Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that “many” oil-rich U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf have requested a financial backstop amid economic turbulence from the war with Iran.

Bessent’s comments go further than White House assertions to CNBC on Tuesday, where an official said the U.S. had not yet been formally asked to establish a currency swap line by the United Arab Emirates, only that there had been discussions about the topic.

Such a swap line would provide the UAE or other Gulf nations with liquidity in the U.S. dollar, but comes loaded with political risk as U.S. consumers weather higher prices from the war for food, gas and other everyday purchases.

“Many of our Gulf allies have requested swap lines,” Bessent said. “Swap lines, whether it’s from the Federal Reserve or the Treasury, are to maintain order in the dollar funding markets and to prevent the sale of the U.S. assets in a disorderly way.”

“The swap line would both benefit the UAE and the U.S., and as I said, numerous other countries, including some of our Asian allies [who] have also requested them,” he said, without specifying which other countries.

Gulf countries, including the UAE, have been hit hard by the war with Iran. Tehran has fired missiles at U.S. allies in the region, damaging economic infrastructure. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also choked oil revenues that are critical to Gulf nations.

A currency swap could also be necessary to ensure the U.S. dollar, which is dominant in nearly all oil exchanges, remains in use.

President Donald Trump said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday that he would like to assist the UAE if it’s possible.

“If I could help them, I would,” the president said.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who serves on both the Senate Finance and Foreign Relations committees, was supportive of a currency swap with the UAE in a Tuesday interview with CNBC.

Daines said he thinks “[Bessent] is moving in that direction, and I support him in that.” 

Democrats, however, are likely to take advantage of the political opening from a currency swap, especially with wealthy nations in the Middle East. The UAE has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who questioned Bessent on the potential currency swap at the hearing, highlighted the domestic economic circumstances under which a swap would occur.

“The war in Iran has already cost us dearly, Van Hollen said. “In addition to lives lost, we’re talking about over a billion dollars a day in taxpayer money, we’re talking about higher gas prices, higher prices overall, and now we understand that the UAE is asking you to provide them a swap line through the Exchange Stabilization Fund.”

Van Hollen also noted troves of recent reporting on the UAE-U.S. relationship, including reported investments from members of the Gulf nation’s government in the Trump family’s business and the relaxing of protections around advanced artificial intelligence chips.

— CNBC’s Megan Cassella contributed to this report.

Iran’s navy on Wednesday said it had seized two container ships in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, shortly after the U.S. extended the ceasefire and as diplomats seek to bring the countries together for peace talks.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy said in a statement that it had seized the ships for what it claimed were maritime violations and transferred them to Iranian shores, according to state media. CNBC could not independently verify the claim.

The announcement came after U.K. maritime authorities said two ships had been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian media reported a third vessel had also been targeted by the country’s military.

International benchmark Brent crude futures with June delivery traded 0.5% higher at $99.03 per barrel, paring gains after briefly surpassing $100. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with June delivery, meanwhile, traded up 0.5% at $90.13.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, or UKMTO, center said a vessel reported being fired upon about 8 nautical miles off the coast of Iran at 8:38 a.m. London time (3:38 a.m. ET).

The crew were reported to be safe and accounted for and the vessel did not sustain any damage, the UKMTO said, which also warned of “high levels of activity” in the Strait of Hormuz area.

The incident followed an earlier report of an attack that took place roughly 15 miles northeast of Oman at 5:47 a.m. London time.

The UKMTO said a container ship was approached by a Revolutionary Guard gunboat. The Guard’s vessel was said to have fired upon the ship, causing “heavy damage” to the bridge. All crew were reported safe.

The attacks come shortly after President Donald Trump said the U.S. would extend the ceasefire with Iran to allow for the Islamic Republic’s leaders to submit a “unified proposal” to end the war.

This came after reports that Vice President JD Vance‘s trip to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks with Iranian officials had been put on hold, and after the Iranian state news outlet Tasnim reported that negotiators from Tehran would not attend further talks.

The Strait of Hormuz is a key maritime corridor that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Roughly 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes through it. Attacks on commercial ships in the Gulf in recent weeks have ratcheted up fears of a prolonged economic shock.

— CNBC’s Dan Mangan and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.

Capital Group Chief Executive Mike Gitlin wants Gen-Z investors recoiling from war-driven commodity trades to start thinking long-term, as the asset management industry races to win over a generation with fundamentally different rules of investing.

Responding to an audience question at CNBC’s Converge Live conference in Singapore on Wednesday, Gitlin said younger investors should approach markets with a long-term wealth-building mindset, rather than “hobby investing,” adding personal interests to one’s portfolio.

The question came from a father in the audience who said his teenage children had objected to his plan to rotate from gold into oil, denouncing it as “profiting from war.” He added that an informal survey at his children’s school found roughly 80% of Gen-Z peers shared the same disinclination.

Whether gold or oil, “neither of them is where they should be thinking about where they’re going to invest their money for the next 75 years,” said Gitlin, who leads Capital Group, the world’s largest active investment manager with $3.3 trillion in assets under management.

“Trying to time commodity markets is super, super hard for professionals, let alone 13-year-olds. Get them interested in the broader markets,” he said.

Instead, Gitlin urged younger investors to build a “paper portfolio” of several stocks, conduct due diligence research, aided by artificial intelligence tools, and focus on fundamentals rather than market swings.

“Get them interested in stocks and bonds, the broader macro conditions, what is happening in the world,” he added.

The comments come against a backdrop of what researchers describe as deepening disillusionment among younger investors and rising mistrust in wealth management institutions.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Retail Investor Outlook, Gen-Z’s trust in traditional financial institutions has fallen over the past two years, with nearly 20% of non-investors citing distrust of financial institutions as a reason for staying out of markets entirely.

A small but growing cohort has embraced what has become known as “financial nihilism,” a rejection of traditional wealth-building milestones altogether. The majority of those young investors surveyed by WEF also said they would invest more if they had more trust in their investment platform.

Gitlin’s remarks came against a backdrop of striking market resilience as the U.S.-Israel war with Iran dragged on for almost two months, with a murky outlook for a permanent ceasefire.

Global equities have reclaimed pre-war levels, with the MSCI World Index erasing a 3.29% post-conflict slump to trade nearly 2% above its March 2 close — the first session after hostilities broke out — as investors unwound geopolitical risk hedges even as the conflict remains unresolved.

“The markets are super resilient,” Gitlin said. “People are looking three to five years forward — to earnings, to companies becoming more profitable. You have to look through that for the longer term.”

Notably, some of the world’s best-performing markets this year have been major energy importers, despite the disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. South Korea’s Kospi is up 50%, and Taiwan’s benchmark has gained 30% — far outpacing the S&P 500’s 3% advance.

The critical wildcard, Gitlin warned, is how long oil prices stay elevated. “The only ‘if’ in all of this is how long oil is going to be inflated,” he said. “If oil stays elevated for a long period of time, you’re going to have higher inflation and lower growth — and then markets would react accordingly.”

Should a war break out between China and the U.S. in the Pacific, “what you are seeing in the Strait of Hormuz will be a dry run,” Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Wednesday.

Balakrishnan made the remarks at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE event in Singapore, responding to a question on whether the city-state was facing any pressure from Washington and Beijing to choose between the two.

Singapore has relationships with both the countries, and is uniquely positioned to take advantage of developments in the U.S. and China, Balakrishnan told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

The U.S. is Singapore’s largest foreign investor with around 6,000 American companies based in the city-state. Singapore also runs a goods trade deficit with Washington to the tune of about $3.6 billion, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Meanwhile, China has been Singapore’s largest trading partner, and Singapore has been China’s largest foreign investor.

Singapore will “refuse to choose” one over the other, he added. “The way we conduct our affairs is we assess what is in Singapore’s long term national interests, and if I have to say no to Washington or Beijing or anyone else, we don’t flinch from that.”

“We are acting in our own long term national interest. We will be useful, but we will not be made use of,” he added.

Separately, Balakrishnan also said that said the conflict in the Middle East had shown that “chokepoints matter,” pointing out that Singapore also sits astride one of the world’s critical trade arteries in the form of the Strait of Malacca.

At its narrowest point, the Strait of Malacca is two nautical miles, compared to 21 nautical miles for the Strait of Hormuz.

The minister was also asked if the actions of Iran in trying to extract tolls from ships passing the Strait of Hormuz would be have other countries thinking of also collecting tolls through chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca.

In March, Iran’s state media reported that Tehran was preparing legislation that would impose tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Balakrishnan said that it was a risk if this scenario came to fruition, but the states alongside the Strait of Malacca — Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia — have a strategic interest in keeping it open and not collecting tolls.

“With respect to both America and China, we have told both of them we operate on the basis of UNCLOS,” he said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Article 44 of UNCLOS states that “States bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage … There shall be no suspension of transit passage.”

“The right of transit passage is guaranteed for everyone. We will not participate in any attempts to close or interdict or to impose tolls in our neighborhood,” Balakrishnan said.

At a time when the Mideast crisis, the Ukraine war, and U.S. tariff actions have sowed a sense of distrust among nations, Singapore’s Balakrishnan emphasized on building trust.

“Trust is basically a way of lowering transaction costs. Being predictable, being boring, being reliable, being trustworthy has got real value.”

His remarks followed those from Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong who gave the keynote address at the event. Gan said “Trust can no longer be assumed, it has to be built and strengthened.”

Singapore is already is a key financial center, Gan said, adding that the next step for the city-state will be to build a broader ecosystem for trust-based services including risk management, cyber security and AI governance.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he thinks the U.S. is “going to end up with a great deal” with Iran to end the weekslong war, even as he said he does not expect to extend a ceasefire due to expire on Wednesday.

“I think they have no choice,” Trump said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” when asked what he expected to come out of a second round of peace negotiations with Iran.

“We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders,” the president said.

“We’ve taken out their leaders, frankly, which does complicate things in one way, but these leaders are much more rational,” Trump said. “It is regime change, no matter what you want to call it, which is not something I said I was going to do, but I’ve done it indirectly.”

Asked if he would extend the ceasefire to allow time for peace talks to wrangle a deal to end the war, Trump said, “Well, I don’t want to do that.”

Shares in Victory Giant Technology surged as much as 60% on Tuesday, after the Chinese company’s blockbuster initial public offering — the biggest in Hong Kong this year.

The Chinese company, which supplies printed circuit board to Nvidia, priced its shares at 209.88 Hong Kong dollars in the IPO. Shares were last trading 46% higher at HK$306.8.

Victory Giant had raised about HK$20.1 billion ($2.57 billion) in the city’s biggest listing in about seven months. This makes Victory Giant Hong Kong’s biggest IPO since Zijin Gold International’s $3.2 billion IPO in September.

Investor interest in large listings in Hong Kong has been growing, especially in tech-related sectors which have been resilient even amidst market volatility amid the current Middle East conflict.

Last Thursday, shares of Hangzhou-based developer Manycore Tech tripled in their Hong Kong debut.

Hi, this is Evelyn, writing to you from Beijing. Welcome to the latest edition of The China Connection — a succinct snapshot of what I’m seeing and hearing from local businesses.

Today, I dig into rising valuations for Chinese humanoid startups and why they still aren’t attracting the same kind of money as their U.S. rivals — despite delivering far more robots. Are U.S. VCs missing out?

Chinese humanoid startups are already shipping robots to factories and malls, while their U.S. rivals remain focused on development — and far higher valuations.

It’s a growing divide.

U.S. humanoid robot startup Figure commands a valuation of at least $39 billion; Texas-based rival Apptronik, meanwhile, achieved a $5 billion valuation in February.

That’s well above the $3 billion-plus valuation of Chinese startup Galbot, which claims to be the highest-valued privately-held Chinese company in the sector. And its backers come from China, Singapore and the Middle East — not the U.S.

Among private companies — and there are well over 100 humanoid startups in China — AI2 Robotics has achieved a 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) valuation, according to CEO and founder Eric Guo.

It might be a fraction of Figure’s valuation, but Guo claimed a large, foreign high-end manufacturer chose AI2’s robots over the U.S. startup’s for factory work. AI2 is also rolling out robots at airports in China, as well as in semiconductor and healthcare factories.

“Commercialization and tech capability aren’t contradictory,” Guo said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

It’s an investment thesis he expects investors — even from the U.S. — to start picking up on in just a few months.

If that shift happens, China is well-positioned.

Chinese humanoid startups took the top six spots in Omdia’s rankings of global robot shipments in 2025. Figure and Tesla were the only U.S. companies that made the top 10. While a Figure robot appeared beside U.S. first lady Melania Trump at a White House event in March, Tesla’s Optimus still largely remains in development.

Another reason for the valuation gap is how investors perceive the companies and their ambitions.

U.S. humanoid startups are being priced as wide-reaching artificial intelligence platforms, while Chinese ones are seen more as industrial hardware plays, said Rui Ma, founder of Tech Buzz China, which regularly brings U.S. investors to visit Chinese startups.

“If China ends up dominating manufacturing scale and real-world deployment,” U.S. venture capital funds may miss out on the opportunity to some degree, she said.

Geopolitics has complicated the investment landscape.

U.S.-China tensions, along with domestic national security policies, have chilled cross-border investment. Large U.S. pension funds that once invested heavily in Chinese startups via venture capital funds have reduced their exposure in the wake of greater regulatory scrutiny on both sides.

That has created an opportunity for Middle East funds. They have backed Chinese venture capital and bought locally developed robots as Gulf countries look to transition away from fossil fuels.

They “seem able to play both sides more flexibly,” Tech Buzz’s Ma said, adding that “they may end up with the most balanced exposure to the humanoid opportunity.”

Limx Dynamics, whose backers include China-based Future Capital, got its first foreign investor this year in the form of Dubai-based Stone Venture.

“Roughly 90% of U.S. venture capital flows into software, for example, leaving a critical financing gap in hard tech that sovereign funds are uniquely positioned to fill,” said Winston Ma, adjunct professor of law at the New York University School of Law.

He added that China’s experience with electric car and drone manufacturing is now translating into humanoid production.

Future Capital, whose early investments included EV company Li Auto, recently announced that another of its portfolio companies, sports robot company Pongbot, had raised almost 200 million yuan in less than six months.

It’s a sign of how quickly the money is coming in, even if it’s at a fraction of the U.S. level.

Diverging trajectories also flip the script for investors, according to Cameron Johnson, Shanghai-based senior partner at supply chain consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions. He says Americans are coming to Shenzhen to buy humanoid robot parts — and combine them with U.S. software.

China’s economy grew by 5% in the first quarter

First-quarter GDP rose by a better-than-expected 5% from a year ago, while retail sales missed with a 1.7% year-on-year increase in March. Exports slowed their growth to just 2.5% as the Iran war hit global demand.

Chinese robotaxi companies forge ahead in UAE despite Iran war

Ride-hailing company Didi last week became the latest Chinese robotaxi business to announce expansion plans in the Middle East. The news came as part of a business forum the United Arab Emirates organized with China as part of a state visit to Beijing.

Hong Kong to announce tax break to lure global commodity traders

The region plans to halve the tax rate on profits from trading certain commodities in an effort to draw global players to the finance hub on the southern coast of China. Exact implementation dates have yet to be announced.

April 21: Volkswagen Group to premiere four new car models in Beijing

April 24 – May 3: Beijing Auto Show

April 15 – May 5: Export-focused Canton Fair in Guangzhou (Spring Session)

USA Rare Earth has announced plans to buy Brazilian rare earths miner Serra Verde in a deal worth $2.8 billion in cash and shares, as it seeks to challenge China’s dominance of the supply chain.

The Oklahoma-headquartered company said it will pay $300 million in cash and $126.9 million in its own newly issued stock for the transaction, which it expects to complete in the third quarter of 2026, subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Rare earths have come to the fore as a key bargaining chip in the ongoing geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, which produces nearly 70% of the world’s rare earths from mines and almost 90% of refined rare earths, which includes materials imported from other countries.

Western officials have repeatedly flagged Beijing’s supply chain dominance as a strategic challenge, particularly given that critical mineral demand is expected to grow exponentially, as the clean energy transition picks up pace.

“The world has become too dependent on a single source and it’s high time to break that dependency,” USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.

She added the deal would allow “access to a producing mine that produces the four magnetic rare earths that are going to be serving our industry.”

Rare earths refer to 17 elements on the periodic table that have an atomic structure that gives them special magnetic properties. These materials are vital components to a vast array of modern technologies, from everyday electronics, such as smartphones, to electric vehicles and military equipment.

USA Rare Earth’s CEO said Serra Verde’s global importance was underscored by its 15-year offtake agreement with a special purpose vehicle by various U.S. government entities, as well as private capital sources, for 100% of its production of four rare magnetic rare earth elements: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.

These are all critically important to the manufacture of high-performance permanent magnets.

Speaking to CNBC about the announcement, Serra Verde Group CEO Thras Moraitis said the U.S. government has been “very active” in trying to spur upstream investment, particularly when it comes to creating floor prices for rare earths.

“Rare earths represent a strategic nexus where national and energy security, and technological supremacy, converge,” he added in a statement.

“The Western rare earth sector stands at a critical inflection point, as governments and strategic industries urgently seek reliable sources of critical rare earths — particularly scarce heavy rare earths.”

Shares of USA Rare Earth fell 3.4% in premarket trading. The stock is up around 68% year-to-date through to Friday’s close, however.

China has called for “concerted efforts” to ease its solar power industry’s severe overcapacity crisis, as part of Beijing’s campaign to end a fierce price war.

The proposed measures include capacity control, standard guidance, price enforcement, mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property protection “to promote the high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry.”

China’s solar manufacturing capacity far outstrips global demand, triggering a domestic price war in recent years.

The country makes more than 80% of the world’s solar panel components, per the International Energy Agency, but its industry has been battling with an overcapacity problem because of intense domestic competition, which the Chinese government has called “involution.”

The push comes shortly after a meeting on Friday between agencies, including China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission, as well as the China Photovoltaic Industry Association and major state-owned power generators that buy solar, such as China Huaneng Group and China Datang Corp.

“The meeting required strengthened inter-departmental coordination and concerted efforts to continuously deepen the governance of the photovoltaic industry, and to fully promote comprehensive governance related to ‘anti-involution,'” China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement on Monday, per a Google translation.

China’s solar overcapacity issue has been further compounded by a sense of growing resistance from high-value overseas markets, with the U.S. aggressively imposing tariffs on solar products from China and the European Union diversifying its solar supply chain away from Beijing.

In response, China’s government has launched an “anti-involution” campaign, seeking to slash production capacity and put an end to disorderly pricing schemes.

Analysts have told CNBC that the fallout from the U.S. and Israel-led Iran war is likely to expedite a shift away from fossil fuels and make countries think differently about the role renewables can play in shoring up energy security, potentially delivering a boost to demand for solar.

Chinese solar manufacturers told Reuters last week, however, that any expected boost to global renewables demand due to the Iran war energy price shock was unlikely to ease the industry’s overcapacity challenge.

Energy shipments are increasingly being used as a foreign policy tool as the Trump administration attempts to hold down two blockades on opposite sides of the globe.

The U.S., under the direction of President Donald Trump, has initiated a naval blockade targeting Iranian vessels in and around the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, seeking to put economic pressure on Iran and bring an end to the Middle East crisis.

The move has prompted concern from China, given it has long been the largest buyer of Iranian crude, with Beijing calling the blockade “irresponsible and dangerous.”

Iran, for its part, on Friday declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” to all commercial traffic in the wake of a ceasefire announcement between Israel and Lebanon.

At the same time, the U.S. has imposed a de facto fuel blockade on Cuba, threatening to impose tariffs on any country that sends crude to the communist-run Caribbean island.

Russia, which has already breached the U.S. blockade by delivering a shipment of 100,000 tons of crude oil to the fuel-starved nation, has pledged to keep supplying Cuba with vital supplies of oil.

Sanctions experts and analysts say both blockades raise questions about the Trump administration’s appetite for challenges to its maritime authority, particularly ahead of the U.S. president’s summit with China’s Xi Jinping next month.

Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the prospect of a second Russian oil tanker reaching Cuba over the coming weeks is highly likely, highlighting the White House’s own contradictions.

“When the Anatoly Kolodkin docked at the Matanzas oil terminal, it was in direct violation of U.S. sanctions. GL-134 had already been amended to GL-134A, which explicitly excluded deliveries to Cuba. Washington simply chose not to enforce it,” Erickson told CNBC by email.

“Trump then publicly stated he didn’t care whether Russia delivered to Cuba. Having made that statement and having declined to interdict, or even harass, the first vessel, it becomes politically untenable to now move against a second.”

CNBC has contacted a White House spokesperson for the comment and is awaiting a response.

The U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, which started Monday, marked a sharp escalation in the conflict despite a pause in hostilities agreed April 7.

Trump suggested on Thursday, however, that the war in Iran could end “pretty soon.” He also touted a second round of face-to-face negotiations between American and Iranian officials “probably, maybe, next weekend.”

When it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, Erickson said the more dangerous escalation scenario here does not concern a Russian shadow fleet tanker, but rather a Chinese-linked or Chinese-flagged vessel carrying Iranian oil.

He pointed out that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the U.S. will not renew a general license that the White House temporarily granted for the sale of Russian and Iranian seaborne oil during the Iran war. The license is poised to expire at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday.

From that moment, Erickson said Chinese refineries will once again be the overwhelming purchaser of any Iranian oil that is able to be exported.

“The logical Iranian move, from a pure statecraft perspective, is to test the blockade with a Chinese-linked or flagged tanker. That puts Washington in an extraordinarily precarious position: interdicting or boarding a Chinese-flagged vessel in the weeks before Xi-Trump talks would be an escalation of an entirely different order of magnitude. Being forced to sink a vessel would be unthinkable,” he added.

China, which has long backed the regime in Tehran, has been sharply critical of the U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said earlier in the week that the targeted blockade of one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints, coupled with an increase in military deployment, risked undermining an “already fragile ceasefire situation.”

“While enforcing an undeclared blockade on Cuba, the United States allowed a Russian oil tanker to reach the island last month, apparently because Trump did not want a confrontation with Russia,” Max Boot, a foreign policy analyst and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an online article published Tuesday.

“Is he now prepared to risk a confrontation with Beijing, just as he prepares for a summit with Xi Jinping, if the U.S. Navy stops tankers ferrying oil to China?” he added.

The White House has said a highly anticipated meeting with China’s Xi will take place in Beijing on May 14 and 15.

— CNBC’s Hugh Leask contributed to this report.