Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over
(…) “I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” Trump told CNBC’s Eamon Javers in a phone interview midday Monday, saying he thought the protracted discussions “started to get very boring.” (…)
Trump asserted that prices at the pump will drop “very quickly.” But he also repeatedly signaled he was in no hurry to restart the stalled negotiations with Iran.
“If they’re over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring,” Trump told CNBC.
CNBC also posted the full transcript of the interview. My picks:
- Well, that’s part of being a negotiator, but they don’t have any cards, because a lot of people would be very happy. Stock market is just down a little bit. Yeah, it’s alright.
- They would, if I wanted them to, but they would. I want them to. We don’t need them. We don’t need NATO. They were very, very weak and very sad. What they said, they said we’ll help you as soon as the war is over. NATO, Europe has lost its way. They have a tremendous immigration problem, and they have a tremendous energy problem, because all they want to do is build windmills all over the place, so anyway.
- Well, call me. You can call me tomorrow, and I’ll talk to you about it. Let’s see what’s going on – okay?
From Axios:
President Trump lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon during an expletive-laden call yesterday, Axios’ Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo report.
- Summarizing Trump’s remarks to Netanyahu, a U.S. official said: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
- A second source briefed on the call said Trump was “pissed” and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: “What the fuck are you doing?”
- “I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel,
and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their
way, have already been turned back,” Trump
wrote afterward.- Israel didn’t intend to send troops to Beirut, but rather to conduct massive
airstrikes that could have knocked down buildings in the southern suburbs of
Beirut where some of Hezbollah’s headquarters are located.Trump also claimed he’d had a “very good call” with “highly placed Representatives” of Hezbollah who agreed “that all shooting will stop — That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”
- It is not clear which representatives he was referring to.
“So, I spoke with Hezbollah, and I said no shooting, and I talked to Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu], and said, no shooting, and they both stopped shooting each other.”
Trump claimed on Monday after his call with Netanyahu that the Iran negotiations “are continuing, at a rapid pace.”
In a short statement, Netanyahu said Israel’s position in Lebanon “remains unchanged” and his military will “continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.” (Bloomberg)
What’s so boring?
INFLATION WATCH
Commodity Prices and AI-Related Effects Continue to Boost Inflation (Goldman Sachs)
- Iran war effects: We have raised our December 2026 year-over-year headline PCE inflation forecast by 1.4pp since the start of the war, with most of the boost coming from higher energy prices.
- Oil prices have increased sharply since the start of the Iran war, with spot prices rising from $71/barrel on average in February to $117/barrel on average in April, $108/barrel on average in May, and $92/barrel today. Our oil strategists expect Brent crude oil prices to decline to $90/barrel by 2026Q4, but they see risks as two-sided with significant upside risks from potentially more persistent supply losses but meaningful downside risk from weaker demand. We expect higher energy prices to boost core PCE inflation by roughly 0.35pp this year.
- The war has also raised prices of other Gulf exports including chemical and metal products such as nitrogen fertilizer and aluminum. We expect higher fertilizer costs to boost food prices by roughly 1.0% this year.
- AI-Related effects: Strong demand for AI infrastructure has raised the prices of some key electronics inputs, including digital memory and batteries.
- For example, the producer price index for electronic components and accessories increased by 20% on a year-over-year basis in April.
AI-related spending has likely put some upward pressure on software prices in recent years, as several companies have recently raised software prices.- Strong demand for data centers is boosting electricity demand and power prices.
- Computer software and accessories prices in the PCE price index increased by 5.0% month-over-month in April after increasing by 4.0% in March and 6.5% in February. This likely reflects a combination of higher accessories prices as a result of memory cost increases and higher software prices.
- Tariff effects: We estimate that the share of tariff costs that has passed through to consumer prices reached 90% after 13 months.
We estimate that tariffs have boosted current year-over-year core PCE inflation by 0.9pp and will contribute 0.1pp at the end of 2026. We expect core goods inflation to decelerate from a year-over-year pace of 2.8% in April 2026 to 1.8% in December 2026 and 0.5% in December 2027 as tariff cost passthrough to goods prices comes to an end.- Inflation expectations: Inflation expectations have increased notably since the start of the Iran war. Short-term inflation expectations increased in both the UMich (+0.1pp to +4.8%, 1yr ahead) and NY Fed (+0.2pp to +3.6%, 1yr ahead) surveys. Long-term household inflation expectations increased notably in the University of Michigan survey (+0.4pp to +3.9%, next 5-10yr) while the New York Fed measure declined (-0.1pp to +3.0%, 5yr ahead).
Financial market-implied expectations for annualized headline CPI inflation over the next few years were little changed over the past month but have increased sharply since the start of the Iran war.GS inflation forecast: We estimate that core PCE inflation net of tariff effects stands at roughly 2.4% in April. Inclusive of tariff effects, we expect core PCE inflation to decline to 2.8% by December 2026. We expect core CPI inflation to decline from 2.7% in April to 2.5% in December 2026 and 2.1% in December 2027.
All 3 GS scenarios see inflation peaking in Q4’26 and lead to similar inflation numbers at the end of 2027…
I wonder if GS considered that the war in Iran and the AI boom have significantly driven China’s unit export prices upward (+5% YoY), after three years of decline. Conversely, China’s import price index surged 19% in RMB due to disrupted oil supplies and semiconductor shortages.
“The longer the strait is closed, the more inventories are run down, the more likely it is that we reach ‘tipping points’ in the markets for some commodities,” analysts including Paul Bloxham said in a June 1 report. Still, knowing exactly when that might happen is hard to determine, they added.
(…) “this is very different to earlier ‘super-cycles’, because it is driven by supply disruptions,” the analysts said. “Rather than a ‘super-cycle’, we have been calling it a ‘super-squeeze’,” they said, highlighting earlier bank research.
With Hormuz still all-but shuttered, oil stockpiles “may reach critical functional lows, which could see sharper — non-linear — price rises and genuine shortages,” they warned.
- S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI: Notable upturns in production and new orders amid stockpiling efforts but prices surge higher again
A sharp and stronger improvement in US manufacturing conditions was signaled by May’s S&P Global PMI data amid the sharpest upturn in production since April 2022.
New orders increased markedly again, but growth in both output and sales was in part driven by stock building as firms sought to protect themselves from supply chain disruption and steeply rising prices caused principally by the war in the Middle East, which remained a notable headwind for the sector.
Overall new orders increased at a sharp pace, albeit softer than in April and largely driven by client efforts to build stock given expectations of further price rises and supply delays.
Exports remained a notable source of demand weakness, falling overall for the eleventh month in a row.
Indeed, manufacturing input costs rose at a rate unmatched in nearly four years, whilst supplier delivery times deteriorated to the greatest extent since August 2022.
Manufacturers’ own charges rose to the greatest extent since September 2022 as they sought to pass through their own higher expenses to clients wherever possible.
The ISM report was similar as Wolfstreet shows, adding that “employment was still in contraction in May from April (48.6%)”.
Asian manufacturers are also feeling it: S&P Global says “both cost burdens and charges rose at substantial and historically marked rates.”
Actually, manufacturing inflation is global as JP Morgan Global Manufacturing data shows:
Average input prices rose to the greatest extent in almost four years, with accelerations in regions such as the US, the euro area and Japan more than offsetting weaker cost increases in nations including mainland China, India and South Korea.
Average selling prices also rose sharply, with the rate of increase staying close to April’s 45-month high.
China’s manufacturing inflation:
The White House said it will reduce tariffs on farm and construction equipment such as harvesters and forklifts, in an effort to boost investment in the industrial economy through next year.
Under a proclamation issued late Monday, those import taxes would drop to 15% from 25%. Foreign companies could qualify for a lower 10% duty rate if capital equipment contains at least 85% US steel or aluminum, according to a White House fact sheet.
The changes take effect June 8 and would run through the end of 2027. (…)
In April, the administration lowered tariffs to 25% on some imported derivative goods deemed to be “substantially made” of steel, aluminum or copper while maintaining a higher 50% rate on many other imports containing the metals. (…)
Trump cited rising costs as a justification for the move.
“Among other things, the Secretary has informed me that recent circumstances have affected and are affecting domestic industries that use agricultural equipment, industrial equipment and machinery, and other related products,” the president’s proclamation reads.
America’s New Financial Middle: Not in Crisis, Not Thriving Either In a poll, more than half of respondents consider themselves financially ‘conflicted’
(…) “We’re like, ‘oh my God, what if we have an emergency?’” he said. “Are we going to be able to stand up from that?’”
Some 51% of U.S. adults place themselves alongside Wallace in this financial gray area, according to a new survey by Edward Jones and Gallup, their first on the topic.
The survey, expected to be released Tuesday, labels this group financially “conflicted,” with respondents describing feeling a mix of stability and uncertainty. Roughly 5,000 people were polled in late March and early April.
People feel conflicted because they are weighing more than today’s bills, according to Penny Pennington, managing partner at Edward Jones. They are looking ahead at the schools their children and grandchildren might attend, the lives they will lead and the cost of making it possible.
Just 16% of respondents expressed a state of confidence about their money, a separate bucket that the survey categorizes as financially “fulfilled.” On the other end of the spectrum, 32% said they were financially stressed.
The state of limbo cuts across income levels. Roughly seven in 10 households earning $135,000 or more said they don’t feel financially fulfilled.
Conflicted! Here’s why:
Investors are also conflicted as Ed Yardeni explains:
Now, there are some caveats to this market rally worth discussing, and even Walter Murphy is getting bothered, in this latest leg up, by the lack of breadth.
Almost every day when the S&P 500 goes up, he shows me how declining stocks are vastly outnumbering the advancers. Only one sector has made a new one-month high relative to the S&P 500.
By contrast, six are at, or near, multi-year relative lows. While the overall market is at all-time peaks, only two of the eleven sectors have managed to reach that status. It is indeed a very rare situation to be talking about a stock market at record highs at the same time that the Financials, of all sectors, are very nearly in correction mode (down almost -10% from their record highs).
Gold replaces US Treasuries as world’s top reserve asset, ECB says
Bullion accounted for 27 per cent of all global central bank reserve assets at the end of 2025, up from 20 per cent a year earlier, according to a report published on Tuesday by the European Central Bank. US Treasuries fell to 22 per cent from 25 per cent over the same period.
The share of euro-denominated reserve assets was unchanged at 15 per cent.
The shifting composition of reserve assets — highly liquid holdings that central banks use to support their currencies, meet international payment obligations and provide liquidity in times of financial turmoil — reflects an attempt by many countries to seek alternatives to the US dollar, the world’s de facto reserve currency. Those efforts have accelerated since 2022, when Washington used sanctions to freeze Russia’s dollar reserves over the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Geopolitical tensions continue to drive strong central bank demand for gold,” wrote ECB president Christine Lagarde in Tuesday’s report. (…)
But gold’s surge past US Treasuries — traditionally the bedrock of international dollar reserve holdings — is also the result of its spectacular price gains in recent years. The metal hit a high of more than $5,500 a troy ounce in January.
Dollar-denominated assets as a whole still make up the biggest chunk of reserves at 42 per cent, the ECB data showed. Central banks’ gold purchases slowed slightly to 850 tonnes in 2025 after three years of net purchases of more than 1,000 tonnes per year. The biggest accumulators of gold reserves since 2022 were China, Poland, Turkey and India, the report showed.
However, stablecoin company Tether became the single biggest buyer in 2025, purchasing more than 100 tonnes of gold.
After buying 220 tonnes of gold since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Turkey in early 2026 enacted what the ECB called “one of the largest reserve drawdowns in recent years” as it sold or loaned 130 tonnes of gold after the start of the Iran war.
The ECB report said the international role of the euro grew “gradually but steadily over the past decade”. The issuance of international debt denominated in euros rose by 30 per cent to a “record high” of close to €1tn last year, while international investors poured a net €850bn into euro area assets, pushing foreign portfolio inflows “near peak levels since the creation of the euro”.
Also conflicted: the above is not totally unrelated to the below.
(…) In a scathing ruling on May 14, Judge McElroy called the government’s account “misleading, if not utterly false.” At issue in Judge McElroy’s view was the “awesome power” wielded by government lawyers and the trust that they will “play fair and be honest” with courts.
The Justice Department “has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case,” she wrote.
The opinion was one of several heated rulings from federal judges in recent weeks castigating the government’s lawyers for withholding information and making assertions that turned out to be at odds with the facts.
A judge in Chicago said transcripts of grand jury proceedings had been redacted to hide misconduct by her district’s U.S. attorney’s office. Another judge in Rhode Island referred an assistant U.S. attorney for potential discipline after he admitted that he had knowingly withheld information from the court.
Like the one involving the Rhode Island hospital, the complaints have come as administration lawyers seek to defend major parts of President Trump’s agenda.
The government lawyers whose honesty the judges have called into question are a mix of career civil servants, political appointees and newcomers brought in as the Justice Department makes a public hiring push to fill its depleted ranks. Their missteps in court come as the department’s leadership takes an unusually combative tone with judges who rule against them, and department lawyers try to balance judges’ demands against the often stubborn posture of the executive-branch clients they represent.
But regardless, an increasing number of judges appear to be questioning the longtime assumption that Justice Department lawyers can be taken at their word, part of the “presumption of regularity” that experts say allows federal courts to operate swiftly and smoothly. (…)
By giving voice to their lack of trust, the judges are heralding major risk to a legal order that has been in place since Watergate. Codified in a Justice Department reference text called the Justice Manual, the basic idea is that department lawyers should be held to a higher standard because they carry with them the reputation of the entire executive branch. (…)
“You can’t hide the ball. You have to be honest,” said Andrew C. Mergen, who served in the Justice Department for more than 30 years under presidents of both parties and now teaches at Harvard Law School. The pattern of judges accusing department lawyers of dishonesty, he said, “is such an extraordinarily awful look for the Justice Department.” (…)
Judges have over the past year called out the administration for making dodgy legal arguments, filing dishonest testimony and failing to comply with court orders. Some of the earlier problems stem from the fact that Justice Department lawyers often represent other government agencies in court, including the Homeland Security Department, which has proved to be a difficult client, particularly in immigration cases.
But judges have taken a distinctly harsher tone in recent weeks, assigning responsibility directly to individual Justice Department lawyers for their own representations in court.
“This reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court is appalling,” wrote Judge McElroy, referring to lawyers’ ethical obligation to never knowingly present false evidence or make false statements of fact or law. She cited recent cases in Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon in which other judges raised questions about the government’s honesty.
The same issue arose in Chicago, where Judge April M. Perry found that Justice Department lawyers had improperly influenced a grand jury in a case in which the government was seeking indictments against four activists who were protesting outside an immigration detention facility.
Beyond the potential misconduct with the grand jury, Judge Perry found the lawyers were dishonest with her by cutting out portions of transcripts they provided her about what had unfolded. (…)
In public statements, Justice Department officials have attacked “rogue judges” and “activist judges,” who they claimed were abusing their authority, and in some cases filed misconduct complaints against them. Judge DuBose and Judge Perry are appointees of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Judge McElroy was appointed by Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Mergen, the Harvard law professor, said he has heard from career Justice Department lawyers who were demoralized by the pressures of the job, particularly the flood of petitions from immigrants challenging their detention. Pressure from the high workload, he said, was aggravated by a combination of a politicized institutional culture and judges’ growing skepticism — all of which could be contributing to the courtroom missteps.
“The risk is that the longer this goes on, the fewer good people are willing to stay,” he said. “Over time, it will get harder to do even the routine cases if judges don’t trust you.”
During prior administrations, a job as an assistant U.S. attorney was a coveted status marker for lawyers. Under the Trump administration, the department has borrowed lawyers from the Homeland Security Department and the military, posted job solicitations online and offered starting bonuses. Not only are applications down, but those who are applying are also generally less qualified, officials have said. (…)