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Speaker 1: Also on the Bloomberg is what's going on out of
Speaker 1: the White House and about an upcoming meeting tim between
Speaker 1: the United States and Russia. This hasn't happened in a
Speaker 1: long long time, and certainly not on US soil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with what to expect, we have Bloomberg News National
Speaker 3: Security Team leader Nick Wadams. He joins us from our Washington,
Speaker 3: DC bureau. Nick, I'm curious about the not just the
Speaker 3: timing of this, but more importantly the placement of this
Speaker 3: on US soil. It's something that we've spoken quite a
Speaker 3: bit about in recent days, but I'm wondering if the
Speaker 3: expectations have shifted with rhetoric that we've heard from President
Speaker 3: Trump just today and also what we've heard and what
Speaker 3: we've reported about the President of Ukraine and what he
Speaker 3: would and would not give up when it comes to
Speaker 3: some sort of deal with Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, there's a big question about what we're
Speaker 4: actually going to get out of this meeting. I mean,
Speaker 4: when these sort of things happen, you know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of froth and ferment over the fact that the
Speaker 4: two leaders are going to be face to face staring
Speaker 4: each other down adversaries or maybe not adversaries in the
Speaker 4: case of Putin and Trump, and the expectation is that
Speaker 4: they're going to come out of this with some big deal.
Speaker 4: But Trump himself has shown he's very willing to come
Speaker 4: out of these meetings with nothing. He walked away from
Speaker 4: a meeting with Kim Jong un in Vietnam some years
Speaker 4: ago in his first term. And then obviously there was
Speaker 4: the Biden Putin meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: one that results in a document and some proposals but
Speaker 4: really achieve very little. So I think what you're seeing
Speaker 4: is the administration sort of crashing up against reality, where
Speaker 4: in some ways they've portrayed President Trump to be the
Speaker 4: deal maker and the problem solver who's going to get
Speaker 4: this thing done. But then you know, given Russia's advances
Speaker 4: in Ukraine and President Putin's unwillingness to stop the war
Speaker 4: so far, you now see them trying to massage expectations
Speaker 4: a little bit, you know, to make sure that this
Speaker 4: is not seen as a failure when, as seems likely,
Speaker 4: there is not going to be a major announcement from it.
Speaker 4: So you've seen the President describe it as a feel
Speaker 4: out meeting. Marco Rubio echoed this words, and then President
Speaker 4: Trump again said today we expect this to lead to
Speaker 4: another meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodimir Zelensky and maybe
Speaker 4: Trump as well, where they may get down to brass
Speaker 4: tax on a possible ceasefire agreement or some other deal
Speaker 4: that could lead to an end.
Speaker 5: Of the fighting.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're talking with Dick Wadams, Bloomberg News National
Speaker 1: Security Team leader. Here's just what President Trump had to
Speaker 1: say earlier today. When it comes to the upcoming meeting
Speaker 1: with President Putin.
Speaker 6: There's a very good chance that we're going to have
Speaker 6: a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first,
Speaker 6: because the first is I'm going to find out where
Speaker 6: we are and what we're doing. Again, this is Biden's work.
Speaker 6: This isn't my work. He got us into this thing,
Speaker 6: and they should have never happened. This war would have
Speaker 6: never happened to viral president. But it is what it is,
Speaker 6: and I'm here.
Speaker 1: To fix it, all right that of course, as President
Speaker 1: Trump earlier today, Nick wadhams, isn't it President Putin's war?
Speaker 1: And isn't it just something that he is very clear
Speaker 1: about wanting to expand his territory? And what I have
Speaker 1: heard from most folks who follow President Putin, who are
Speaker 1: experts at President Putin, even folks like yourself, like that
Speaker 1: he doesn't.
Speaker 7: He's not going to give up. He still wants a.
Speaker 1: Land grab, and he I don't know, wants to remain
Speaker 1: president forever. And I don't know whether by having this
Speaker 1: war keeps him as president. I don't know what's the
Speaker 1: intelligence briefing on this.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, the big question that a lot of
Speaker 4: folks are asking the president is sort of what incentive
Speaker 4: does Vladimir Putin have to stop his campaign? He's continued
Speaker 4: to gain territory. I mean, and when you have a
Speaker 4: grinding war of attrition like this, this is something that
Speaker 4: plays to Russia's advantage. They have more troops, They have
Speaker 4: a bigger army, they have more materiel, they can really
Speaker 4: tap their own country to continue to fight this war,
Speaker 4: whereas Ukraine's resources are much more limited. So when you
Speaker 4: look at the long term, it may be very, very
Speaker 4: costly for Russia and it really may squeeze the economy,
Speaker 4: But in the long run, experts largely agree that a
Speaker 4: long term, grinding war does favor Russia. So then the
Speaker 4: question is what incentive does Vladimir Putin have to stop,
Speaker 4: which then raises the question, well, if President Trump eases
Speaker 4: off the gas on military supplies to Ukraine, is Vladimir
Speaker 4: Putin's beverage actually enhanced and he can really make some
Speaker 4: demands here? There is no incentive for him to essentially
Speaker 4: give anything up. Why would he withdraw from territory when
Speaker 4: he continues to make advances. So that is why there's
Speaker 4: a lot of questions about why President Trump is holding
Speaker 4: this meeting in the first place. He theoretically would have
Speaker 4: plenty of staff other officials who could go to Russia
Speaker 4: or speak to intermediaries to understand what Putin wants. That's
Speaker 4: not really something that the president himself would need to do.
Speaker 4: And obviously, just the mere fact of having this meeting
Speaker 4: does give President Putin a bit of an advantage because
Speaker 4: it essentially cuts out Ukraine. So he's going to try
Speaker 4: to do some sort of a deal with President Trump
Speaker 4: or at least get Trump to put more pressure on
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin. Those are a lot of the concerns that
Speaker 4: we're hearing about this meeting taking place in the first place.
Speaker 7: Yeah, just interesting to see.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see kind of the optics, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of whatever they ultimately come out and say, hey,
Speaker 1: while we have you. Just one last thing, there's a
Speaker 1: story that Reuter's has been reporting out about the US
Speaker 1: secretly placing location tracking devices and targeted shipments of advanced
Speaker 1: AI semi conductors that are at risk of a legal
Speaker 1: diversion to China. This is citing two people familiar with
Speaker 1: the matter, and they talk about commerce usually involved homeland security.
Speaker 1: FBI may also take a part. Would this be a
Speaker 1: surprising thing? I just think all countries are doing things
Speaker 1: back and forth.
Speaker 7: But what's your read on that? Before you weak out right?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think you have to see. It sort
Speaker 4: of fits into a broader spectrum of the push and
Speaker 4: pull between the US and China. I mean, there's so
Speaker 4: much sensitivity around these chips. Obviously, you know, they do
Speaker 4: not want to lose track of them, and there's just
Speaker 4: so many questions about whether these chips are actually going
Speaker 4: to go ahead. You know, we did have that deal
Speaker 4: where President Trump essentially extracted fifteen percent from Nvidia and
Speaker 4: amb but so many unknowns around that. But you know,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of concerns about these chips entering
Speaker 4: the wrong hands, and obviously companies US government want to
Speaker 4: do everything you can to make sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 7: All right, so appreciate checking in with you.
Speaker 1: Nick Wadhams, National Security Team leader there in our Washington,
Speaker 1: DC News Bureau.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch US
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Speaker 3: Well, under President Trump, the US has launched a multi
Speaker 3: pronged attack on China's economy. Since chair At Mauzadong's reign,
Speaker 3: China has seen it coming. A US system built around
Speaker 3: the ideal of openness and interdependence is facing off against
Speaker 3: a Chinese counterpart constructed as a fortress of control, both
Speaker 3: sides of powerful resources. Only one has been preparing for
Speaker 3: the fight for decades. And it's not the US that's right.
Speaker 1: And so writes Tom Orlick, Eric Zhu and Jennifer Welch
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Markets Magazine. I feel like, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: sit down and sit tight, because we know the US
Speaker 1: and China are at odds in a big way on many,
Speaker 1: many different levels. And this really gets into where China
Speaker 1: might have the advantage to him.
Speaker 3: Jennifer Welchi's Bloomberg Economics Chief geoeconomics analyst. She previously served
Speaker 3: as the director for China and Taiwan on the US
Speaker 3: National Security Council that was under the Biden and Trump administrations,
Speaker 3: and as the advisor to Vice Presidents Harrison Pence on
Speaker 3: Asia and the Pacific. So yes, she knows what she's
Speaker 3: talking about. She joins us from our Washington, DC bureau. Jennifer,
Speaker 3: good to have you with us this afternoon. A great
Speaker 3: story in Bloomberg Markets Magazine from you and our colleagues.
Speaker 3: How has China been preparing for this trade war?
Speaker 8: Well, in a sense, as we wrote in that article,
Speaker 8: Beijing's been preparing for this for a long time. China
Speaker 8: has a long tradition of self sufficiency, dating back to
Speaker 8: the late Qing Empire, if you want to go that
Speaker 8: far back. And it is also a tradition in paranoia,
Speaker 8: dating back in particular to Chairman Mao, but more recently,
Speaker 8: China's long suspense that the United States was going to
Speaker 8: be out to contain its rise, and to many in Beijing,
Speaker 8: President Trump's first term and now his second term are
Speaker 8: confirming a lot of those fears. So we've seen China,
Speaker 8: especially since his first trade war with Beijing, really emphasize
Speaker 8: reducing their reliance on the US market, building up its
Speaker 8: own leverage over the United States in the form of
Speaker 8: critical mineral exports, and trying to work around US export controls,
Speaker 8: in particular when it comes to technology like semiconductors.
Speaker 1: I got to get to one number that's in the
Speaker 1: story that shocked me. And I know you're not an economist,
Speaker 1: but you look at US China relations, but it talked
Speaker 1: about it, says. Following Donald Trump's first trade war with China,
Speaker 1: China made an active effort to reduce its direct exposure
Speaker 1: to the US market. Chinese Exports to the United States
Speaker 1: now make up around three percent of GDP, down from
Speaker 1: seven percent twenty years ago. US is still China's single
Speaker 1: largest market, you guys, right, and many of its goods
Speaker 1: go to the US throughout countries, suggesting more of its
Speaker 1: GPDTP could be at risk. But it really shows that
Speaker 1: if the US continues to pull back, China is not
Speaker 1: going to just fall apart.
Speaker 7: Is that a fair assessment of that.
Speaker 8: I think that's a fair assessment. And it's also what
Speaker 8: has borne out over the course of this trade war.
Speaker 8: I think President Trump came back into office thinking that
Speaker 8: he could use tariffs to really bring Beijing to its knees,
Speaker 8: and that's not how things played out. And in fact,
Speaker 8: that's when we saw Beijing kind of pull the ace
Speaker 8: out of its sleeve with the critical mineral controls and
Speaker 8: bring Washington to the negotiating table and force Washington to
Speaker 8: make concessions on export controls. Not to be clear, China
Speaker 8: definitely does have vulnerabilities here, and not only is the
Speaker 8: US its single largest market, but many other countries are
Speaker 8: trying to close their doors to Chinese goods as well,
Speaker 8: the European Union being a key example. Beijing is also
Speaker 8: very concerned about Washington's efforts to embed in part of
Speaker 8: these trade agreements and effort to shut out Chinese transhipment.
Speaker 8: So Beijing's not exactactly resting easy, but it's not in
Speaker 8: as weakened of a position as I think President Trump
Speaker 8: and maybe many of his aids thought it would.
Speaker 7: Be Chinese transhipment.
Speaker 1: That is, when Chin China ships to other countries, is
Speaker 1: that I make sure I understand, okay.
Speaker 8: It ships through other countries, or the goods are largely
Speaker 8: manufactured in China, but perhaps a final sticker is put
Speaker 8: on them and say Vietnam, and then shipped from Vietnam
Speaker 8: to the US under the auspices of this being a
Speaker 8: Vietnamese good. That's been one of the reasons why the
Speaker 8: Trump administration is so focused in part of these trade deals,
Speaker 8: especially with Southeast Asia, on trying to curb those practices
Speaker 8: and is starting to apply a much higher tariff rate
Speaker 8: to goods that its suspects are coming from outside of
Speaker 8: those individual countries.
Speaker 5: How does it know.
Speaker 8: That is a great question. Implementation is going to be
Speaker 8: extremely difficult here, and there's a lot of details that
Speaker 8: remain to be decided, like what percentage of a good
Speaker 8: has to be manufactured in a particular country for it
Speaker 8: to count as being made in that country, especially when
Speaker 8: some of these supply chains are so heavily integrated. So
Speaker 8: the devil's going to be in the details and in
Speaker 8: the enforcement. But so far, it seems a couple of
Speaker 8: key Southeast Asian partners, including Vietnam and Indonesia, have accepted
Speaker 8: these terms as part of their trade deals with the US.
Speaker 3: I want to know, based on your reporting and based
Speaker 3: on the team's reporting, to what extent its surprised leaders
Speaker 3: in Washington just how prepared China has been for a
Speaker 3: prolonged trade war with the US. As I mentioned to
Speaker 3: the top, you spent a lot of time in Washington.
Speaker 3: You're coming to us from Washington. You were director for
Speaker 3: China and Taiwan at the US National Security Council. You
Speaker 3: worked under the Biden and Trump administrations. You advised Vice
Speaker 3: President Harris and Vice President Pence on Asia and the Pacific.
Speaker 3: Didn't we know this was coming?
Speaker 8: I think many of us in the China watching community
Speaker 8: suspected this was coming. You know, certainly, China's dominance over
Speaker 8: critical minerals, in particular rare Earth, is not a secret
Speaker 8: Over a decade ago, Beijing employed this vulnerability against Japan
Speaker 8: over a territorial dispute that those two had, so that
Speaker 8: there was a vulnerability out there. However, looking at the
Speaker 8: Trump administration's actions, it's hard not to interpret some of
Speaker 8: what happened there, and in particular that timeline events as
Speaker 8: suggesting there was some surprise that either Washington didn't think
Speaker 8: Beijing would go this far and exercising its control over
Speaker 8: those supply chains, or they didn't realize their inability to
Speaker 8: shift to alternative sources in a timely manner. Because we
Speaker 8: saw a very quick turnaround from when Beijing started to
Speaker 8: put those export controls in place, when US companies started
Speaker 8: to complain that they weren't getting these key inputs to win,
Speaker 8: Washington was suddenly talking about maybe we should meet with
Speaker 8: the Chinese and try and find a way to de
Speaker 8: escalate things. Part of that was about the pain the
Speaker 8: terrists are causing, but I think a good part of
Speaker 8: it was also about the pain that these critical mineral
Speaker 8: export controls were causing as well.
Speaker 1: Today, how hip is Beijing when it comes to US
Speaker 1: moves and maneuvers. I think about all of a sudden
Speaker 1: advanced chips being allowed to go out to China, that
Speaker 1: China's saying no, maybe we don't want to buy your chips,
Speaker 1: and the whole thinking the reversal, it almost feels like
Speaker 1: in thinking is wait, don't give them.
Speaker 7: Access to our sophisticated technology.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, let's give them access to our sophisticated technology,
Speaker 1: because that means will be in control, will set the terms,
Speaker 1: will be advanced. China won't spend time developing their own
Speaker 1: high tech community. But China is smart and they are
Speaker 1: hipped to all of this, aren't.
Speaker 8: They Also, they read the news just like all of us.
Speaker 8: So when you have, for example, top US officials going
Speaker 8: out there and saying no, our strategy is going to
Speaker 8: be that we make China dependent on the US tech stack,
Speaker 8: Beijing is able to read those words as well. But
Speaker 8: even before some of that language came out, Beijing's predominant
Speaker 8: thesis is that the United States would be using these reliancies,
Speaker 8: these dependencies as sort of strategic leverage with China. So
Speaker 8: I don't think it requires usin Huang or David Sachs
Speaker 8: or others coming out to say that to sort of
Speaker 8: trip Beijing's concerns. But it certainly didn't help that case.
Speaker 8: I think Beijing also thinks about this from the perspective
Speaker 8: of what would I China do if someone was reliant
Speaker 8: on me for a particular good right, So that's the
Speaker 8: sort of mindset it applies when it thinks about its
Speaker 8: vulnerabilities with other countries.
Speaker 1: So does the US then thing China stupid that they're
Speaker 1: not going to like as you say, they're reading the
Speaker 1: same headlines we all are like, I don't.
Speaker 8: Know, I think, sorry, that's a great question. No, no,
Speaker 8: it's a great question. And I can't speak for what
Speaker 8: the strategy might have been behind saying some of those
Speaker 8: things publicly, but I think regardless of whatever the intent
Speaker 8: was or whatever the merits of that particular idea was,
Speaker 8: Beijing's moves over the last few days to actively discourage
Speaker 8: companies from buying these foreign made chips, despite the fact
Speaker 8: that there's still an advantage and an edge over the
Speaker 8: domestic competitors, suggests that that strategy is not going to work,
Speaker 8: That Beijing's not going to allow itself to become dependent
Speaker 8: on the US tech stack. It's going to continue to
Speaker 8: work towards having a domestic, indigenous solution, And so then
Speaker 8: the question becomes, if you're still shipping them these powerful
Speaker 8: chips that they can use to advance their AI models
Speaker 8: that they can perhaps base their domestic competitors on. Are
Speaker 8: you still playing to an advantage here or are you
Speaker 8: playing a losing game where eventually China's going to overtake
Speaker 8: you on these technologies?
Speaker 3: Can the US become a self reliant as China has become?
Speaker 8: You know, that's a great question that probably economists have
Speaker 8: a more sophisticated answer to. I would say China's approach
Speaker 8: takes a lot of costs under it, and it certainly
Speaker 8: comes with other costs beyond the economic realm, in terms
Speaker 8: of the social the political costs as well. I think
Speaker 8: most economists would say that autarchy is not a feasible
Speaker 8: solution for any country, but certainly for an economy is
Speaker 8: big and is well integrated into the global economy as
Speaker 8: the United States. I think, actually, if you look at
Speaker 8: a lot of President Trump's strategies trying to bring manufacturing
Speaker 8: back to the United States, just this one aspect of
Speaker 8: self sufficiency, it's clear how many hurdles there are to
Speaker 8: just achieving that one LM element of it. So I
Speaker 8: don't think it's feasible, certainly not within the timeline of
Speaker 8: competition with China.
Speaker 7: And it's a risky play for China as well.
Speaker 1: Just got about thirty seconds, right, I mean, they've got
Speaker 1: their own economic challenges and pressure, so there is some
Speaker 1: risk for them as well in playing this game.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, they've got property market problems, They've undergoing a demographic juranisition.
Speaker 8: Market sentiment has taken a real hit over the last
Speaker 8: few years post COVID. This is not necessarily a moment
Speaker 8: of great economic strength for them. They're feeling a lot
Speaker 8: of vulnerability and weakness. But sometimes it's that sense of
Speaker 8: weakness and vulnerability that actually leads Chinese leaders to sort
Speaker 8: of buckle down, dig in their heels because they don't
Speaker 8: want other countries to think that they can be taken
Speaker 8: advantage of.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable Thank you so much. It's a story we so
Speaker 1: wanted to do and we're so glad you could find
Speaker 1: time for us. Jennifer Welch, she's Bloomberg Economics Chief geoeconomics
Speaker 1: analyst there in DC.
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Speaker 9: I'll beout you let me drive.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, no no, this is not a toy to judge.
Speaker 10: All right, please, I'll do the riding gravels.
Speaker 7: Let's wait, I want to drive.
Speaker 3: It's a good question.
Speaker 1: Good drives.
Speaker 7: This is the drive to the clothes.
Speaker 5: Punks, the music.
Speaker 7: Well ri run down on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: All right, TikTok, everybody, About eighteen and a half minutes
Speaker 1: to go until we wrap up the trade on this Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Just heard from Bill Maloney and Charlie Pellett on where
Speaker 1: we are in today's session. Just a little bit higher
Speaker 1: on the S and P five hundred and fourteen points
Speaker 1: at sixty four to fifty nine down Joe's industrial average
Speaker 1: again have almost one percent four and forty points to
Speaker 1: the upside, and then ask one hundred under a little
Speaker 1: bit of pressure, tim, it's down about sixteen points, so
Speaker 1: call it little changed on the day.
Speaker 3: Hey, I want to bring in Gillian Wolf Bloomberg Intelligence
Speaker 3: Global Equity Strategy. She joins us here in the Bloomberg
Speaker 3: Interactive Brokers studio, Jillian You and the team out with
Speaker 3: a note. It's all about how global text hot streak
Speaker 3: masks growing gaps and stock returns. It's all about the concentration.
Speaker 3: It's not a new story. Yeah, it's something that a
Speaker 3: lot of people have been concerned about. Is this a
Speaker 3: tale of two different markets right now?
Speaker 9: I wouldn't say it's entirely a tale of two different markets,
Speaker 9: but I do think there is a little bit of
Speaker 9: masking going on with how much the largest stocks, just
Speaker 9: because of their sheer magnitude, are able to mask some
Speaker 9: issues in some of the smaller stocks. In the S
Speaker 9: and P five hundred. We're even seeing that today with
Speaker 9: the S and P five hundred at a new high.
Speaker 9: About sixty stocks or at a new high today. The
Speaker 9: rest have not hit new highs at all in August,
Speaker 9: so there's definitely room for expansion. This isn't necessarily a
Speaker 9: bad thing. That said, there's definitely a distortion happening with
Speaker 9: what some of these larger stocks are doing.
Speaker 7: You know, it's interesting too write the concentration.
Speaker 1: We've been here before, right, and everybody's like broaden out
Speaker 1: by other stuff better valuations. And yet we come back
Speaker 1: and we see why people buy some of the big
Speaker 1: cap names, certainly in the tech sector, because that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of the momentum is.
Speaker 7: Some of the numbers are off the charts. But is
Speaker 7: that I don't know is fundamentally still is that a
Speaker 7: smart story or not.
Speaker 9: What we have found in our research is that there
Speaker 9: are plenty of opportunities in terms of forward earnings growth,
Speaker 9: in terms of valuation across the globe and in the
Speaker 9: US itself, of firms that have better forward earnings forecasts
Speaker 9: at cheaper valuations. I mean, one of the sectors that's
Speaker 9: done best over the last five days in the US
Speaker 9: and really across the globe is materials still quite cheap
Speaker 9: amazing forward earnings forecasts. Particularly if you look even in
Speaker 9: the Canadian market, where they're very gold centric, you can
Speaker 9: find a lot of stocks that are doing better than
Speaker 9: the median US stock and even the median seven stock.
Speaker 9: I Mean, one thing we're noticing that we're gonna have
Speaker 9: a note out on shortly is that even though performance
Speaker 9: concentration is very concentrated, quality still exists pretty spread out
Speaker 9: across the globe and across sectors right now. Everyone is
Speaker 9: just focusing on these largest stocks, and that's really what's
Speaker 9: driving the gain so much.
Speaker 3: So valuations, Yes, I think a lot of people would
Speaker 3: argue that by many measures, valuations are high, yes, right now,
Speaker 3: but that's not across the board.
Speaker 9: It's not across the board. I mean, I think one
Speaker 9: of the places valuations are getting high that people really
Speaker 9: aren't talking about enough honestly is financials. Price to books
Speaker 9: on Financials are getting quite high. Price to book on
Speaker 9: some of these tech forward price to sales and some
Speaker 9: of these tech names are getting quite high. We do
Speaker 9: see a little bit of the US premium rearing its
Speaker 9: ugly head a bit in that the average US stock,
Speaker 9: even when it's weighted appropriately, trades out a premium to
Speaker 9: the average stock outside of the US, and that premium
Speaker 9: has grown pretty greatly over the past year. So the
Speaker 9: question isn't really is there a premium, it's how much
Speaker 9: of a premium is warranted? Right There will always be
Speaker 9: a premium for US stocks they do broadly screen as
Speaker 9: higher quality, but whether or not the premium has gotten
Speaker 9: out of hand because investors don't feel as though there's
Speaker 9: another option, particularly with tariffs. Is the real question, right, Well, that's.
Speaker 7: What I'm confused about.
Speaker 1: I thought everybody was saying that way people were setting
Speaker 1: their money overseas, that they were kind of not so
Speaker 1: in when it came to or so keen on buying
Speaker 1: the US market has that in terms of flows, what
Speaker 1: have we in reality really seen that?
Speaker 9: So we see flows as a bit of a backward
Speaker 9: looking indicator rather than an indicator of what will happen
Speaker 9: going forward. Definitely, the first quarter of the year, the
Speaker 9: US was not the hot market to invest in. The
Speaker 9: US was actually lagging so much behind international stocks, and
Speaker 9: it still is, you're to date, by the way, I
Speaker 9: don't think a lot of people realize this. In local
Speaker 9: currency terms, Yeah, we talk about it. I know you
Speaker 9: guys would be on top of it. But in local
Speaker 9: termsy terms, the US is still lagging. It's not as
Speaker 9: lagging as much as it was earlier in the year.
Speaker 9: There's a little bit of this idea right now that
Speaker 9: the nowhere is safe, so you might as well invest
Speaker 9: in the US. But in terms of the fundamental outlook,
Speaker 9: we have seen further degradation in the US outlook fundamentally
Speaker 9: than we have seen abroad. Because the tariffs are going
Speaker 9: to hit the US bottom line first before they hit
Speaker 9: anywhere else. That said, US stocks may bounce back stronger. Ultimately.
Speaker 9: We have a lot of the AI names here that
Speaker 9: may not be as affected by tariffs. And there's also
Speaker 9: this idea that companies can negotiate with Trump, like what
Speaker 9: we saw with with Apple investing one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 9: in the US last week. So there could be there
Speaker 9: could be some deals made.
Speaker 1: Still, I mean, you're looking at the IBEX in Spain.
Speaker 1: I mean up, I'm just looking. Is it you know?
Speaker 7: Crazy?
Speaker 6: I mean.
Speaker 7: In currency terms, I mean.
Speaker 9: Look at the look at the Korean market. I mean
Speaker 9: even look at the Chinese market. The best market on
Speaker 9: a trailing one year basis is the Chinese market right
Speaker 9: now because they've risen, they had such an astounding rebound.
Speaker 9: And what's interesting for US is we get all these
Speaker 9: questions about the the US market. How, how is the
Speaker 9: US market getting too hot? And it's not the hottest
Speaker 9: market right now if you look across the.
Speaker 7: Well Hank saying is of twenty seven percent, it is
Speaker 7: and so far.
Speaker 9: And one of the things globally that's helping with concentration
Speaker 9: right now is this tech rally that's happening in China.
Speaker 9: It's not all about US tech, and investors are wary
Speaker 9: of some of the risks that come in investing in
Speaker 9: Chinese companies. But there's definitely tech in emerging markets, like
Speaker 9: in Korea, like in China, like in Taiwan that is
Speaker 9: doing phenomenally well and actually outperforming the US and has
Speaker 9: a better forward fundamental outlook than the US tech stocks.
Speaker 3: Right now, is there a reversion to the mean happening?
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is a reversion to
Speaker 3: global equities being the place to be rather than focused
Speaker 3: on the US. I mean, if we look at the
Speaker 3: past dozen years and the low interest rate environment, the
Speaker 3: US market has outperformed everywhere else, right, but that was
Speaker 3: if you look at a longer timeline, that's kind of
Speaker 3: an anomaly.
Speaker 9: It is, I mean the US. It always never paid
Speaker 9: to bet against the US. Right, if you were underwright
Speaker 9: the US, orally you were not, you were just going
Speaker 9: to underperform the globe. The US consistently with the least
Speaker 9: amount of volatility does the best. But there are dips,
Speaker 9: and definitely this is a big regime change for the US.
Speaker 9: Questions about US exceptionalism are still on the line when
Speaker 9: the current tariff environment and questions about whether or not
Speaker 9: US margins can be maintained, there's on the line.
Speaker 3: And look full disclosure caveat. I'm asking you this question
Speaker 3: on a day where the S and P five hundred
Speaker 3: is set.
Speaker 9: That's the amazing question. Is the S and P is
Speaker 9: closing at a new all time high despite the fact
Speaker 9: that tariffs are so much higher now than they were
Speaker 9: at the start of the year.
Speaker 1: But there's an uncertainty level that has also been taken
Speaker 1: out that they're not maybe a fifty percent tariff right
Speaker 1: on average.
Speaker 9: Execs, So we're seeing the bounce on that as well.
Speaker 1: Real quick thing, Bill Maloney of our Squawk Bloomberg Squak
Speaker 1: saying off air when he was in here doing his report,
Speaker 1: the investco S and P five hundred equal WAIGHTDTF trades
Speaker 1: to an all time low relative to the S and
Speaker 1: P five hundred ETF.
Speaker 9: That's not surprising to me. Why, just quickly, it's because
Speaker 9: of the concentration in what's moving the S and P
Speaker 9: five hundred. In terms of the names that have hit
Speaker 9: new highs in the S and P five hundred, it's
Speaker 9: not that many names, but they're big hitters. They're names
Speaker 9: like Microsoft that are names like in video. So when
Speaker 9: you look at this more equal weighted, you're going to
Speaker 9: see that, yes, there's a lag because the equal weighted
Speaker 9: index has not hit that high because there aren't enough
Speaker 9: participants right now.
Speaker 7: And again just investors not interested bidding them up.
Speaker 1: We're not even though it may be a smarter play
Speaker 1: it or an interesting play.
Speaker 9: Correct, but you know, again, it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 9: It says that there's room for the rally to continue
Speaker 9: to broaden, potentially.
Speaker 7: Jillian Wall, Bloomberg Intelligence, Global Equity Strategies.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us
Speaker 2: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen
Speaker 2: on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 7: The US Antimony reported earnings last night.
Speaker 1: The stocks selling off today, down as much as ten percent,
Speaker 1: despite a second quarter quarterly sales beat excuse me, and
Speaker 1: a jump from last year. So you might be scratching
Speaker 1: your head a little bit and wondering why we are
Speaker 1: talking about this company today. It's not a household name.
Speaker 1: Got that we do though, talk an awful lot as
Speaker 1: of late about the race for rare earth minerals and
Speaker 1: the US amping up its own access and supply. And
Speaker 1: it is companies like United States of Antimony and it's
Speaker 1: CEO that gives us an insight into the pursuit of
Speaker 1: rare Earth's, what's going on and how the US.
Speaker 7: Gets where it needs to be. We welcome Gary Evans.
Speaker 1: He's chairman and CEO of the United States Antimony Corporation.
Speaker 1: It's a small cap miner four hundred and thirty two
Speaker 1: million dollars market cap. Shares have more than double this year,
Speaker 1: and he joins us from our Bloomberg News Dallas bureau.
Speaker 1: Also with US as Bloomberg News Economic stakecraft reporter Jodo.
Speaker 1: He is our go too when it comes to all
Speaker 1: things rare Earth's. He's here in studio, Gary, Welcome.
Speaker 7: Welcome.
Speaker 1: You're not a household name, but I feel like we
Speaker 1: need to know more about what you are up to,
Speaker 1: tell us about your operations, the mind, what you predominantly do.
Speaker 11: Right now, I'm sorry, we're having really audio problems. I
Speaker 11: can't even hear your question.
Speaker 7: Okay, we're going to fix that.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we're going to bring in our Joe Doe,
Speaker 1: because Joe, I do think there are these smaller names.
Speaker 1: We may not know about them. They're publicly held. Obviously,
Speaker 1: investors are noticing this company this year. Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about this company and kind of its role
Speaker 1: in terms of mining and potentially rare earths.
Speaker 10: I think US Antimony is a good example of this
Speaker 10: kind of microcosm of all of these critical minerals andre
Speaker 10: earth companies that are suddenly getting attention from Donald Trump
Speaker 10: and the White House. It's the first thing to know,
Speaker 10: why would you care about a US antimony company? Well,
Speaker 10: you probably wouldn't, but Donald Trump cares about critical minerals.
Speaker 10: Antimony is a critical mineral. What it's best known for.
Speaker 10: Antimony is a use in hardening bullets ammunition. Antimony has
Speaker 10: always been important to the United States Defense Department, and
Speaker 10: that's why they are on the radar all the time,
Speaker 10: is particularly US antimony.
Speaker 1: So Gary, my understanding as we figured out our tech problems,
Speaker 1: we are talking with Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of
Speaker 1: the United States Antimi Corporation. He's there in our Dallas
Speaker 1: News bureau. So Gary, tell us about your world, and
Speaker 1: I am curious, are you in this pursuit by the
Speaker 1: US to amp up its rare earth minerals exposure and capacity.
Speaker 7: If the US government is reaching out to you, so first.
Speaker 11: Of all, it should be a distinction. We're we're in
Speaker 11: the category of critical minerals. There's critical minerals and there's
Speaker 11: rare earth, and so the public needs to understand there's
Speaker 11: a significant distinction critical minerals. As an antimony producer, we're
Speaker 11: number one on the DLDS a critical mineral list. And
Speaker 11: the problem is there is no antimony today being mined
Speaker 11: in either the United States or Canada. It all has
Speaker 11: to come from international sources. We were all getting every
Speaker 11: country in the world was getting most of their antimony
Speaker 11: from China. China controls sixty five percent of world antimony
Speaker 11: or the raw or in the ground, and they control
Speaker 11: eighty five percent of the downstream processing, which is what
Speaker 11: we do. So fortunately, we're in a position of having
Speaker 11: a smelter in Montana and one in Mexico, which makes
Speaker 11: us the only two operating smelters for antimony in North America.
Speaker 11: And therefore, as you said earlier, we're getting a lot
Speaker 11: of attention from the US government. They want us to
Speaker 11: expand our operation I think I read a report in April.
Speaker 11: We only have like a five percent supply in our stockpile.
Speaker 11: So we're trying to ramp up our business to meet
Speaker 11: this critical need. And as Joe said, there's no question
Speaker 11: that antimony is needed by the military. It's used predominantly,
Speaker 11: as he said, in bullets, but it's also used in
Speaker 11: laser guided missile, night vision cameras, night vision binoculars, and
Speaker 11: what have you. So it's a very necessary element for
Speaker 11: the military.
Speaker 5: Hey, Joe Dee, come on back in here.
Speaker 3: We heard from Gary just now that the antimony mining
Speaker 3: is not done here in the US or in Canada.
Speaker 3: Is it possible to do it here in the US?
Speaker 3: Do we have the material to mine? And it's just
Speaker 3: not done for environmental reasons. It's not done because we
Speaker 3: don't have the mineral rights to it, or the companies
Speaker 3: none of the mineral rights to it. Like why has
Speaker 3: this been moved to China? I understand from a processing perspective,
Speaker 3: why that's happened with rare earths, Yeah, but with a
Speaker 3: critical mineral like antimony, Why why is that not happening here?
Speaker 10: Well, I mean I think you go to deposits, you
Speaker 10: know how good is the deposit and you can pull
Speaker 10: it out of the ground, and then who can process it?
Speaker 10: And this is a question that I have talked about
Speaker 10: now quite a bit with Gary over the last few months.
Speaker 10: And you know, Gary, I think I think your better
Speaker 10: position to talk about that to an investor class. I mean,
Speaker 10: you know, you talked to your investors yesterday on your
Speaker 10: earnings call and they asked you about the potential of
Speaker 10: beginning mining in the United States anytime soon, and you
Speaker 10: effectively told them probably it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Speaker 10: So where where is kind of the upside here?
Speaker 11: We've been working on acquiring leases in both Montana and Alaska.
Speaker 11: With acquire close to thirty thousand acres of property in Alaska,
Speaker 11: and we've taken over the mountain area where our smelter is.
Speaker 11: It used to be an area that we mined some
Speaker 11: twenty years ago. So it's coming right now. We're held
Speaker 11: up by permitting. We spiled permits in Alaska back in May.
Speaker 11: And so getting back to your question, why isn't this
Speaker 11: being done? The EPA and the federal government, whether it
Speaker 11: be the Force Service, the BLM native tribes, everybody tried
Speaker 11: to stop mining in the United States, and unfortunately our
Speaker 11: laws allowed that, and that's why you see mining occurring
Speaker 11: all over the world except the US.
Speaker 5: It's coming back. There's no doubt.
Speaker 11: This administration is very pro mining, and we have the resources.
Speaker 11: There's no question that we can meet the demand for
Speaker 11: the United States with just our Alaska properties.
Speaker 5: We have no doubt about that, and that's going to
Speaker 5: happen soon.
Speaker 11: I would think in the next thirty days we'll be
Speaker 11: able to bring our first loads of antimony truck from
Speaker 11: Alaska to our facility Thompson Falls, Montana.
Speaker 3: Gary, How would you describe the conversations now with members
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration with this government versus your conversations
Speaker 3: during the Biden administration. How are they different.
Speaker 11: Well, we started talking to the Department of Defense back
Speaker 11: last September. This is right when China banned all antimony
Speaker 11: sales to any country in the world, and of course
Speaker 11: our Department of Defense was getting all their antimony from China,
Speaker 11: so it raised a lot of red flags. And we've
Speaker 11: been negotiating various agreements and contracts with the Department Defense
Speaker 11: and the DLA since that period of time. As we
Speaker 11: mentioned on the call yesterday, were very close we think
Speaker 11: to announcing some things. It's not done yet, but there's
Speaker 11: definitely a mindset change. Addressing your question from the Biden
Speaker 11: administration to the Trump administration. For instance, we'll have to
Speaker 11: respond to a request from the DoD and they say
Speaker 11: can you have it to us by Friday. We give
Speaker 11: it to them Friday five o'clock and by eight thirty
Speaker 11: Monday morning we have a redline response. It's not very
Speaker 11: often you see the government working over the weekend.
Speaker 5: So there's no question.
Speaker 11: This is a high ticket item with our existing administration,
Speaker 11: and there's a fire been lit.
Speaker 5: Gary.
Speaker 10: Despite the fact that you're getting a lot more attention
Speaker 10: from the Trump administration and they seem to be speeding
Speaker 10: things up, i'd still ask what is the hold up?
Speaker 10: And I know this was a big question you got
Speaker 10: on the call yesterday with investors. They kind of seem
Speaker 10: to be saying, when are you going to get some
Speaker 10: sort of announcement from the government. What's going on.
Speaker 11: We're in a period where contractual changes are being made.
Speaker 11: There was an open comment period respect to the DLA
Speaker 11: that ended actually yesterday afternoon. So I'm very confident we're
Speaker 11: near the finish line. But it has taken in amount
Speaker 11: of time, and there's been a lot of reasons that
Speaker 11: I can't really talk about today for that delay. But
Speaker 11: we have to make sure that whatever contract or whatever
Speaker 11: agreement we signed with the government.
Speaker 5: Is beneficial to our shareholders.
Speaker 11: In the first drafts were not, and so we had
Speaker 11: to make sure that we negotiated as best we could
Speaker 11: to maximize the value for our shareholders, but also give
Speaker 11: the federal government a fair trade. You know, we're we're
Speaker 11: we pay taxes, we know, and so it was it
Speaker 11: was that was very necessary.
Speaker 1: Forgive me if I miss this, But is the agreement
Speaker 1: that you might be working out with the government akin
Speaker 1: to what we saw with MP Materials, which has a
Speaker 1: four hundred million dollar equity investment by the Department of
Speaker 1: Defense into the company. And we know that MP Materials
Speaker 1: is certainly working specifically in the rare earth materials area.
Speaker 1: So could it possibly be that the government DoD makes
Speaker 1: an equity investment in you guys as part of an
Speaker 1: agreement so that you can do what you need to
Speaker 1: in terms of ramping up either production or your facilities.
Speaker 11: So obviously that's on the table, I think with us
Speaker 11: as well a lot of other companies. I think we're
Speaker 11: in a little bit unique position in that we have
Speaker 11: a four hundred and fifty million dollar market cap, we
Speaker 11: have our own cash, we have our own capital. We
Speaker 11: need more of a big brother than a huge capital investment. Now,
Speaker 11: as we ramp up this year and do the things
Speaker 11: that we've told the public we plan on doing and
Speaker 11: the DoD, I think there's a very good chance in
Speaker 11: twenty twenty six if we want to do another smelter,
Speaker 11: if we want to do another project we also are
Speaker 11: involved in tungsten and cobalt, two other critical minerals, then
Speaker 11: those type of opportunities exist. But what we're negotiating today
Speaker 11: and have been for the last eight months is something different.
Speaker 11: It's very positive for our company, but it's not a
Speaker 11: direct investment by the government.
Speaker 10: Gary, I want to kind of bring people into what's
Speaker 10: at stake here, or at least what is being said
Speaker 10: is at stake. As you mentioned, the Chinese officials put
Speaker 10: an export control on antimony, which came well after the
Speaker 10: ermine and gallium that so many people talked about a
Speaker 10: couple of years ago. Have you guys experienced any of
Speaker 10: these effects of export controls on antimony from China.
Speaker 5: Yes, unfortunately we have.
Speaker 11: We were acquiring material from a company of Australia and
Speaker 11: we were taking that material their fifty five ton container
Speaker 11: loads to our smelter in Madero, Mexico, and that particular,
Speaker 11: this third load that we acquired was transloaded over in
Speaker 11: China in April, and the Chinese customs confiscated our container,
Speaker 11: took it off the ship and held it for ninety days,
Speaker 11: gave us no reason. All the paperwork was correct, it
Speaker 11: had been paid for, and we finally had to get
Speaker 11: the State Department in the White House involved for some reason.
Speaker 11: Finally they released it. It showed back up in Australia,
Speaker 11: did not come to us. They sent it back to Australia.
Speaker 11: Was arrived there about three or four days ago. It's
Speaker 11: currently on a ship to Mexico.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 11: So from now on, obviously, whoever we buy antimony from,
Speaker 11: we're in a putting in our contracts. They cannot stop
Speaker 11: in China because China did this. For whatever reason, we
Speaker 11: know this company used to sell antimony to China. Maybe
Speaker 11: they were mad the fact that said us antimony on
Speaker 11: it maybe was ticked them off. I don't know, but
Speaker 11: they definitely made a statement with what they did.
Speaker 3: We're speaking with Gary Evan's chairman and CEO of United
Speaker 3: States Antimony Corps, also with US US Economic Staatecraft reporter
Speaker 3: Joe Dell.
Speaker 10: Gary a follow up on that, I mean, what is this?
Speaker 10: What does this really say? I like, should people actually
Speaker 10: be concerned? I mean, eventually your antimony is getting to
Speaker 10: you here at your Mexico location. Like, are are sounding
Speaker 10: too many alarm bells on this front?
Speaker 5: I don't think so.
Speaker 11: I really I doubt in our lifetime as we'll ever
Speaker 11: see antimony coming out of China again.
Speaker 5: We know their largest min was depleted last year.
Speaker 11: Ever, and so ever, I don't think we'll ever see
Speaker 11: antimony coming out of China. There is truly a worldwide
Speaker 11: shortage of this product. Is so difficult for us to
Speaker 11: find product. That's why we went and started mining it ourselves.
Speaker 11: There's just not any supply.
Speaker 3: Presidents love to talk about energy independence, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: if they're Democrats or Republicans. Do we get to a
Speaker 3: point where they can talk about antimony independence and we
Speaker 3: can get one hundred percent of what the US needs
Speaker 3: from US supplies?
Speaker 11: I have no doubt that we can meet all the
Speaker 11: needs of our government as well as our industrial customers
Speaker 11: from Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Speaker 5: We don't need to go anywhere else.
Speaker 3: When will we be able to do that in the
Speaker 3: next three.
Speaker 5: To five years. It's not going to happen overnight. You know.
Speaker 3: In the last few years, you would have said the Canada,
Speaker 3: United States, and Mexico, and I would have thought, okay,
Speaker 3: that could work. These countries can all work together. But
Speaker 3: over the last few months we've seen trade tensions flare,
Speaker 3: especially with our neighbors to the north and our neighbors
Speaker 3: to the south. How does that affect way you look
Speaker 3: at the industry in your own business.
Speaker 11: No question that. You know, Mexico has a new president.
Speaker 11: She's very anti mining. Fortunately the minds that we have
Speaker 11: in Mexico or grandfather, but you know, there needs to
Speaker 11: be greater collaboration.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 11: THEDD looks at Canada dislike it was the United States.
Speaker 11: So any project we find up there, the DD likes
Speaker 11: it and looks at it as a domiciled country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that as a separate country or because they
Speaker 1: want to take it over?
Speaker 11: Well, you know the fifty first state, of course, is
Speaker 11: what I'm talking about now.
Speaker 1: So you're saying relations between the two nations are comfortable,
Speaker 1: and despite what we have in the headlines, you're saying
Speaker 1: that they are working and cooperating because they understand they
Speaker 1: kind of need each other.
Speaker 11: Yeah, Canada needs antimony just as bad as the United
Speaker 11: States needs antimony. And Canada is a very pro mining country.
Speaker 11: So that's why we have a lot of activities like
Speaker 11: I mentioned in tungsten and cobalt in Canada.
Speaker 5: Gary.
Speaker 10: These conversations you have with defense officials, how dire are
Speaker 10: they indicating to you that the antimony shortage is for them?
Speaker 11: When you see the announcemus will be making, you'll understand
Speaker 11: it's pretty dire. Can you give us we have the
Speaker 11: lowest We have the lowest amount of antimony supplies in
Speaker 11: the inventory for our government since World War Two. You've
Speaker 11: got to remember we're funding Israel, we're funding Ukraine, and
Speaker 11: we've dwindled our supplies and at the same time China
Speaker 11: cut us off. So it's a double edged sword. People
Speaker 11: are waking up that hey, we have a problem.
Speaker 3: So what does that mean for national defense? Like, what
Speaker 3: would your message be to viewers and listeners right now
Speaker 3: about how critical this mineral is.
Speaker 11: It's a it's an extremely critical mineral. And there's there's
Speaker 11: you know, people that have tried to replicate antimony with
Speaker 11: other synthetic antimony and hasn't worked very well at all.
Speaker 11: In fact, it's three times ex expensive. I do think
Speaker 11: they'll be continued upward pressure on the price because we
Speaker 11: cannot meet we can't come close to meet our customer mans.
Speaker 5: We're going to we're changing that.
Speaker 11: We have a substantial expansion going on in Montana that'll
Speaker 11: be done by the end of the year.
Speaker 5: But you know, it's just gonna take some time. It's
Speaker 5: not gonna happen overnight.
Speaker 11: It's not like there's a huge pile of antimony sitting
Speaker 11: over here in some country waiting to go to market.
Speaker 11: It's all it's all depleted. So we're having to find
Speaker 11: new areas to find the.
Speaker 1: Ore Gary, how long has the dwindling supply issue been
Speaker 1: going on for? And I'm just curious if you had
Speaker 1: conversations with the Bidy administration as well.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 11: Because China was selling so much antimony around the world, nobody.
Speaker 5: Cared about it.
Speaker 11: China kept the price artificially low, less less than five
Speaker 11: dollars a pound. Today the price is twenty five to
Speaker 11: twenty seven dollars a pound and probably going higher. I
Speaker 11: really believe we'll see fifty dollars a pound in the
Speaker 11: next year.
Speaker 5: So, you know, the.
Speaker 11: Fact that we were so fact that we're so dependent
Speaker 11: upon China and had blindfolds on that all of a
Speaker 11: sudden they cut it off, had nothing to do with
Speaker 11: Trump coming in office. This happen in last September, so
Speaker 11: it's been a year since they cut everybody off.
Speaker 5: It's not just the United States.
Speaker 11: They cut off every country in the world, the European Union,
Speaker 11: all other countries that were buying antimony. You can sell
Speaker 11: antimony to China when you get nothing back in return
Speaker 11: other than cash.
Speaker 10: Gary, what's the biggest hurdle US antimony faces right now
Speaker 10: in getting more antimony production up and out the door.
Speaker 11: If I had my permits right now in Alaska and
Speaker 11: in Montana, i'd have antimony in our smelters. I don't
Speaker 11: have those permits yet. And you know, we're doing everything
Speaker 11: we can to speed it along. There's people in Alaska
Speaker 11: that don't want to see mining, and the group called
Speaker 11: Save our Domes. We've done pr work. We're doing everything
Speaker 11: we can to a greeze. The skids to make sure
Speaker 11: that people understand that we're trying to clean up. This
Speaker 11: is antimony left on the ground the last one hundred
Speaker 11: years from gold miners in Alaska. We're picking it up,
Speaker 11: putting in super sacks and bringing it to Montana. We're
Speaker 11: cleaning up the place, and people are fighting that. So
Speaker 11: it's an education process that we've got a lot of
Speaker 11: pr we're doing, and we're obviously working with senators, House members,
Speaker 11: we're working with the President. We're working with a lot
Speaker 11: of people. You'll see some other news about that next week.
Speaker 10: Gary would would the Defense Department be your only customer?
Speaker 11: We currently have seventeen industrial customers. We have one particular customer.
Speaker 11: It would take one hundred percent of our supply. So
Speaker 11: that gives you an idea. The industrial side is much
Speaker 11: greater than the Department of Defense. And that's you know,
Speaker 11: one thing in these contracts we're been working on. They've
Speaker 11: made sure that we don't take away the business from
Speaker 11: the industrial side. And that's why we're ramping up because
Speaker 11: the government needs a stockpile which they currently don't have, and.
Speaker 5: We're the only provider.
Speaker 11: There's nobody else, it's China, it's us, antimony and a
Speaker 11: smelter in Belgium.
Speaker 1: That's it for the whole world. All right, We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to leave it there. I got to say, this
Speaker 1: is one of those interviews.
Speaker 7: I know Joe knows this.
Speaker 1: Stuff, but I certainly take a lot away from from it.
Speaker 1: Great Gary, Thank you so much. Gary Evans, chairman CEO
Speaker 1: of US Antimony, joining us from our bureau in Dallas,
Speaker 1: and of course our in house expert on all things
Speaker 1: when it comes to mining. Bloomberg News Economic Staecraft reporter Jodoe.
Speaker 1: By the way, shares of US antimony timp there up
Speaker 1: about one hundred and seventeen percent here today.
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