm confused about.
I thought everybody was saying that way people were setting their money overseas, that they were kind of not so in when it came to or so keen on buying the US market has that in terms of flows, what have we in reality really seen that?
So we see flows as a bit of a backward looking indicator rather than an indicator of what will happen going forward. Definitely, the first quarter of the year, the US was not the hot market to invest in. The US was actually lagging so much behind international stocks, and it still is, you're to date, by the way, I don't think a lot of people realize this. In local currency terms, Yeah, we talk about it. I know you guys would be on top of it. But in local
termsy terms, the US is still lagging. It's not as lagging as much as it was earlier in the year. There's a little bit of this idea right now that the nowhere is safe, so you might as well invest in the US. But in terms of the fundamental outlook, we have seen further degradation in the US outlook fundamentally than we have seen abroad. Because the tariffs are going to hit the US bottom line first before they hit anywhere else. That said, US stocks may bounce back stronger. Ultimately.
We have a lot of the AI names here that may not be as affected by tariffs. And there's also this idea that companies can negotiate with Trump, like what we saw with with Apple investing one hundred billion dollars in the US last week. So there could be there could be some deals made.
Still, I mean, you're looking at the IBEX in Spain. I mean up, I'm just looking. Is it you know?
Crazy?
I mean.
In currency terms, I mean.
Look at the look at the Korean market. I mean even look at the Chinese market. The best market on a trailing one year basis is the Chinese market right now because they've risen, they had such an astounding rebound. And what's interesting for US is we get all these questions about the the US market. How, how is the US market getting too hot? And it's not the hottest market right now if you look across the.
Well Hank saying is of twenty seven percent, it is and so far.
And one of the things globally that's helping with concentration right now is this tech rally that's happening in China. It's not all about US tech, and investors are wary of some of the risks that come in investing in Chinese companies. But there's definitely tech in emerging markets, like in Korea, like in China, like in Taiwan that is doing phenomenally well and actually outperforming the US and has a better forward fundamental outlook than the US tech stocks.
Right now, is there a reversion to the mean happening? And what I mean by that is a reversion to global equities being the place to be rather than focused on the US. I mean, if we look at the past dozen years and the low interest rate environment, the US market has outperformed everywhere else, right, but that was if you look at a longer timeline, that's kind of an anomaly.
It is, I mean the US. It always never paid to bet against the US. Right, if you were underwright the US, orally you were not, you were just going to underperform the globe. The US consistently with the least amount of volatility does the best. But there are dips, and definitely this is a big regime change for the US. Questions about US exceptionalism are still on the line when the current tariff environment and questions about whether or not US margins can be maintained, there's on the line.
And look full disclosure caveat. I'm asking you this question on a day where the S and P five hundred is set.
That's the amazing question. Is the S and P is closing at a new all time high despite the fact that tariffs are so much higher now than they were at the start of the year.
But there's an uncertainty level that has also been taken out that they're not maybe a fifty percent tariff right on average.
Execs, So we're seeing the bounce on that as well.
Real quick thing, Bill Maloney of our Squawk Bloomberg Squak saying off air when he was in here doing his report, the investco S and P five hundred equal WAIGHTDTF trades to an all time low relative to the S and P five hundred ETF.
That's not surprising to me. Why, just quickly, it's because of the concentration in what's moving the S and P five hundred. In terms of the names that have hit new highs in the S and P five hundred, it's not that many names, but they're big hitters. They're names
like Microsoft that are names like in video. So when you look at this more equal weighted, you're going to see that, yes, there's a lag because the equal weighted index has not hit that high because there aren't enough participants right now.
And again just investors not interested bidding them up.
We're not even though it may be a smarter play it or an interesting play.
Correct, but you know, again, it's not a bad thing. It says that there's room for the rally to continue to broaden, potentially.
Jillian Wall, Bloomberg Intelligence, Global Equity Strategies.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
The US Antimony reported earnings last night.
The stocks selling off today, down as much as ten percent, despite a second quarter quarterly sales beat excuse me, and a jump from last year. So you might be scratching your head a little bit and wondering why we are talking about this company today. It's not a household name. Got that we do though, talk an awful lot as of late about the race for rare earth minerals and
the US amping up its own access and supply. And it is companies like United States of Antimony and it's CEO that gives us an insight into the pursuit of rare Earth's, what's going on and how the US.
Gets where it needs to be. We welcome Gary Evans.
He's chairman and CEO of the United States Antimony Corporation. It's a small cap miner four hundred and thirty two million dollars market cap. Shares have more than double this year, and he joins us from our Bloomberg News Dallas bureau. Also with US as Bloomberg News Economic stakecraft reporter Jodo. He is our go too when it comes to all things rare Earth's. He's here in studio, Gary, Welcome.
Welcome.
You're not a household name, but I feel like we need to know more about what you are up to, tell us about your operations, the mind, what you predominantly do.
Right now, I'm sorry, we're having really audio problems. I can't even hear your question.
Okay, we're going to fix that.
In the meantime, we're going to bring in our Joe Doe, because Joe, I do think there are these smaller names. We may not know about them. They're publicly held. Obviously, investors are noticing this company this year. Tell us a little bit about this company and kind of its role in terms of mining and potentially rare earths.
I think US Antimony is a good example of this kind of microcosm of all of these critical minerals andre earth companies that are suddenly getting attention from Donald Trump and the White House. It's the first thing to know, why would you care about a US antimony company? Well, you probably wouldn't, but Donald Trump cares about critical minerals. Antimony is a critical mineral. What it's best known for.
Antimony is a use in hardening bullets ammunition. Antimony has always been important to the United States Defense Department, and that's why they are on the radar all the time, is particularly US antimony.
So Gary, my understanding as we figured out our tech problems, we are talking with Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of the United States Antimi Corporation. He's there in our Dallas News bureau. So Gary, tell us about your world, and I am curious, are you in this pursuit by the US to amp up its rare earth minerals exposure and capacity.
If the US government is reaching out to you, so first.
Of all, it should be a distinction. We're we're in the category of critical minerals. There's critical minerals and there's rare earth, and so the public needs to understand there's a significant distinction critical minerals. As an antimony producer, we're number one on the DLDS a critical mineral list. And the problem is there is no antimony today being mined in either the United States or Canada. It all has
to come from international sources. We were all getting every country in the world was getting most of their antimony from China. China controls sixty five percent of world antimony or the raw or in the ground, and they control eighty five percent of the downstream processing, which is what we do. So fortunately, we're in a position of having a smelter in Montana and one in Mexico, which makes us the only two operating smelters for antimony in North America.
And therefore, as you said earlier, we're getting a lot of attention from the US government. They want us to expand our operation I think I read a report in April. We only have like a five percent supply in our stockpile. So we're trying to ramp up our business to meet this critical need. And as Joe said, there's no question
that antimony is needed by the military. It's used predominantly, as he said, in bullets, but it's also used in laser guided missile, night vision cameras, night vision binoculars, and what have you. So it's a very necessary element for the military.
Hey, Joe Dee, come on back in here.
We heard from Gary just now that the antimony mining is not done here in the US or in Canada. Is it possible to do it here in the US? Do we have the material to mine? And it's just not done for environmental reasons. It's not done because we don't have the mineral rights to it, or the companies none of the mineral rights to it. Like why has
this been moved to China? I understand from a processing perspective, why that's happened with rare earths, Yeah, but with a critical mineral like antimony, Why why is that not happening here?
Well, I mean I think you go to deposits, you know how good is the deposit and you can pull it out of the ground, and then who can process it? And this is a question that I have talked about now quite a bit with Gary over the last few months. And you know, Gary, I think I think your better
position to talk about that to an investor class. I mean, you know, you talked to your investors yesterday on your earnings call and they asked you about the potential of beginning mining in the United States anytime soon, and you effectively told them probably it's not going to happen anytime soon. So where where is kind of the upside here?
We've been working on acquiring leases in both Montana and Alaska. With acquire close to thirty thousand acres of property in Alaska, and we've taken over the mountain area where our smelter is. It used to be an area that we mined some twenty years ago. So it's coming right now. We're held up by permitting. We spiled permits in Alaska back in May. And so getting back to your question, why isn't this
being done? The EPA and the federal government, whether it be the Force Service, the BLM native tribes, everybody tried to stop mining in the United States, and unfortunately our laws allowed that, and that's why you see mining occurring all over the world except the US.
It's coming back. There's no doubt.
This administration is very pro mining, and we have the resources. There's no question that we can meet the demand for the United States with just our Alaska properties.
We have no doubt about that, and that's going to happen soon.
I would think in the next thirty days we'll be able to bring our first loads of antimony truck from Alaska to our facility Thompson Falls, Montana.
Gary, How would you describe the conversations now with members of the Trump administration with this government versus your conversations during the Biden administration. How are they different.
Well, we started talking to the Department of Defense back last September. This is right when China banned all antimony sales to any country in the world, and of course our Department of Defense was getting all their antimony from China, so it raised a lot of red flags. And we've been negotiating various agreements and contracts with the Department Defense and the DLA since that period of time. As we mentioned on the call yesterday, were very close we think
to announcing some things. It's not done yet, but there's definitely a mindset change. Addressing your question from the Biden administration to the Trump administration. For instance, we'll have to respond to a request from the DoD and they say can you have it to us by Friday. We give it to them Friday five o'clock and by eight thirty Monday morning we have a redline response. It's not very often you see the government working over the weekend.
So there's no question.
This is a high ticket item with our existing administration, and there's a fire been lit.
Gary.
Despite the fact that you're getting a lot more attention from the Trump administration and they seem to be speeding things up, i'd still ask what is the hold up? And I know this was a big question you got on the call yesterday with investors. They kind of seem to be saying, when are you going to get some sort of announcement from the government. What's going on.
We're in a period where contractual changes are being made. There was an open comment period respect to the DLA that ended actually yesterday afternoon. So I'm very confident we're near the finish line. But it has taken in amount of time, and there's been a lot of reasons that I can't really talk about today for that delay. But we have to make sure that whatever contract or whatever agreement we signed with the government.
Is beneficial to our shareholders.
In the first drafts were not, and so we had to make sure that we negotiated as best we could to maximize the value for our shareholders, but also give the federal government a fair trade. You know, we're we're we pay taxes, we know, and so it was it was that was very necessary.
Forgive me if I miss this, But is the agreement that you might be working out with the government akin to what we saw with MP Materials, which has a four hundred million dollar equity investment by the Department of Defense into the company. And we know that MP Materials is certainly working specifically in the rare earth materials area.
So could it possibly be that the government DoD makes an equity investment in you guys as part of an agreement so that you can do what you need to in terms of ramping up either production or your facilities.
So obviously that's on the table, I think with us as well a lot of other companies. I think we're in a little bit unique position in that we have a four hundred and fifty million dollar market cap, we have our own cash, we have our own capital. We
need more of a big brother than a huge capital investment. Now, as we ramp up this year and do the things that we've told the public we plan on doing and the DoD, I think there's a very good chance in twenty twenty six if we want to do another smelter, if we want to do another project we also are involved in tungsten and cobalt, two other critical minerals, then those type of opportunities exist. But what we're negotiating today and have been for the last eight months is something different.
It's very positive for our company, but it's not a direct investment by the government.
Gary, I want to kind of bring people into what's at stake here, or at least what is being said is at stake. As you mentioned, the Chinese officials put an export control on antimony, which came well after the ermine and gallium that so many people talked about a couple of years ago. Have you guys experienced any of these effects of export controls on antimony from China.
Yes, unfortunately we have.
We were acquiring material from a company of Australia and we were taking that material their fifty five ton container loads to our smelter in Madero, Mexico, and that particular, this third load that we acquired was transloaded over in China in April, and the Chinese customs confiscated our container, took it off the ship and held it for ninety days,
gave us no reason. All the paperwork was correct, it had been paid for, and we finally had to get the State Department in the White House involved for some reason. Finally they released it. It showed back up in Australia, did not come to us. They sent it back to Australia. Was arrived there about three or four days ago. It's currently on a ship to Mexico.
Now.
So from now on, obviously, whoever we buy antimony from, we're in a putting in our contracts. They cannot stop in China because China did this. For whatever reason, we know this company used to sell antimony to China. Maybe they were mad the fact that said us antimony on it maybe was ticked them off. I don't know, but they definitely made a statement with what they did.
We're speaking with Gary Evan's chairman and CEO of United States Antimony Corps, also with US US Economic Staatecraft reporter Joe Dell.
Gary a follow up on that, I mean, what is this? What does this really say? I like, should people actually be concerned? I mean, eventually your antimony is getting to you here at your Mexico location. Like, are are sounding too many alarm bells on this front?
I don't think so.
I really I doubt in our lifetime as we'll ever see antimony coming out of China again.
We know their largest min was depleted last year.
Ever, and so ever, I don't think we'll ever see antimony coming out of China. There is truly a worldwide shortage of this product. Is so difficult for us to find product. That's why we went and started mining it ourselves. There's just not any supply.
Presidents love to talk about energy independence, it doesn't matter if they're Democrats or Republicans. Do we get to a point where they can talk about antimony independence and we can get one hundred percent of what the US needs from US supplies?
I have no doubt that we can meet all the needs of our government as well as our industrial customers from Canada, the United States and Mexico.
We don't need to go anywhere else.
When will we be able to do that in the next three.
To five years. It's not going to happen overnight. You know.
In the last few years, you would have said the Canada, United States, and Mexico, and I would have thought, okay, that could work. These countries can all work together. But over the last few months we've seen trade tensions flare, especially with our neighbors to the north and our neighbors to the south. How does that affect way you look at the industry in your own business.
No question that. You know, Mexico has a new president. She's very anti mining. Fortunately the minds that we have in Mexico or grandfather, but you know, there needs to be greater collaboration.
Now.
THEDD looks at Canada dislike it was the United States. So any project we find up there, the DD likes it and looks at it as a domiciled country.
Yeah, is that as a separate country or because they want to take it over?
Well, you know the fifty first state, of course, is what I'm talking about now.
So you're saying relations between the two nations are comfortable, and despite what we have in the headlines, you're saying that they are working and cooperating because they understand they kind of need each other.
Yeah, Canada needs antimony just as bad as the United States needs antimony. And Canada is a very pro mining country. So that's why we have a lot of activities like I mentioned in tungsten and cobalt in Canada.
Gary.
These conversations you have with defense officials, how dire are they indicating to you that the antimony shortage is for them?
When you see the announcemus will be making, you'll understand it's pretty dire. Can you give us we have the lowest We have the lowest amount of antimony supplies in the inventory for our government since World War Two. You've got to remember we're funding Israel, we're funding Ukraine, and we've dwindled our supplies and at the same time China cut us off. So it's a double edged sword. People are waking up that hey, we have a problem.
So what does that mean for national defense? Like, what would your message be to viewers and listeners right now about how critical this mineral is.
It's a it's an extremely critical mineral. And there's there's you know, people that have tried to replicate antimony with other synthetic antimony and hasn't worked very well at all. In fact, it's three times ex expensive. I do think they'll be continued upward pressure on the price because we cannot meet we can't come close to meet our customer mans.
We're going to we're changing that.
We have a substantial expansion going on in Montana that'll be done by the end of the year.
But you know, it's just gonna take some time. It's not gonna happen overnight.
It's not like there's a huge pile of antimony sitting over here in some country waiting to go to market. It's all it's all depleted. So we're having to find new areas to find the.
Ore Gary, how long has the dwindling supply issue been going on for? And I'm just curious if you had conversations with the Bidy administration as well.
Well.
Because China was selling so much antimony around the world, nobody.
Cared about it.
China kept the price artificially low, less less than five dollars a pound. Today the price is twenty five to twenty seven dollars a pound and probably going higher. I really believe we'll see fifty dollars a pound in the next year.
So, you know, the.
Fact that we were so fact that we're so dependent upon China and had blindfolds on that all of a sudden they cut it off, had nothing to do with Trump coming in office. This happen in last September, so it's been a year since they cut everybody off.
It's not just the United States.
They cut off every country in the world, the European Union, all other countries that were buying antimony. You can sell antimony to China when you get nothing back in return other than cash.
Gary, what's the biggest hurdle US antimony faces right now in getting more antimony production up and out the door.
If I had my permits right now in Alaska and in Montana, i'd have antimony in our smelters. I don't have those permits yet. And you know, we're doing everything we can to speed it along. There's people in Alaska that don't want to see mining, and the group called Save our Domes. We've done pr work. We're doing everything we can to a greeze. The skids to make sure that people understand that we're trying to clean up. This is antimony left on the ground the last one hundred
years from gold miners in Alaska. We're picking it up, putting in super sacks and bringing it to Montana. We're cleaning up the place, and people are fighting that. So it's an education process that we've got a lot of pr we're doing, and we're obviously working with senators, House members, we're working with the President. We're working with a lot of people. You'll see some other news about that next week.
Gary would would the Defense Department be your only customer?
We currently have seventeen industrial customers. We have one particular customer. It would take one hundred percent of our supply. So that gives you an idea. The industrial side is much greater than the Department of Defense. And that's you know, one thing in these contracts we're been working on. They've made sure that we don't take away the business from the industrial side. And that's why we're ramping up because the government needs a stockpile which they currently don't have, and.
We're the only provider.
There's nobody else, it's China, it's us, antimony and a smelter in Belgium.
That's it for the whole world. All right, We're gonna have to leave it there. I got to say, this is one of those interviews.
I know Joe knows this.
Stuff, but I certainly take a lot away from from it. Great Gary, Thank you so much. Gary Evans, chairman CEO of US Antimony, joining us from our bureau in Dallas, and of course our in house expert on all things when it comes to mining. Bloomberg News Economic Staecraft reporter Jodoe. By the way, shares of US antimony timp there up about one hundred and seventeen percent here today.
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