

U.S. import duties now generate $20 billion to $30 billion a month, a revenue stream many executives expect to survive Trump's departure in January 2029 and reshape trade policy for years. "Politicians need to raise funds to pay for all the things that they do, and it's hard for them to look at a stream of revenue and turn it down," said Rick Woldenberg, chief executive of Learning Resources, the educational-toy maker that was lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case invalidating some of Trump's tariffs earlier this year. The effective tariff rate — duties collected divided by the value of imports — peaked near 11 percent in Trump's second term before easing to about 7 percent, according to Robert McClelland, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. That compares with a peak of 3 percent in his first term, a level that held roughly steady under President Joe Biden. Import duties on steel now stand at 50 percent, benefiting Cleveland-Cliffs, the largest steel supplier to the U.S. auto industry. The steady revenue stream gives any successor a financial reason to keep tariffs in place, even as the 2028 campaign splits on the policy. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have framed duties as a tool for trade fairness, while Democrats including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have denounced them as a tax on consumers. ## Supply Chains Rewire Around Tariffs Companies have begun restructuring supply chains in ways they are unlikely to reverse. Off-road vehicle maker Polaris aims to cut the share of its cost of goods sold originating from China to below 5 percent by the end of 2027, chief executive Mike Speetzen told analysts this week, reducing its tariff burden. "We expect to see meaningful savings over the coming years should tariff policy remain consistent with where things stand today," he said. Foreign automakers, among the most exposed to the duties, have responded by expanding U.S. manufacturing, a shift Jennifer Safavian, chief executive of the lobby group Autos Drive America, said will likely continue regardless of future tariff policy. Australian off-road accessories maker ARB told shareholders last fall it did not expect Washington to move away from tariffs once Trump leaves office. ## A Revenue Stream Hard to Abandon The political math favors persistence. Import duties deliver $20 billion to $30 billion to the Treasury every month, and John Iselin, associate director of economic analysis at the Budget Lab at Yale, said that money could be hard for any president to forgo. A new administration might shift which industries it protects or how it deploys tariffs as a diplomatic lever, he said, but "you could imagine a certain level of tariffs staying in place designed to serve a particular agenda." The stakes extend beyond Washington. Import prices rose 7.1 percent from June 2025 to June 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the U.S. economy expanded at a sluggish 1.5 percent annual pace in the second quarter. Tariffs have cost businesses across the country billions of dollars and stoked inflation that continues to run above the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target, complicating the outlook for the midterm elections in November. Lourenco Goncalves, chief executive of Cleveland-Cliffs, argued the duties are here to stay. "There's nobody that will come and say, 'Oh, you know what? It's a good thing to import steel from China. Let's go ahead and let China go back to their control over the market,'" he told analysts last week. Biden did not overturn the first-term steel duties, he noted, so the next president's party may prove immaterial. For Woldenberg, whose company sued again last week after Trump imposed new duties, the durability of tariffs is a question of incentives. "For the question of what happens after Trump, the answer is who knows?" he said. "Politicians need to raise funds to pay for all the things that they do, and it's hard for them to look at a stream of revenue and turn it down." This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

Russian overnight airstrikes killed at least eight people and wounded more than 50 across Ukraine, as Kyiv intercepted just one of nine ballistic missiles while a deepening Patriot interceptor shortage takes hold. "Each partner knows what is needed and fully understands the consequences of delay," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram, repeating his urgent appeal for more Patriot interceptors from the U.S. and other Western allies. Ukraine's air force intercepted 54 of 61 Russian cruise missiles and 265 of 284 Shahed-style drones, but ballistic missiles proved nearly unstoppable. A direct hit on a family home near Kryviy Rih killed several children and their parents, while more than 56,000 people took shelter in Kyiv's subway stations. One Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace and exploded in a field near Tarnawa-Kolonia in the Lublin province, prompting Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to call the violation a "serious incident." The attack came two days after Zelensky met with President Trump in Washington, where Trump expressed support for licensing Ukraine to manufacture Patriot interceptors domestically. But production timelines remain long, and the U.S.-Iran war has drained existing stockpiles, leaving Ukraine dependent on a supply chain that cannot keep pace with Russia's escalating bombardment. The barrage spanned at least 10 Ukrainian regions, with Russia launching more than 70 missiles and over 280 attack drones. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, six people were killed including a 6-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17, whose parents also died in the same strike. Two more children were pulled alive from the rubble, Zelensky said. In Kyiv, a 31-year-old man was killed and residential buildings, a market and storage facilities were damaged. Lviv suffered 34 wounded, including three children ages 6, 13 and 15. The Polish incident marks the second time a Russian projectile has entered NATO airspace during the war. In November 2022, a missile killed two people in Przewodów, Poland, near the Ukrainian border. That incident was ultimately attributed to Ukrainian air defense, but Thursday's confirmed Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossing represents a more direct violation. Polish authorities launched an F-16 to intercept the object, but it disappeared from radar before identification, and a helicopter crew later discovered the impact site in an undeveloped area. Ukraine's military has demonstrated greater success against non-ballistic threats, intercepting 54 of 61 cruise missiles and 265 of 284 drones. But ballistic missiles travel at hypersonic speeds and descend at steep angles, making them nearly impossible to stop without Patriot systems. The interceptor shortage has been compounded by the U.S.-Iran conflict, which consumed large numbers of Patriots from existing stocks. ## Patriot Gap: One of Nine Ballistic Missiles Intercepted Zelensky has urged Washington to release interceptors from current U.S. inventories while the manufacturing license proposal moves forward. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the Polish airspace violation "highlights the need to strengthen Ukraine's air defense very urgently," noting that adequate defenses would intercept missiles before they reach NATO airspace. The defense implications extend beyond Ukraine. European NATO members rely on the same Patriot interceptor systems to protect their own airspace, and the U.S.-Iran war has demonstrated that demand now exceeds supply across multiple theaters. Russia's strategy appears calibrated to exploit this gap — by launching mass ballistic missile barrages, Moscow forces Ukraine to expend its limited interceptor stockpile, potentially creating windows of vulnerability. The pattern echoes the winter 2022-23 campaign against Ukraine's energy grid, though the current targeting of residential areas suggests an even more aggressive posture. The manufacturing timeline for Patriot interceptors is measured in years, not months. Even if Trump's licensing proposal moves forward, establishing production lines in Ukraine would require significant time and investment. Meanwhile, Russia shows no sign of reducing its bombardment tempo, and the U.S.-Iran conflict continues to draw from the same interceptor pool. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

Wildfires burning through pine forests west of Bordeaux have shut at least 13 defense and aerospace sites, putting roughly 200,000 jobs at risk and threatening production of France's M51 nuclear missile and Rafale fighter jet. "The reason this cluster exists is quite simple: it's historical," said retired Gen. Jean-Marc Laurent, a defense and aerospace expert at Sciences Po Bordeaux. The Bordeaux-Gironde Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported 40,000 businesses are directly or indirectly affected, while the French Economy Ministry calculated approximately 130,000 workers cannot perform their jobs. More than 220,000 people have been evacuated since the fire began, with 60,000 allowed to return as of Wednesday afternoon. The closures threaten the backbone of France's sea-based nuclear deterrence and its premier combat aircraft export program, with potential delivery delays valued in the billions of euros. The government has declared emergency assistance for affected companies in Gironde, Landes and the Var, with an Economy Ministry meeting scheduled Thursday. The fire perimeter stretches 150 miles, with 3,300 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and 24 aircraft deployed. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the battle remained "complicated" even as favorable weather stabilized the blaze Wednesday night. "A slight improvement does not mean we are lowering our guard," he said. Thales has closed three sites, including its Mérignac campus where it makes electronic systems for Rafale fighters and military helicopters. Safran shut four facilities employing about 500 people. Airbus closed two sites in Salaunes and Mérignac producing cockpit seat structures, fuselage sections, nose cones and wing flaps for commercial aircraft, plus components for Dassault and Bombardier business jets and ATR turboprops. ## M51 Missile Plant and Rafale Assembly Line in the Crosshairs The most consequential threat targets the Issac district of Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, where ArianeGroup integrates solid propellant motors for the M51 submarine-launched ballistic missile. Deployed aboard Triomphant-class submarines, the three-stage missile carries multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles over a range exceeding 8,000 kilometers. Satellite telemetry showed active fire lines burning less than nine kilometers from Dassault's Martignas facility, which handles wing assembly for Rafale jets and Falcon business jets. Dassault relocated sensitive equipment to Air Base 106 in Mérignac as a precaution. The French Atomic Energy Commission's military research center CESTA also shut down as the fire front approached. MBDA closed its Roxel propulsion plant, a joint venture with Safran that manufactures solid rocket motors for tactical missiles used by allied forces globally. Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury said it was critical that firefighters keep the blazes from reaching major industrial sites. "Not only ours, but ones of others," he told analysts Wednesday. ## Wildfire Risk Could Reach 75% of Hazardous Sites by 2050 The fires follow France's devastating 2022 wildfire season, which prompted stricter vegetation-clearing rules around buildings and industrial installations in fire-prone areas. Thibault Laconde, founder of climate risk consulting firm Callendar, found that about a quarter of France's more than 300 hazardous industrial sites located next to forests already face significant wildfire risk. Under a midrange climate scenario, that could rise to about 75 percent by 2050, with sites facing dangerous fire conditions for at least 10 days each year. "These sites are so strategic that they will be defended with every available means," Laconde said. "The question is what can no longer be defended elsewhere." The economic toll extends beyond defense. The chamber president characterized the situation as a "mini-Covid" and an economic disaster for companies already strained by the prevailing environment. Tourism enterprises that generate up to 80 percent of annual revenue during summer months face serious challenges, with 38 campsites cleared and four damaged by flames. Approximately 4,000 vacationers were evacuated from lodgings in Lacanau on Tuesday. RTE, France's transmission system operator, deactivated certain power lines and electrical substations to enable firefighters to operate safely, coordinating with Enedis to minimize disruption. No transmission-network outages had been documented as of Wednesday afternoon. The last comparable disruption to French defense production occurred during the 2022 wildfires, which burned 21,000 hectares in Gironde and forced similar precautionary closures, though on a smaller scale. The current blaze has already doubled that footprint, and with temperatures and winds expected to rise, the containment perimeter remains vulnerable to re-ignition. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.