The Trump administration is reopening the deepwater spigot. On Wednesday it will stage the first federal sale of oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico since 2023, effectively road-testing a new, much more aggressive offshore leasing regime built into Trump’s July 2025 tax-and-spending package.

The auction comes at a moment when the White House has made “unleashing” domestic fossil fuel output a central economic and political priority, even as oil prices have softened and project costs offshore remain high. This sale of Lease Sale 1 under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill is the first of 30 Gulf auctions that Congress has now hard-wired into law through 2040.

China’s MMG Ltd., controlled by state-owned China Minmetals Corp., has made a significant move in the copper sector, agreeing to pay $1.9 billion for the Khoemacau copper mine in Botswana, southern Africa. The acquisition of Cuprous Capital Ltd., the private company that owns…

Germany’s newly approved €1 trillion spending package marks a historic pivot in both its defense posture and economic strategy, signaling a fundamental shift away from decades of fiscal restraint and military underinvestment. The plan—passed with a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament—unlocks vast funds for both military modernization and long-overdue infrastructure upgrades, as Berlin responds to mounting pressure to secure its own defense and economic resilience amid geopolitical uncertainty and weakening U.S. security guarantees.

This sea change comes as Germany prepares for a new government under Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz, who has pledged greater European cooperation and a commitment to addressing the country’s industrial stagnation. The spending package, which includes a constitutional amendment exempting defense and critical investments from Germany’s strict budget deficit limits, lays the groundwork for the country to significantly expand its military capacity and invest in future-facing sectors like cybersecurity, AI, and space.