July 15 2025
Patriots for Ukraine?; Texas rare earths factory; CIA knew Oswald; US relaxes chip ban; US leads Pacific drills
Trump, NATO Announce Arms Deal for Ukraine, Funded by Allies
With Pentagon Backing, Texas Factory Challenges China's Dominance in Rare-Earth Metals
New Documents Reveal CIA Knew of Oswald Before JFK Assassination, Contradicting Decades of Denials
Trump Administration Relaxes Export Ban on Nvidia AI Chips for China
US and 18 Allies Launch Largest-Ever Military Drills in Australia
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1. Trump, NATO Announce Arms Deal for Ukraine, Funded by Allies
A. Patriot air defense systems, missiles and ammunition are among the American-made weapons NATO allies will buy under an arms deal brokered with President Trump to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian attacks, officials say. Nearly all of the weapons are immediately available to ship to Ukraine, officials said, meaning they are either from existing military stockpiles or have just been built. Mr. Trump portrayed the new agreement as lucrative for the United States, despite giving few details on how it would be enacted. “It’s a very big deal we’ve made,” Mr. Trump said on Monday from the Oval Office alongside Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general. Mr. Rutte said that at least eight NATO countries were ready to pay for the arms and praised Mr. Trump for helping Ukraine obtain “what it needs to have to maintain, to be able to defend itself, against Russia.” More Ukrainians were killed in June than in any other single month so far in the three-year war, the United Nations reported. Russian forces continue to advance in eastern Ukraine. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Rutte said Ukraine would receive additional U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems as part of the new deal. Germany has offered to buy two systems and Norway a third. The United States has far more Patriot batteries than any other military — more than 60 of the estimated 180 worldwide, according to weapons trackers at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. But it is not clear which countries are selling theirs. Launchers are just one component of a Patriot battery, which also includes radar, a command and control center and interceptor missiles. Neither Mr. Rutte nor Mr. Trump detailed what other kinds of missiles and ammunition might be sold to allies for Ukraine.
NYT
American Patriot Interceptor Supply Chains Maxed
Surging demand from Ukraine, the Mideast and the Pacific is outrunning U.S. missile production despite factory expansions and record budgets
Greg Loving
B. Donald Trump has privately encouraged Ukraine to step up deep strikes on Russian territory, even asking Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether he could strike Moscow if the US provided long-range weapons, according to people briefed on the discussions. The conversation, which took place during the July 4 call between the US and Ukrainian leaders, marks a sharp departure from Trump’s previous stance on Russia’s war and his campaign promise to end US involvement in foreign conflicts.
FT
2. With Pentagon Backing, Texas Factory Challenges China's Dominance in Rare-Earth Metals
FORT WORTH—At an industrial site in this Texas city, men dressed in head-to-toe protective gear dip giant ladles into a well of molten metal heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. They’re making something the U.S. has hardly, if ever, produced at commercial scale in recent decades: rare-earth metals. The factory is the most visible mark of MP Materials’ high-stakes, billion-dollar bet that an American company can take on China’s dominance over the metals—and the magnets they power in everything from cars and smartphones to missile systems. In recent months, China has used its chokehold over 90% of the world’s rare-earth magnets to cut off access to Western companies, rattling industrial giants such as Ford and Tesla and forcing the U.S. to the table for trade talks. MP has invested more than $1 billion in new infrastructure and equipment. A mine it controls in California has become the largest source of rare-earth minerals in the Western Hemisphere. Now, with its expanding Texas facility and fresh investment from the Pentagon, the company is racing to complete the supply chain so it can start converting large quantities of its minerals into high-grade magnets. General Motors is signed up to start taking deliveries later this year. The Defense Department last week committed to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in MP and become its largest shareholder, in a deal that will allow MP to increase its planned magnet production to 10,000 metric tons from the previously planned 1,000. As of now, the name of the new factory is simply “10x.”
WSJ
3. New Documents Reveal CIA Knew of Oswald Before JFK Assassination, Contradicting Decades of Denials
For more than 60 years, the CIA claimed it had little or no knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. That wasn’t true, new documents unearthed by a House task force prove. The revelation adds fuel to the long-simmering questions around what the agency knew about the plot to murder the president, and what else it may be hiding. The documents confirm that George Joannides, a CIA officer based in Miami in 1963, was helping finance and oversee a group of Cuban students opposed to the ascension of Fidel Castro. Joannides had a covert assignment to manage anti-Castro propaganda and disrupt pro-Castro groups, even as the CIA was prohibited from domestic spying. The CIA-backed group known as DRE was aware of Oswald as he publicly promoted a pro-Castro policy for the U.S., and its members physically clashed with him three months before the assassination. And then, a DRE member said, Oswald approached them and offered his help, possibly to work as a mole within his pro-Castro group, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The CIA had long denied any involvement with the Cuban group, or any awareness of Oswald’s pro-Cuba advocacy. After the most recent release of documents, the agency did not respond to a request for comment.
WaPo
4. Trump Administration Relaxes Export Ban on Nvidia AI Chips for China
Nvidia has said the Trump administration has relaxed restrictions on exporting a key artificial intelligence product designed specifically for the Chinese market, saying it hoped to resume deliveries of its H20 chip “soon”. In a boost for the leading AI chipmaker, Nvidia said on Tuesday it had received assurances from the US government that it would approve licences for the H20. It also announced a new China-specific AI chip it said was “fully compliant” with export rules. Shares in Nvidia, which last week become the first company to reach a $4tn market capitalisation, were up almost 5 per cent in pre-market trading on Tuesday.
FT
5. US and 18 Allies Launch Largest-Ever Military Drills in Australia
ROCKHAMPTON, Australia—Artillery, rocket launchers and self-propelled howitzers opened fire at a training area in northern Australia on Monday, kick-starting three weeks of military drills here between the U.S. and 18 allies. The biennial exercise, called Talisman Sabre, is meant to send a message to China: The U.S. and its partners are ready to respond together to aggression from Beijing, which has been increasingly asserting itself in what it regards as its sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific region. “Our resolve to train, and will to prepare and will to fight, that’s not made up,” said Lt. Gen. J.B. Vowell, the deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, after he watched munitions hit a simulated enemy on a hillside in the training zone. This year’s Talisman Sabre is the 11th and largest iteration of the exercise, officials said. Some 40,000 personnel from 19 nations are involved. The exercise, which includes Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, India and several European countries, has become a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to deter Beijing from launching a military strike on Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its own.
War is coming
The Battle for Eurasia will likely begin in 1-4 years. America is not ready.
Greg Loving
WSJ
July 15, 2006: Twitter launches
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Sources
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/world/europe/ukraine-weapons-us-nato.html
- https://www.ft.com/content/b66f03b5-e295-4f8c-92ba-516a527d588c
- https://www.wsj.com/business/us-rare-earth-producer-texas-58796240?mod=hp_lead_pos7
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/07/14/cia-oswald-jfk-assassination-joannides/
- https://www.ft.com/content/ba0929bd-5912-44fb-9048-c143aced4c8a
- https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/40-000-troops-19-nations-the-china-threat-unites-u-s-allies-62c7c534?mod=hp_lead_pos11
Contact: greg@loql.ai
