Crude oil held steady this week as tensions escalate in Iran and questions linger regarding Venezuelan supplies.

As we noted last week, it will be hard to quickly ramp up oil shipments from Venezuela due to the lack of proper, well-maintained infrastructure. Moreover, American producers seem hesitant to invest billions into the country without adequate security guarantees, as evidenced by US President Donald Trump’s meeting with American oil executives that yielded little results. Also, Venezuelan crude oil is poorer quality than US grades, fuelling concerns over marketability. (LiveSquawk - Continue Reading)

President Donald Trump said Friday he may impose tariffs on countries “if they don’t go along with Greenland.”

“We need Greenland for national security. So I may do that,” Trump said at the White House.

The comments show Trump, whose push to acquire Greenland for the U.S. has grown increasingly aggressive in recent months, turning to one of his favorite tools for leveraging power over foreign nations.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional information on Trump’s remarks. (CNBC – Continue Reading)

White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said Friday that large U.S. banks could voluntarily provide credit cards to underserved Americans as a means to address President Donald Trump’s affordability push.

A week ago, Trump called for banks to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, an idea that has been roundly rejected by industry executives and their lobbyists this week.

Now, Hassett, who is director of the National Economic Council, is floating a different plan, this one more narrowly focused on consumers who don’t have credit access but have the income to justify credit lines. (CNBC – Continue Reading)

China’s artificial intelligence models may be just “a matter of months” behind U.S. and Western capabilities, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind told CNBC.

The assessment from the head of one of the world’s leading AI labs and a key driver behind Google’s Gemini assistant, runs counter to views that have suggested China remains far behind.

Speaking on CNBC’s new podcast, The Tech Download, which launched on Friday, Hassabis said Chinese AI models are closer to U.S. and Western capabilities “than maybe we thought one or two years ago.”

“Maybe they’re only a matter of months behind at this point,” Hassabis told The Tech Download. (CNBC – Continue Reading)

The geopolitical oil risk premium is likely to remain capped due to global market oversupply, despite increased oil-price volatility, Fitch Ratings says. Any possible supply disruptions in Iran can be absorbed by an oversupplied market. Potential short-term supply increases from Venezuela are likely to be small, while a more material rise in the long term would be quite challenging. OPEC’s future strategic stance on volume versus value will be important in shaping the oil market.

Our Brent price assumption for 2026 is USD63/bbl, while our ratings for oil and gas companies focus on credit metrics based on our mid-cycle price of USD60/bbl.

The global oil market will remain oversupplied in 2026. We estimate a supply increase of 3 million barrels per day (MMbpd) in 2025 and forecast a further increase of 2.5MMbpd in 2026, with demand growing by only about 0.8MMbpd each year. (Fitch – Continue Reading)