Category: Business Wires

WASHINGTON — Congress is halfway home in approving government funding for the current budget year that began Oct. 1 after the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a three-bill package.

Now comes the hard part. Lawmakers still must negotiate a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security amid soaring tensions on Capitol Hill after the shooting of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Lawmakers are working to complete passage of all 12 annual spending bills before Jan. 30, the deadline set in a funding patch that ended a 43-day government shutdown in November. With the Senate’s action on Thursday, six of those bills have now passed through both chambers of Congress. The measure before the Senate passed by a broadly bipartisan vote of 82-15. It now goes to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

That recent success would greatly reduce the impact of a shutdown, in the unlikely event that there is one at the end of January, since lawmakers have now provided full-year funding for such agencies as the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Justice.

Lawmakers from both parties are determined to prevent another lapse in funding for the remaining agencies. The House’s approval of a separate two-bill package this week nudges them closer to getting all 12 done in the next two weeks.

“Our goal, Mr. President is to get all of these bills signed into law. No continuing resolutions that lock in previous priorities and don’t reflect today’s realities,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “No more disastrous government shutdowns that are totally unnecessary and so harmful.”

ICE shooting inflames debate on funding

The biggest hurdle ahead is the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The plan was to bring that bill before the House this week, but Rep. Tom Cole, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the decision was made to pull the bill and “buy some time” as lawmakers respond to the Minneapolis shooting.

Democrats are seeking what Rep. Rosa DeLauro called “guardrails” that would come with funding for ICE.

“We can’t deal with the lawlessness and terrorizing of communities,” said DeLauro (D., Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “We’re going back and forth with offers, and that’s where we are.”

Trump’s deportation crackdown, focused on cities in Democratic-leaning states, has incensed many House Democrats who demand a strong legislative response. Last week, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Good in a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.

Some 70 Democrats have signed onto an effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Others are seeking specific changes to how the agency operates, such as requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras.

“There are a variety of different things that can be done that we have put on the table and will continue to put on the table to get ICE under control so that they are actually conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country, as opposed to operating as if they’re above the law, somehow thinking they’ve got absolute immunity,” said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes nearly 100 Democratic members, formally announced opposition to any funding to immigration enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security “unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.”

Looking for a solution

Cole said any changes to the Homeland Security funding bill would need sign-on from the White House. He said one possible answer would be to let Democrats have a separate vote on the Homeland Security bill. If passed, it would then be combined with some other spending bills for transmittal to the Senate. Republicans used a similar procedural tactic to get a previous spending package over the finish line in the House.

The options for Democrats on Homeland Security are all rather bleak. If Congress passes a continuing resolution to fund the agency at current levels, that gives the Trump administration more discretion to spend the money as it wants.

Meanwhile, any vote to eliminate funding for ICE won’t stop massive sums from flowing to the agency because Trump’s tax cut and border security bill, passed last summer, injects roughly $170 billion into immigration enforcement over the next four years.

Also, any vote to eliminate funding could put some Democrats in tough reelection battles in a difficult position this fall as Republicans accuse them of insufficiently supporting law enforcement.

UNITED NATIONS — After weeks of escalating tension, U.S. and Iranian officials faced one another Thursday at the U.N. Security Council, where America’s envoy renewed threats against the Islamic Republic despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to lower the temperature between the two adversaries.

The U.S. was joined by Iranian dissidents in rebuking the government’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests that activists say have killed at least 2,677 people.

“Colleagues, let me be clear: President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” Mike Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told the council. “He has made it clear that all options are on the table to stop the slaughter. And no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”

Waltz’s remarks came as the prospect of U.S. retaliation for the protesters’ deaths still hung over the region, although Trump signaled a possible de-escalation, saying the killing appeared to be ending. By Thursday, the protests challenging Iran’s theocracy appeared increasingly smothered, but the state-ordered internet and communication blackout remained.

One diplomat told the Associated Press that top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar spent the last 48 hours raising concerns with Trump that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region.

During the meeting, Hossein Darzi, the deputy Iranian ambassador to the U.N., blasted the U.S. for what he claimed was America’s “direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence.”

“Under the hollow pretext of concern for the Iranian people and claims of support for human rights, the United States is attempting to portray itself as a friend of the Iranian people, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for political destabilization and military intervention under a so-called ′humanitarian′ narrative,” Darzi said.

The U.S. requested the emergency Security Council meeting and invited two Iranian dissidents, Masih Alinejad and Ahmad Batebi, to describe their experience as targets of the Islamic Republic.

In a stunning moment, Alinejad addressed the Iranian representative directly.

“You have tried to kill me three times. I have seen my would-be assassin with my own eyes in front of my garden, in my home in Brooklyn,” she said while the Iranian official looked directly ahead, without acknowledging her.

In October, two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hit man to kill Alinejad at her New York home three years ago on behalf of the Iranian government.

Batebi described the deep cuts the prison guards in Iran would inflict on him before pouring salt on his wounds. “If you do not believe me, I can show you my body right now,” he told the council.

Both dissidents called on the world body and the council to do more to hold Iran accountable for its human rights abuses. Batebi pleaded with Trump not to “leave” the Iranian people alone.

“You encouraged people to go into the streets. That was a good thing. But don’t leave them alone,” he said.

Russia was the only member of the council that defended Iran’s actions while calling for the U.S. to stop intervening.

Protests appear smothered as death toll rises

Videos of demonstrations have stopped coming out of Iran, likely signaling the slowdown of their pace under the heavy security force presence in major cities.

In Iran’s capital, Tehran, witnesses said recent mornings showed no new signs of bonfires lit the night before or debris in the streets. The sound of gunfire, which had been intense for several nights, has also faded.

The clampdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,677 people, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The figure reported Thursday is an increase of 106 from a day earlier, and the organization says the number will likely continue to climb. The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The U.S.-based agency, founded 20 years ago, has been accurate throughout multiple years of demonstrations, relying on a network of activists inside Iran that confirms all reported fatalities.

With communications greatly limited in Iran, the AP has been unable to independently confirm the group’s toll. The Iranian government has not provided casualty figures.

New sanctions on senior Iranians

In other developments Thursday, the U.S. announced new sanctions on Iranian officials accused of suppressing the protests, which began late last month over the country’s faltering economy and the collapse of its currency. The Group of Seven industrialized democracies and the European Union also said they too were looking at new sanctions to ratchet up the pressure on Iran’s theocratic government.

Among those hit with U.S. sanctions was the secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, whom the Treasury Department accuses of being one of the first officials to call for violence against protesters. The Group of Seven, of which the U.S. is a member, also warned they could impose more sanctions if Iran’s crackdown continues.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen said the 27-nation bloc was looking at strengthening sanctions “to push forward that this regime comes to an end and that there is change.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals, while the Trump administration has already taken aggressive actions to break China’s grip on the market for these materials that are crucial to high-tech products, including cellphones, electric vehicles, jet fighters and missiles.

It’s too early to tell how the bill, if passed, could align with the White House’s policy, but whatever the approach, the U.S. is in a crunch to drastically reduce its reliance on China, after Beijing used its dominance of the critical minerals market to gain leverage in the trade war with Washington. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year truce in October, by which Beijing would continue to export critical minerals while the U.S. would ease its export controls of U.S. technology on China.

The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China, which processes more than 90% of the world’s critical minerals. To break Beijing’s chokehold, the U.S. government is taking equity stakes in a handful of critical mineral companies and in some cases guaranteeing the price of some commodities using an approach that seems more likely to come out of China’s playbook instead of a Republican administration.

The bill that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) and Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.) introduced Thursday would favor a more market-based approach by setting up the independent body charged with building a stockpile of critical minerals and related products, stabilizing prices, and encouraging domestic and allied production to help ensure stable supply not only for the military but also the broader economy and manufacturers.

Shaheen called the legislation “a historic investment” to make the U.S. economy more resilient against China’s dominance that she said has left the U.S. vulnerable to economic coercion. Young said creating the new reserve is “a much-needed, aggressive step to protect our national and economic security.”

Rep. Rob Wittman (R., Va.) introduced the House version of the bill.

New sense of urgency

When Trump imposed widespread tariffs last spring, Beijing fought back not only with tit-for-tat tariffs but severe restrictions on the export of critical minerals, forcing Washington to back down and eventually agree to the truce when the leaders met in South Korea.

On Monday, in his speech at SpaceX, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon has in the past five months alone “deployed over $4.5 billion in capital commitments” to close six critical minerals deals that will “help free the United States from market manipulation.”

One of the deals involves a $150 million of preferred equity by the Pentagon in Atlantic Alumina Co. to save the country’s last alumina refinery and build its first large-scale gallium production facility in Louisiana.

Last year, the Pentagon announced it would buy $400 million of preferred stock in MP Materials, which owns the country’s only operational rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, and entered into a $1.4-billion joint partnership with ReElement Technologies Corp. to build up a domestic supply chain for rare earth magnets.

On Wednesday, Trump announced in a proclamation that the U.S. is “too reliant” on foreign-sourced critical minerals and directed his administration to negotiate better deals. He said possible remedies would include minimum import prices for certain critical minerals.

“Reshoring manufacturing that’s critical to our national and economic security is a top priority for the Trump administration,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson.

The drastic move by the U.S. government to take equity stakes has prompted some analysts to observe that Washington is pivoting to some form of state capitalism to compete with Beijing.

“Despite the dangers of political interference, the strategic logic is compelling,” wrote Elly Rostoum, a senior fellow at the Washington-based research institute Center for European Policy Analysis. She suggested that the new model could be “a prudent way for the U.S. to ensure strategic autonomy and industrial sovereignty.”

Companies across the industry are welcoming the intervention from Trump’s administration.

“He is playing three-dimensional chess on critical minerals like no previous president has done. It’s about time too, given the military and strategic vulnerability we face by having to import so many of these fundamental building blocks of technology and national defense,” NioCorp’s Chief Communications Officer Jim Sims said. That company is trying to finish raising the money it needs to build a mine in southeast Nebraska.

Relying on allies for help

In addition to trying to boost domestic production, the Trump administration has sought to secure some of these crucial elements through allies. In October, Trump signed an $8.5 billion agreement with Australia to invest in mining there, and the president is now aggressively trying to take over Greenland in the hope of being able to one day extract rare earths from there.

On Monday, finance ministers from the G7 nations huddled in Washington over their vulnerability in the critical mineral supply chains.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has led several rounds of trade negotiations with Beijing, urged attendees to increase their supply chain resiliency and thanked them for their willingness to work together “toward decisive action and lasting solutions,” according to a Treasury statement.

The bill introduced on Thursday by Shaheen and Young would encourage production with both domestic and allied producers.

Past efforts to bolster rare earths production

Congress in the past several years has pushed for legislation to protect the U.S. military and civilian industry from Beijing’s chokehold. The issue became a pressing concern every time China turned to its proven tactics of either restricting the supply or turned to dumping extra critical minerals on the market to depress prices and drive any potential competitors out of business.

The Biden administration sought to increase demand for critical minerals domestically by pushing for more electric vehicle and windmill production. But the Trump administration largely eliminated the incentives for those products and instead chose to focus on increasing critical minerals production directly.

Most of those past efforts were on a much more limited scale than what the government has done in the past year, and they were largely abandoned after China relented and eased access to critical minerals.