🚨 CHINA’S SECRET WEAPON ISN’T A MISSILE... IT’S SILVER 🚨

While everyone is watching the oil war, Beijing is quietly tightening its grip on the minerals that power:
⚡️ AI
🔋 Batteries
🛰 Defence Systems
☀️ Solar Panels

The next global conflict may not be fought with tanks...
It may be fought with supply chains. 🌍
The West spent decades outsourcing production.
China spent decades securing resources.

Now the bill is coming due.
💥 No minerals = No chips
💥 No chips = No AI
💥 No AI = No technological dominance
The real battlefield of the 21st century isn't only oil. It's who controls the metals that power the future.

Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

Listen to a summary of The Macro Butler weekly newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble; Spotify & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-harvest-of-chaos-podcast

The latest PMI data from The Middle Kingdom suggest that Beijing is once again dusting off its favourite economic playbook: when growth slows, build something large. After a brief pause in April, construction activity rebounded despite the usual seasonal slowdown, signalling that fiscal stimulus and infrastructure spending are returning to centre stage. Beneath the surface, however, the picture is less impressive. Holiday spending received a temporary boost from May vacations and newly invented local spring breaks, proving once again that consumers spend more when they are not at work. Manufacturing activity slipped back to the 50-point dividing line between expansion and contraction, while weaker export orders reflected softer demand from overseas markets.

While exports remain a relative bright spot, policymakers appear increasingly likely to step up support through faster fiscal spending and additional monetary easing measures, including potential cuts to policy rates and reserve requirements. At the same time, inflation pressures linked to the Iran conflict eased modestly, with input and output prices retreating from recent highs. However, supply-chain conditions deteriorated slightly for the first time since the conflict began. As Confucius might have observed, when growth depends on pouring more concrete, one should be careful not to mistake construction activity for lasting prosperity.

In a nutshell, China's latest PMI data suggest that when growth slows, Beijing still reaches for its favorite stimulus tool: pour more concrete, cut a few rates, and hope scaffolding looks enough like prosperity.

🚨 CHINA ISN’T PLAYING CHESS ANYMORE… IT’S REDESIGNING THE BOARD 🚨

While the US is obsessed with spending US taxpayers’ dollars to defend the interest of a foreign country controlling its establishment, Beijing is busy building alliances, securing resources, and reshaping global trade routes.

🇨🇳 Minerals
🇨🇳 Energy
🇨🇳 Manufacturing
🇨🇳 Global Influence

The question is no longer whether China is rising.
The question is whether the West realizes the game has already changed.
⚠️ The biggest geopolitical shift of our lifetime is happening in plain sight.

Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

Dear Investors,

Please find below the performance of The Macro Butler IG Portfolio as of end of May 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butler-ig-portfolio-may-028

Dear Investors,

Please find below the performance of The Macro Butler Strategic Portfolio as of end of May 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butler-strategic-portfolio-468

Dear Investors,

Please find below the performance of The Macro Butler Long/Short Portfolio as of end of May 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butler-longshort-portfolio-376

🤵 The Macro Butler’s Monthly Meditation 🤵

🌐 Space is no longer science fiction. It is the new battlefield for power, resources, AI, satellites, semiconductors, and military dominance. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butlers-monthly-meditation-d6c

To close out May and mark Vesak Day, The Macro Butler returned to Asharq Bloomberg to explain why the oil market has now exhausted virtually every price shock absorber — from massive Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases across the West to the sharp decline in crude imports by China’s teapot refiners.

While policymakers continue to sell the dream of lower energy prices, the reality is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: global supply buffers are shrinking, inventories are tightening, and the next major move in oil is higher, not lower.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-asharq-bloomberg-tv-388

The ISM Manufacturing PMI rose to 54.0 in May, its highest level in four years, proving once again that nothing says "economic resilience" quite like stockpiling goods before the next round of inflation arrives. New orders and production accelerated as companies rushed to secure supplies while oil prices, shipping costs, and raw material expenses remained elevated thanks to the Middle East conflict. Nearly every manufacturing sector expanded, even as survey respondents complained about soaring fuel costs, supply-chain disruptions, and shrinking margins. In other words, manufacturers are still buying today because they are increasingly worried about what everything will cost tomorrow. The good news is that demand remains strong. The bad news is that inflation appears equally determined to participate in the recovery.

In a nutshell, U.S. manufacturing surged to a four-year high as companies rushed to buy today what they fear will cost much more tomorrow.

In a reassuring display of voluntary government oversight, Donald Copperfield signed an executive order allowing AI companies to submit their most advanced models to Washington for review before public release. The arrangement is entirely optional, of course—much like many things that eventually become mandatory. Under the order, frontier AI models may be shared with a growing collection of federal agencies tasked with protecting the public from the risks created by the very technologies they are increasingly eager to monitor. A new AI cybersecurity clearinghouse will scan models for vulnerabilities, while the Pentagon and other agencies accelerate efforts to deploy AI-powered defensive tools of their own.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/06/promoting-advanced-artificial-intelligence-innovation-and-security/

The result is yet another step toward a future where artificial intelligence remains free, innovative, and closely supervised—purely for your safety, of course.

In a development that will surprise absolutely nobody outside the economics profession, EuroStan ‘CPLIe’ climbed above 3% for the first time since September 2023, making next week's ECB rate hike look about as optional as paying taxes. Headline CPI rose to 3.2% year-on-year in May, while core inflation accelerated to 2.5% and services inflation surged to 3.5%, its highest level in six months. Energy prices did much of the heavy lifting, but the persistence of services inflation will provide ample ammunition for ECB hawks eager to remind markets that "transitory" remains the most expensive word in central banking. Despite economists assuring everyone that inflation will eventually drift back toward target, the latest data suggest the ECB's battle against rising prices is proving about as successful as Europe's quest for energy independence.

In a nutshell, EuroStan inflation has climbed back above 3%, proving once again that central bankers may print optimism, but they can't print disinflation.

The ISM Services PMI rose to 54.5 in May, suggesting the economy remains wonderfully healthy—provided one only looks at the headline number. New orders surged and lifted the index higher, but beneath the surface the picture was less inspiring. Export orders softened, order backlogs declined, employment contracted further, and inventories continued piling up. Meanwhile, input costs accelerated to their highest level since 2022, reminding everyone that inflation has not yet received the memo about cooling down. In short, businesses appear to be ordering more, hiring less, paying higher prices, and accumulating inventories—a combination that may make May look stronger than June eventually turns out to be.