The Barents Sea system – gateway to the changing Arctic

New book documents 6 years of interdisciplinary research on the Barents Sea

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

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The Barents Sea system – gateway to the changing Arctic provides an overview of the interconnected elements of the Barents Sea, from microbes living in the sediments to seabirds at its surface, from the cycling of tiny particles of trace minerals to large-scale atmospheric and ocean currents. Also described are the methods and technologies used to observe and understand the system, including newly developed tools that make the Arctic Ocean more accessible to scientific inquiry than ever before. This book also explains how the region is managed: knowledge-based management is the key to maintaining a well-functioning Barents Sea. 

 

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Credit: Fagbokforlaget

Roughly 300 scientists, students and technicians from ten Norwegian research institutions worked together in a six-year national effort to investigate the Barents Sea. The Nansen Legacy research project, which ran from 2018-2024, involved biologists, chemists, technologists, physicists, historians and cyberneticists working side by side.

Their interdisciplinary collaboration relied on a number of new methods to carry out a thorough survey of the environment in the Barents Sea management plan area.

The research results from this huge national effort are collected in the new book The Barents Sea system – gateway to the changing Arctic. Geir Johnsen, a professor of biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is one of the book’s three editors.

“The most important thing in this major research project is interdisciplinarity. We work closely together across disciplines, and we work well with each other,”  Johnsen said.

The researchers believe the book will be an important contribution to knowledge-based management of this important international resource.

Autonomous vehicles played key role

The researchers deployed instruments in the skies, on the sea surface, under sea ice, in the water column and on the seabed. These different platforms could collect data simultaneously, providing a nearly real-time understanding of what was happening in a specific place.

"Instrument-carrying robot platforms have made it possible to carry out scientific investigations in a very efficient way," says Johnsen.

The researchers used flying drones, small satellites, autonomous boats and underwater robots that could be fitted with hyperspectral cameras.

This type of camera can capture very precise images of large areas, making it possible to see nuances in the colour of the sea surface that can help researchers assess algae blooms, as one example.

The robots are also equipped with sensors that measure temperature and light, as well as acoustic meters and water samplers.The Observational Pyramid

Researchers called this combination of observational tools  the Observational Pyramid. It allows researchers to scan the ocean from sky to seabed, collect water samples and perform various tests in the same area at the same time.

"The observation pyramid looks at phenomena in time and space and collects data at many different levels. We get 100 times more information compared to only information from research vessels,"  Johnsen said.

"The method can be scaled up and down: With the help of satellites, we can map areas of several hundred thousand square kilometers. And we can also zoom in on details and examine a drop of water or a cell," he said.

Why the Barents Sea?

The Barents Sea contains many mysteries and unanswered questions, yet it is a critical area for marine resources, geopolitics and shipping.

The Arctic is becoming increasingly ice-free, and it is precisely in the Barents Sea that the melting of sea ice is most noticeable, including with the greatest temperature increases. That makes the Barents Sea an important place for tracking environmental trends and climate change.

The researchers have studied the past and present climate and ecosystem in the Barents Sea. These data enable researchers to make better predictions about future changes  and offer important information for being able to manage resources in the best possible way.

"Other sea areas in the Arctic are likely to experience similar changes as we are seeing in the Barents Sea now. This knowledge base and the book will be an important resource for understanding changes that are taking place in the ocean," Johnsen said.

The Norwegian-based Nansen Legacy Project a used combination of observational tools, from seabed to space, that they called the Observational Pyramid. Ths approach allowed researchers to scan the ocean from sky to seabed, collect water samples and perform various tests in the same area at the same time. The results are published in the new book: The Barents Sea system – gateway to a changing Arctic.

Credit

Illustration: Frida Gnossen

This underwater robot is called the REMUS, shown here operating under the ice in Svalbard as part of the Nansen Legacy Project. 

Credit

Photo: Martin Ludvigsen, NTNU

 

Strange Atlantic cold spot traced to ocean slowdown

Research confirms weakening circulation drives South Greenland anomaly

University of California - Riverside

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Atlantic sea surface temperature trend between 1900-2005 (color shading in °C) for the average of six observation datasets.  

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Credit: Kai-Yuan Li/UCR

For more than a century, a patch of cold water south of Greenland has resisted the Atlantic Ocean’s overall warming, fueling debate amongst scientists. A new study identifies the cause as the long-term weakening of a major ocean circulation system.

Researchers from the University of California, Riverside show that only one explanation fits both observed ocean temperatures and salinity patterns: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is slowing down. This massive current system helps regulate climate by moving warm, salty water northward and cooler water southward at depth.

“People have been asking why this cold spot exists,” said UCR climate scientist Wei Liu, who led the study with doctoral student Kai-Yuan Li. “We found the most likely answer is a weakening AMOC.”

The AMOC acts like a giant conveyor belt, delivering heat and salt from the tropics to the North Atlantic. A slowdown in this system means less warm, salty water reaches the sub-polar region, resulting in the cooling and freshening observed south of Greenland.

When the current slows, less heat and salt reach the North Atlantic, leading to cooler, fresher surface waters. This is why salinity and temperature data can be used to understand the strength of the AMOC. 

Liu and Li analyzed a century’s worth of this data, as direct AMOC observations go back only about 20 years. From these long-term records, they reconstructed changes in the circulation system and compared those with nearly 100 different climate models.

As the paper published in Communications Earth & Environment shows, only the models simulating a weakened AMOC matched the real-world data. Models that assumed a stronger circulation didn’t come close.

“It’s a very robust correlation,” Li said. “If you look at the observations and compare them with all the simulations, only the weakened-AMOC scenario reproduces the cooling in this one region.”

The study also found that the weakening of the AMOC correlates with decreased salinity. This is another clear sign that less warm, salty water is being transported northward.

The consequences are broad. The South Greenland anomaly matters not just because it’s unusual, but because it’s one of the most sensitive regions to changes in ocean circulation. It affects weather patterns across Europe, altering rainfall and shifting the jet stream, which is a high-altitude air current that steers weather systems and helps regulate temperatures across North America and Europe. 

The slowdown may also disturb marine ecosystems, as changes in salinity and temperature influence where species can live.

This result may help settle a dispute amongst climate modelers about whether the South Greenland cooling is driven primarily by ocean dynamics or by atmospheric factors such as aerosol pollution. Many newer models suggested the latter, predicting a strengthened AMOC due to declining aerosol emissions. But those models failed to recreate the actual, observed cooling.

“Our results show that only the models with a weakening AMOC get it right,” Liu said. “That means many of the recent models are too sensitive to aerosol changes, and less accurate for this region.”

By resolving that mismatch, the study strengthens future climate forecasts, especially those concerning Europe, where the influence of the AMOC is most pronounced.

The study also highlights the ability to draw clear conclusions from indirect evidence. With limited direct data on the AMOC, temperature and salinity records provide a valuable alternative for detecting long-term change, and for helping to predict future climate scenarios.

“We don’t have direct observations going back a century, but the temperature and salinity data let us see the past clearly,” Li said. “This work shows the AMOC has been weakening for more than a century, and that trend is likely to continue if greenhouse gases keep rising.”

As the climate system shifts, the South Greenland cold spot may grow in influence. The hope is that by unlocking its origins, scientists can better prepare societies for what lies ahead.

“The technique we used is a powerful way to understand how the system has changed, and where it is likely headed if greenhouse gases keep rising,” Li said. 

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Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02403-0 

Article Title

Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole

New research uncovers surprising physics of ‘marine snow’

Brown University

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New research uncovers surprising insights into how particles sink in stratified fluids like oceans, where the density of the fluid changes with depth. In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that the speed at which particles sink is determined not only by resistive drag forces from the fluid, but by the rate at which they can absorb salt relative to their volume. That means that smaller particles, counterintuitively, sink faster than larger ones. 

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Credit: Harris Lab/Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The deep ocean can often look like a real-life snow globe. As organic particles from plant and animal matter on the surface sink downward, they combine with dust and other material to create “marine snow,” a beautiful display of ocean weather that plays a crucial role in cycling carbon and other nutrients through the world’s oceans. 

Now, researchers from Brown University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found surprising new insights into how particles sink in stratified fluids like oceans, where the density of the fluid changes with depth. In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they show that the speed at which particles sink is determined not only by resistive drag forces from the fluid, but by the rate at which they can absorb salt relative to their volume. 

“It basically means that smaller particles can sink faster than bigger ones,” said Robert Hunt, a postdoctoral researcher in Brown’s School of Engineering who led the work. “That’s exactly the opposite of what you’d expect in a fluid that has uniform density.”

The researchers hope the new insights could aid in understanding the ocean nutrient cycle, as well as the settling of other porous particulates including microplastics. 

“We ended up with a pretty simple formula where you can plug in estimates for different parameters — the size of the particles or speed at which the liquid density changes — and get reasonable estimates of the sinking speed,” said Daniel Harris, an associate professor of engineering at Brown who oversaw the work. “There’s value in having predictive power that’s readily accessible.”

The study grew out of prior work by Hunt and Harris investigating neutrally buoyant particles — those that sink to a certain depth and then stop. Hunt noticed some strange behavior that seemed to be related to the porosity of the particles. 

“We were testing a theory under the assumption that these particles would remain neutrally buoyant,” Hunt said. “But when we observed them, they kept sinking, which was actually kind of frustrating.”

That led to a new theoretical model of how porosity — specifically, the ability to absorb salt — would affect the rate at which they sunk. The model predicts that the more salt a particle can absorb relative to its size, the faster it sinks. That means, somewhat counterintuitively, that small porous particles sink faster than larger ones. 

To test the model, the researchers developed a way to make a linearly stratified body of water in which the density of the liquid increased gradually with depth. To do that, they fed a large tub with water sourced from two smaller tubs, one with fresh water and the other with salt water. Controllable pumps from each tub enabled them to carefully control the density profile of the larger tub. 

Using 3D-printed molds, the team then created particles of varying shapes and sizes made from agar, a gelatinous material derived from seaweed. Cameras imaged individual particles as they sank. 

The experiments confirmed the predictions of the model. For spherical particles, smaller ones tended to sink faster. For thinner or flatter particles, their settling speed was primarily determined by their smallest dimension. That means that elongated particles actually sink faster than spherical ones of the same volume. 

The results are surprising, the researchers said, and could provide important insights into how particles settle in more complex ecological settings — either for understanding natural carbon cycling or for engineering ways of speeding up carbon capture in large bodies of water.

“We’re not trying to replicate full oceanic conditions,” Harris said. “The approach in our lab is to boil things down to their simplest form and think about the fundamental physics involved in these complex phenomena. Then we can work back and forth with people measuring these things in the field to understand where these fundamentals are relevant.”

Harris says he hopes to connect with oceanographers and climate scientists to see what insights these new findings might provide. 

Other co-authors of the research were Roberto Camassa and Richard McLaughlin from UNC Chappel Hill. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (DMS-1909521, DMS-1910824, DMS-2308063) and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-18-1-2490 and N00014-23-1-2478).

Sinking Shapes [VIDEO] | 

New research uncovers surprising insights into how particles sink in stratified fluids like oceans, where the density of the fluid changes with depth. In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that the speed at which particles sink is determined not only by resistive drag forces from the fluid, but by the rate at which they can absorb salt relative to their volume. That means that smaller particles, counterintuitively, sink faster than larger ones.

For thinner or flatter particles, their settling speed was primarily determined by their smallest dimension. That means that elongated particles actually sink faster than spherical ones of the same volume. 

Credit

Harris Lab/Brown University

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2505085122 

Article Title

Diffusion-limited settling of highly porous particles in density-stratified fluids

Article Publication Date

20-Jun-2025

ABOLISH PRISONS

One of Canada’s oldest, most notorious prisons to be replaced

By Garrett Barry
 June 17, 2025 

Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's, N.L. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sarah Smellie

After decades of debate, there are finally signs of a replacement to the notorious Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s, N.L., one of Canada’s oldest operating prisons.

Correctional officers have complained about heat, mold, strong toxic smells and “serious rodent issues” at the prison, according to documents revealed under Access to Information legislation.

Conditions have become so bad that multiple inmates have received extra credit towards their sentences — known as “Duncan” credit — in recognition of the particularly harsh circumstances inside the prison.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Provincial Government announced Monday that an “early works agreement” has been signed with a contractor that will allow some preliminary site work to begin.

The provincial government and contractor New Avalon Corrections Partners is also working towards concluding an agreement to build a new prison, which is estimated to cost almost $700 million.


“Despite the inflated price tag and challenge, as I call it, we remain steadfast in our commitment to getting the project done,” said Transportation and Works Minister Elvis Loveless

.

Newfoundland and Labrador officials say the new prison will cost almost $700 million.

Price estimates for the project have soared, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Loveless and other provincial government officials have blamed inflation for the change in budget, which was once about $400 million.

The ceremonial groundbreaking on Monday is the closest the provincial government has stepped in years to replacing the decrepit, 166-year-old penitentiary.

The notorious prison is often excruciatingly hot and odorous and tensions among prisoners are at an almost permanent boil, according to St. John’s defence lawyer Erin Breen.

“When you walk in, in the summertime in particular, it’s a wall of heat and stench that hits you,” she said.

Staffing issues, according to Breen, have frequently led to lockdowns inside the prison where inmates must be kept inside their cells in order to maintain safety.

“They’re not getting access at all to fresh air or outdoor air. Very rarely do they get recreation at all,” she said. “You’re subjecting people to things that you would think that in 2025, in Canada, just could not happen.”

St. John’s defence lawyer Erin Breen appears for an interview on the replacement for Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's, N.L.

Previous replacement attempts

This week’s groundbreaking ceremony marks the latest — but not the only — attempt to replace the ailing prison in recent years. An attempt in 2019 stalled over concerns with rising costs.

“It has always been a difficult priority politically,” John Haggie, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minister of Justice, said Monday. “It is a hard sell for a lot of people. And quite frankly, that doesn’t make it any the less important.”

Haggie deflected some responsibility from his own provincial Liberal party for the decades of delay by alleging the provincial government was in such bad shape when they were first elected that officials were more concerned about making payroll than replacing infrastructure.

Monday’s announcement still came without definitive timelines on when the new facility will be built, or when prisoners could be moved over.

The early work agreement allows for the installation of site fencing and some soil and groundwork.

Breen says she’s still skeptical that a new prison will be built.

“I’m sure everyone has the best of intentions, but, you know, will things change? Will suddenly costs skyrocket and the thing gets called off again?” she asked.

“It’s difficult after so many years to trust…particularly in light of the fiscal situation that we’re in.”


Garrett Barry
Journalist, CTV National News

Private equity sits on US$1 trillion amid uncertainties, M&A stalls, PwC says

By Reuters
 June 18, 2025 

A newly printed U.S. dollar bill is shown at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas

 (AP Photo/LM Otero, File) (LM Otero/AP)

Private equity firms are holding about US$1 trillion in unsold assets, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said on Wednesday — capital that, in a typical market environment, would have been returned to investors.

High interest rates in the United States, President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again approach to tariff policy, and geopolitical uncertainties have eroded company valuations and contributed to firms holding onto portfolio firms far longer than expected.

The capital tie-up is playing a role in the slowdown in dealmaking. Mergers and acquisitions, a key barometer of global economic health, have stalled this year.

“Patience is wearing a little bit thin” among limited partners (LP), said Kevin Desai, PwC U.S. deal platform leader.

LP firms combine some of the largest and most influential investors in the world and invest trillions of dollars in PE firms in expectation of regular returns.

Despite entering 2025 with high hopes for an M&A rally under Trump, deal volume and value have remained largely flat year-over-year, with 4,535 deals totaling $567 billion through May, PwC said.

PwC’s May 2025 Pulse Survey found that 30% of respondents have paused or are revisiting deals due to tariff issues, fueling investor frustration over delayed returns.

“In a typical M&A cycle, $1 trillion would have already been put back into the market,” Josh Smigel, PwC’s U.S. private equity leader, told reporters while disclosing the firm’s 2025 midyear outlook on deal activity.

Private equity firms, which deploy LP capital into businesses across industries, currently have $3 trillion invested in 30,000 companies, according to PwC, with 30% held for longer than five years.

That is above the traditional timeline by which funds expect to have a profit on their investments.

Earlier, these firms could easily hit their rate of return targets by using cheap debt and favorable market conditions.

A separate PwC study found 57% of executives, who poured capital into businesses that needed to be fixed, saw the investments shrink or stay the same.

So, now, PE firms need to be creative to squeeze profit from assets - often bought at peak prices, said Liz Crego, PwC’s industry markets leader. That includes selling a small portion of a business that can be more valuable as a separate entity, she said.

A more uncertain market has also led to a decline in cross-border deals to 16.9% of total activity, down from 18.7% in 2021. China-related deals, in particular, face heightened scrutiny and strategic reevaluation, PwC said.
Cautiously optimistic

The initial public offering (IPO) market has shown signs of life, with 31 traditional IPOs raising $11 billion through May. While April saw a pause due to tariff shocks, activity resumed in May and June, with fintechs like Chime, valued at $18.4 billion at its Nasdaq debut, leading the charge.


Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are also making a modest comeback, with over 50 of those publicly traded shell companies created to raise capital through IPOs.

To unlock the $1 trillion held by PEs, the recession cloud over the U.S. would have to recede, Washington would need to provide clarity over tariffs and interest rates must decline, Smigel said.

Nevertheless, PwC expects M&A activity to improve in the coming quarters, with pressure from the LP funds looking for returns and as assets are repriced.

“Whether that is the back half of 2025 and into 2026, there are reasons to be optimistic,” Smigel said.

(Reporting by Sabrina Valle; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

Audi could build plant in U.S. to placate Trump, Spiegel reports

By Reuters
June 20, 2025 

The 2015 Audi A3 Cabriolet. (Audi via AP)

BERLIN — Volkswagen’s premium brand Audi could build a plant at a new location in the United States under scenarios being considered to placate President Donald Trump in the tariff conflict, the Spiegel news magazine reported on Friday.

Audi is considering building a plant in the southern U.S., which would be the more expensive option out of a number of scenarios being considered, with company sources estimating costs of up to 4 billion euros (US$4.6 billion), the report said.

An Audi spokesperson said that the company aims to build up more of a presence in the United States.

“We are currently examining various scenarios for this. We are confident that we will make a decision this year in consultation with the (Volkswagen) group on how this will look in concrete terms,” she said in an emailed statement, reaffirming earlier comments made by the company.

Audi has no production of its own in the U.S., but Volkswagen has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and one under construction near Columbia, South Carolina.

Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs has already racked up hundreds of millions of euros in costs for German carmakers heavily reliant on their export business, according to an industry representative.

BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are in talks with Washington over a possible import tariff deal, seeking to use their U.S. investments and exports as leverage to soften any blow, sources have told Reuters.

($1 = 0.8678 euros)

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Reporting by Rachel More, editing by Friederike Heine and Thomas Seythal

Rural Oklahoma strives to become American hub for critical minerals processing

By Reuters
 June 18, 2025 

The Oklahoma state Capitol is seen in Oklahoma City

. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

LAWTON, Oklahoma — Nestled beneath Oklahoma’s Wichita Mountains sits a two-story warehouse containing the only machine in the United States capable of refining nickel, a crucial energy transition metal now dominated by China.

The facility, owned by startup Westwin Elements, aims to help Oklahoma become the epicentre for U.S. critical minerals processing, a sector the country largely abandoned decades ago.

The state will have to overcome several obstacles to get there, including a lack of major critical mineral deposits, a weak education system and its location at the centre of the United States - far from international shipping lanes.

Yet Oklahoma’s push into minerals processing marks an unexpected twist in the country’s efforts to wean itself off Chinese rivals who have blocked exports.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he wants to boost U.S. production of minerals used across the economy. In Oklahoma, the country’s only nickel refinery, its largest lithium refinery, two lithium-ion battery recycling plants, a rare earths magnet facility, and several electronic waste collection facilities are under construction or in operation - more than in any other state.

They join a Umicore site that produces germanium crystals for solar panels. An aluminum smelter - the country’s first since 1980 - is set to break ground next year at a site bordering an Arkansas River tributary.

“I’ve strategically made a conscious effort to go after some of these new industries that I think are going to be critical,” Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, told Reuters. “There’s money flying into critical minerals from the investment side, so it might as well be located in Oklahoma.”

Investors and corporate executives say the state’s location, lack of mineral deposits, and other detracting factors are outweighed by a string of positives: Oklahoma has railways and highways bisecting the state en route to the three U.S. coasts, a workforce with deep energy experience, state rebates and other financial incentives, a large inland port with access to the Mississippi River watershed, and accommodating regulators.

Officials boast on social media that Oklahoma is a “one phone call state,” a description meant to evoke what they see as a streamlined regulatory process.

Australia-based MLB Industrial, a startup that supplies lithium-ion batteries to the locomotive industry, expanded its business to Oklahoma earlier this year for that very reason.

“Other states were looking for a large, established company to invest, rather than a company with a growth profile,” said Nathan Leech, MLB’s CEO, who moved his family to Oklahoma. “We intend to grow in Oklahoma.”

A nickel refinery, in particular, has been sought by Washington for years but Chinese market dumping had scared away would-be entrants, said a source familiar with the Trump administration’s minerals policy.

KaLeigh Long founded Westwin and named it after her desire for the U.S. to shake off Chinese minerals dependence - as she puts it, “The West will win.” The firm has built a demonstration facility 137 km south of the state capital that it says can refine 200 metric tons of nickel annually and will expand to produce 34,000 metric tons per year by 2030.

If successful, the Westwin facility would refine ten per cent of America’s annual nickel needs, demand projections from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence show, drawing on rock taken from Turkish and Indonesian mines, as well as recycled U.S. batteries.

Even as Oklahoma promises state tax rebates and other incentives, Westwin is lobbying Washington not to eliminate a federal production tax credit heavily opposed by Republicans along with other green energy subsidies enacted by former President Joe Biden, as Reuters reported earlier this month.


Westwin is in negotiations with the Pentagon for a nickel supply deal that would keep metal inside the United States to make batteries for military drones and other equipment, according to a source familiar with the deliberations.

Sustainable power

Roughly 354 km northeast, a lithium refinery under construction from Stardust Power aims to produce 50,000 metric tons of the battery metal per year, about a fifth of what the U.S. is expected to need by 2030. Japan’s Sumitomo signed a preliminary agreement in February to buy up to half of the facility’s output.

Stardust aims for the plant to filter lithium from brines - something that has yet to happen at commercial scale - and will have roughly the same capacity as Tesla’s refinery under construction in Texas. It will be powered in part by renewable energy; nearly half of the state’s electricity is generated by wind turbines.

“That was a huge draw,” said Roshan Pujari, Stardust’s CEO. The company is pushing forward even after rival Albemarle paused plans to build a large U.S. refinery, citing weak lithium prices.

“During these down cycles is the best time to be developing, because why do we want prices to be high when we have nothing to sell?” Pujari said.

USA Rare Earth, which went public earlier this year, chose Oklahoma over Texas for its rare earths magnet facility given what it felt was the personalized support from Stitt and other officials, said CEO Josh Ballard. Magnets made from rare earths turn electricity into motion for EVs; the U.S. stopped making them in the 1990s.

Ballard says the facility is slated to open early next year and initially produce 1,200 metric tons annually, enough magnets to build more than 400,000 EVs. That supply is already highly sought after in the United States since China placed export restrictions on rare earths in April.

Ballard said he has been fielding “a lot of phone calls” since April from prospective customers. The company on Tuesday signed a preliminary supply agreement with Moog MOGa.N for magnets used in AI data centres.

“We can do this quickly. It’s just a matter of how do we do it, and can the government help be a catalyst?” said Ballard. The company could get a boost from legislation introduced earlier this month by three U.S. senators - including Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin - that would provide a tax credit for roughly 30 per cent of the cost to manufacture a magnet made from rare earths.

Elsewhere, two Oklahoma battery processing facilities - from Green Li-ion and Blue Whale Materials - will break down lithium-ion batteries into copper and other building blocks for new batteries. Natural Evolution, in Tulsa, is spearheading a push to expand electronic waste recycling.

Green Li-ion, which has a recycling facility in Atoka - Country music star Reba McEntire’s hometown - has held talks with Glencore as well as Westwin about buying a recycled version of battery scrap known as MHP, or mixed hydroxide precipitate, that can be used to make nickel products, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Glencore declined to comment.

Most of the country’s recycled batteries are exported now to China in the form of black mass, essentially shredded battery parts. Green Li-ion, which is headquartered in Singapore, moved its U.S. operations to Oklahoma given the state’s history with oil and gas extraction, skills it sees as complementary to black mass processing.

“This state has a lot of chemical engineers,” said Kevin Hobbie, the company’s senior vice president of operations.

‘Swinging for the fences’

Oklahoma’s foray into the energy transition hasn’t been all smooth sailing.

Tesla supplier Panasonic in 2022 chose Kansas over Oklahoma for a battery plant after the Sunflower State wooed it with US$1 billion in incentives.

In January, EV startup Canoo filed for bankruptcy despite a US$1 million state grant and Stitt’s commitment for his administration to buy 1,000 of the company’s vehicles. Canoo, which had several production facilities in Oklahoma, blamed uncertain demand for its cargo vans. State officials say they are trying to recoup the funds.

Stitt said he is not bothered by the bankruptcy. “We’re going to keep swinging for the fences,” he said.

The state’s education system has also generated negative headlines, due in part to a battle over low standards that could make it difficult to convince high-tech talent and their families to relocate to Oklahoma. The state’s pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade educational system, for instance, is ranked 48th out of the 50 U.S. states by U.S. News and World Report, and many schools have moved to a four-day week to save money.

Alphabet’s Google, which built an Oklahoma data centre in 2011, donated funds to the local school district in part to attract faculty.

Oklahoma’s superintendent of schools is an elected position over which Stitt has no control. The governor successfully pushed for a school voucher system that he said should attract more families.

“If I create competition, and now a public school has to compete for a student, it’s going to make all boats rise and bring more talent to Oklahoma,” Stitt said.

The governor said he is focused on helping the minerals refiners in his state grow and is lobbying Trump to require federal contractors to increase the percentage of minerals they buy that are processed in the country.

That’s a key desire also for Long, the Westwin founder, who spent her youth herding cattle, an experience she said inspired her interest in refining and a reticence for mining.

“After seeing the beef and meat industry, I learned that the packer is the one that seems to take the least amount of risk and yet makes the most amount of money,” she said. “When I saw mining, I was like, ‘The miner is the rancher and the refiner is the packer.’ So I decided I want to be the packer.”

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Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; additional reporting by Nick Oxford; Editing by Veronica Brown and Claudia Parsons

Global investment decline may worsen due to tariffs, UN trade agency warns

By Reuters
 June 19, 2025 

A general view shows a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

GENEVA -- Global foreign direct investment fell for the second consecutive year in 2024, with fears this year could be even worse as trade tensions rock investor confidence, the United Nations agency for trade and development said in a report published on Thursday.

Foreign Direct Investment transactions, which do not include several European conduit economies, declined by 11%, indicating a significant reduction in actual productive investment activity, according to UNCTAD.

Geopolitical tensions and trade fragmentation contributed to lower investment last year as they created uncertainty, which UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan described as a “poison” for investor confidence.

“We are even more worried about the picture in 2025...We already feel that investment is halted...Tariffs are affecting growth,” Grynspan told Reuters, with short-term risk management being prioritized over long-term investment.

UNCTAD said its outlook for international investment in 2025 was negative due to trade tensions. Early data for the first quarter of 2025 shows record low deal and project activity.

When several European conduit economies - which act as intermediary hubs where investments temporarily pass through before reaching their final destinations - are included, the data showed that FDI increased by 4% to US$1.5 trillion.

However, UNCTAD noted that this figure masks the reality that much of this investment is merely passing through these jurisdictions and was not productive.

“We see a very worrying tendency...Investment that has a real impact on jobs and infrastructure is going down,” she said.

Developed economies suffered a sharp drop in investment, with a 58% decrease in Europe. North America, however, observed a 23% increase in FDI, led by the U.S., while countries in Southeast Asia reached the second-highest level of FDI on record with a 10% rise, representing $225 billion.

Though capital inflows in developing countries were broadly stable, UNCTAD observed that capital was not being injected into crucial job-creating sectors such as infrastructure, energy and technology.

Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, editing by Ed Osmond, Reuters

U.S. Supreme Court rejects toy company’s push for a quick decision on Trump’s tariffs

By The Associated Press
Updated: June 20, 2025 

The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal from an Illinois toy company pushing for a quick decision on the legality of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Learning Resources Inc. had asked the justices to take up the case soon, rather than let it continue to play out in lower courts. The company argues the tariffs and uncertainty are having a “massive impact” on businesses around the country and the issue needs swift attention from the nation’s highest court.

The justices didn’t explain their reasoning in the brief order rebuffing the appeal, but the U.S. Supreme Court is typically reluctant to take up cases before lower courts have decided.Latest news & updates on tariffs and the trade war here

The company argues that the Republican president illegally imposed tariffs under an emergency powers law, bypassing Congress. It won an early victory in a lower court, but the order is on hold as an appeals court considers a similar ruling putting a broader block on Trump’s tariffs. The appeals court has allowed Trump to continue collecting tariffs under the emergency powers law ahead of arguments set for late July.

The Trump administration has defended the tariffs by arguing that the emergency powers law gives the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies and that the country’s longtime trade deficit qualifies as a national emergency.


___

Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press

Canada’s EV market was already in trouble. Tariffs made it worse, workers say

By The Canadian Press
June 19, 2025 

Employee's cars sit in the parking lot at GM’s Cami Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont., Friday, April 11, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Geoff Robins

INGERSOLL — Bob Pulham recalls the optimism in the air when General Motors began producing electric vans in Ingersoll, Ont., in late 2022.

As the first BrightDrop commercial van rolled off the line at the CAMI Assembly plant, GM executives, union leaders and former prime minister Justin Trudeau touted it as a major milestone for electric vehicle production in Canada.

Pulham, a Unifor representative at the plant, remembers talk of increasing shifts and hiring more people to produce 50,000 such delivery vans annually by 2025.

But the sales never picked up, the plant kept slowing down the production line amid sluggish demand and the optimism slowly faded.

This April, GM announced it would idle the plant for several months and resume production in October with just one shift. Union members say about half of 1,200 workers at the plant will be gone as a result.


“I feel bad for all 600 that are being laid off. It’s a horrible position to be put in,” Pulham said in an interview. “It’s a crazy amount of uncertainty and I think that hurts people.”

The announcement came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles, but a GM Canada spokesperson said the halt was directly related to lower-than-expected demand for the BrightDrop vans.

Pulham, who began working at the CAMI plant more than three decades ago, said his wife has also been laid off and is now pondering whether to go back to school or search for a new job.

Several other companies, including Honda, Stellantis, Umicore and Ford have also delayed or scrapped their EV projects amid the slow sales growth and the ongoing trade war.

GM Canada said reducing production in Ingersoll was necessary to adjust to market demand and balance inventory.

But workers at the CAMI plant say Trump’s tariffs made things even worse. They’ve experienced the industry’s ups and downs over the decades, but say this challenge is especially difficult at a time of great economic uncertainty.

“There’s a push to build (vehicles) in the U.S., and that has caused a lot of issues over here,” Pulham said. “So, it’s not a good situation.”

Mike Van Boekel, the Unifor Local 88 CAMI plant chairperson, said even though workers knew layoffs were on the horizon, the news was still shocking for many.

“It was terrible,” he said. “I thought we were going to lose a shift. I was worried in the back of my mind … and now it has come true.”

GM’s ambitious plan to be at the “forefront of a big wave” of electric delivery van production didn’t materialize because the timing was not right, Boekel said.

He felt the company was gaining some momentum before the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles. GM had just received an order of a thousand delivery vans from the U.S. grocery chain giant Kroger, he said.


“So, it looked like we were just getting to go and all of a sudden, the tariffs came on,” he said, adding that CAMI workers will still produce Kroger’s vans when they return to the factory this fall.

Workers aren’t the only ones feeling the pain.

The ripple effects of layoffs are a source of concern for Ingersoll Mayor Brian Petrie. The CAMI plant, which spans two million square feet, is the largest employer in the southwestern Ontario town of about 14,000 people.

Petrie said Ingersoll expects to receive $1.8 million in municipal taxes from the company this year, which is around 10 per cent of the total levies the town is expected to collect.

“It is devastating because we’re not talking about new employees here, either, these are long serving employees and ... they’ve had a tough road going up to that point,” Petrie said in a recent interview at his office.

The federal government under Trudeau set a target of 100 per cent zero-emission sales of light duty vehicles by 2035. Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin indicated this week that mandate won’t be changing.

But that goal seems hard to achieve, Petrie said.

“It’s honest to say that I think everybody may have misunderstood the scale of the problem that we’re facing to do the EV switch,” he said. “I think all of them will admit that it’s been a bigger problem than they once thought.”

Still, he thinks the more than $50 billion in investments that Canada has pledged since 2020 to incentivize the EV supply chain will pay off in the long term.

Some provinces, including Manitoba and Quebec, are offering rebates for electric vehicle purchases. B.C.’s rebate program, which was the longest running in the country, was paused last month. Ontario scrapped its rebate program after Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won the election in 2018.

The federal government also halted in January its Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles program, which offered up to $5,000 off the cost of a new electric vehicle. Dabrusin said Ottawa intends to bring back consumer rebates for EVs, but doesn’t yet know what they’ll look like.

Zero-emissions vehicles represented only 8.7 per cent of all new vehicle sales in Canada in the first quarter of 2025 — a drop from 16.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to data from Statistics Canada.

The sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids had steadily increased from below one per cent in 2017 to 14.6 in 2024, but experts say the growth hasn’t been nearly as fast as many expected.

Dan Park, CEO of online used car retailer Clutch, said EV adoption has been slower in Canada because people normally drive long distances in colder temperatures, which reduces battery life by 20 to 40 per cent and slows down the charging speed.

“Canada is just a fundamentally harder market to have,” he said. “Until technology and battery life is improved to be able to handle colder conditions, I think Canadians will just shy away from it.”

Park said EVs make up only five per cent of Clutch’s inventory, which is tied to consumer demand.

He said consumer rebates and production subsidies “artificially propped up the market,” and provincial and federal governments should instead invest in a stronger charging infrastructure to encourage more Canadians to adopt EVs.

A recent survey by consumer insights firm J.D. Power shows that only 28 per cent of nearly 4,000 respondents said they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to consider an EV for their next vehicle purchase, down from 29 per cent last year and 34 per cent in 2023. The survey also found that 75 per cent of new vehicle purchasers aren’t confident Canada can reach its 2035 zero-emission vehicle sales goal.

Manufacturers took note of the lacklustre interest.

Honda Canada announced in May that it’s postponing a $15-billion EV project in Ontario, citing the “unexpected slowdown” in the market. Stellantis is postponing the production of an EV model of 2026 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T at its Windsor, Ont., plant as it assesses the effects of U.S. tariffs. And Ford Motor Co. said it will assemble F-Series Super Duty pickup trucks at its Oakville, Ont., plant beginning in 2026 instead of planned electric vehicle production at the site.

Despite the setbacks, Environment and Climate Change Canada said it will continue to support investments and innovations in the EV supply chain.

Canada’s zero-emissions vehicle sales mandates ensure “Canadians have access to electric vehicles, which offer long-term savings for consumers,” department spokesperson Hermine Landry said in a statement.

“Transportation emissions have declined to levels not seen in decades, demonstrating that we can grow our economy while also fighting climate change,” Landry said. “It is important to remain focused on the fact that the real threat to the Canadian auto industry right now are the unjustified tariffs from the United States.”

Overall, Canadians buy around two million new vehicles annually and the country produces approximately 1.5 million of them, according to Unifor. Autoworkers say the federal government should push for more vehicle production in Canada from manufacturers such as Kia, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and others that don’t have any production footprint in the country, to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs.

“It’d be nice, (if) the government stands up for us and you know says to these big companies, ‘If you want to sell here, then you need to build here as well,’” said Paul Harvey, who works as a framing team leader at CAMI.

Harvey said that although he and his wife will keep their jobs at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, they will both have to work the same hours when production resumes on one shift. With four children at home, that means the couple will need a new child-care plan and increased costs will come with it.

Harvey, who has been an autoworker for 20 years, said it would be “kind of silly” to think that the transition to electric vehicles would happen at the flick of a switch. He said he and his wife remain optimistic about the EV market and that’s why they purchased a Chevy Blazer EV just a few weeks ago.

“We’re committed to moving into the future with the electrified vehicles,” he said.

“I do believe it will get there eventually.”

Article by Sharif Hassan.

Diversifying trade key to building resilience against U.S. tariffs: BoC Macklem

By The Canadian Press
 June 18, 2025 

Governor of the Bank of Canada Tiff Macklem delivers a speech at a Calgary Economic Development event in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, March 20, 2025.

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

OTTAWA — Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem is encouraging businesses to explore export markets beyond the United States to make the economy less vulnerable to current and future trade disputes.

Speaking to a business crowd in coastal St. John’s, N.L., on Wednesday, Macklem meanwhile warned of fog in the inflation forecast, making it difficult to chart a path for monetary policy through the tariff uncertainty.

The central bank head said it was “very welcome news” that Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed at the G7 Summit earlier this week to nail down a new trade and security deal within 30 days.

He said in prepared remarks that progress toward a new trade deal is “encouraging,” but later said in a moderated question-and-answer period that Canada’s economy faces bigger problems in an increasingly “fragmented world.”

Trade patterns were already shifting before Trump was re-elected late last year, Macklem noted, and other global conflicts are also forcing businesses to reorient supply chains.

“I really hope we get a deal, I really hope it’s a good deal, but that’s not going to solve all our problems,” he said.

Disruptions during COVID-19 showed Canadian firms the consequences of not having diverse supply chains, Macklem said. And he said the current trade dispute is demonstrating how vulnerable businesses can be without diverse export markets.

“Growing new markets for our exports builds scale and competitiveness. But there’s an added imperative — diversification adds resilience,” he said in his speech.

Macklem used Newfoundland and Labrador as a case study for his point, noting that only a third of the province’s goods exports head to the United States compared with roughly three-quarters for the rest of Canada. Most of the province’s oil is now shipped to Europe and other countries, for instance, and services exports are boosting the St. John’s tech sector, he noted.

Macklem said the rest of Canada has an opportunity, particularly among services exports, to expand trade beyond the United States. Efforts to build national infrastructure and tear down interprovincial trade barriers would also make diversifying goods exports easier, he said.

The United States will always be Canada’s biggest trading partner, Macklem said, but he believes the recent tariff dispute has awoken businesses and policymakers to long-standing vulnerabilities in the economy by being so focused on cross-border trade.

“This is something we’ve been talking about for a long time in this country,” he said during the Q&A.

“The reality is, we’re just leaving money on the table by not building our own internal market, by not developing our overseas markets.”

The Bank of Canada held its benchmark interest rate steady at 2.75 per cent for the second time in a row earlier this month.

The central bank’s next decision is set for July 30, and Macklem reiterated that future cuts could be in the cards if economic growth weakens further but inflation remains contained in the trade dispute.


While labour market impacts are largely concentrated in trade-sensitive sectors so far and other industries are still showing some growth, Macklem said that, “if demand stays soft, at some point more businesses will cut jobs.”

Tracking inflation’s response to tariffs is “complicated,” the central bank head noted. A slower economy dampens price pressures but the tariffs themselves can make goods more expensive for Canadians.Latest updates on investing here

While the removal of the consumer carbon price helped push inflation down to 1.7 per cent in April, Macklem cautioned that’s only short-term relief for the annual comparisons.

Inflation excluding taxes was 2.3 per cent in the month, which he said was “slightly stronger” than the Bank of Canada expected.

He said that certain core measures of inflation are now running above three per cent and “could be firmer” than the central bank first thought.

But Macklem also warned there’s “potentially some distortion” in the Bank of Canada’s preferred core inflation figures that could be “exaggerating” price pressures.

Alternative measures of core inflation are coming in lower, so he said the central bank is looking at a range of factors as it gauges where inflation is heading next.

Macklem pointed to higher goods prices affecting the underlying inflation figures, which could be starting to reflect new costs related to tariffs.

“The bottom line, as I indicated, is we have seen more firmness in underlying inflation, and that’s something that’s got our attention,” he said in the press conference.

“There is some unusual volatility. So how temporary or persistent this is, I think remains an open question.”

The Bank of Canada will get two inflation readings before its next interest rate decision, with Statistics Canada set to report May inflation figures on June 24.

---

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 18, 2025.

Canada to adjust metal counter tariffs against U.S. on July 21: Carney

By Luca Caruso-Moro
 June 19, 2025 at 1:02PM EDT



Minister Leblanc ‘optimistic’ about making progress with U.S. negotiations


Canada will adjust counter-tariffs on steel and aluminum products on July 21 to levels “consistent” with progress made during trade negotiation with the United States, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday.

He did not specify what those adjusted tariffs would amount to. July 21 coincides with the end of the 30-day trade deal deadline announced after Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Kananaskis, Alta., on the sidelines of the G7.

In addition to adjusting those counter tariffs, Canada will limit federal procurement policies to favour Canadian suppliers and “reliable trading partners” by June 30, according to a press release.

Third, the government will unleash new, retroactive tariff quota rates, at 100 per cent of 2024 levels, on imports of steel products from non-free trade agreement countries. More tariff measures will be adopted in the coming weeks to respond to “unfair trade in the steel and aluminum sectors, which are exacerbated by U.S. actions,” the news release adds.

Ottawa is also creating two task forces, one for steel and the other for aluminum, to closely monitor trade and support the government’s decision making.

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Thursday, June 19, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

Industries buckling under tariff pressure

The announcement comes as Canada’s metals industries strain under the pressure of Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

In early June, the president hiked existing metals tariffs from 25 per cent to 50 per cent in a move to protect American workers, which he said had been “harmed by unfair trade practices and global excess capacity,” according to the White House.

Since initial tariffs were unleashed, layoffs have spiked, investments have waned, and shipments have slowed in the steel sector, Canadian Steel Producers Association CEO Catherine Cobden said.

On June 4, the day Trump’s doubled tariffs took effect, Cobden released a stark statement to media: “At a 50 per cent tariff rate, the U.S. market is effectively closed to Canadian steel, leaving billions of dollars of Canadian steel without a market.”

She demanded urgent action from the Canadian government. Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford called on Ottawa to call Trump’s raise and add another 25 per cent to Canada’s retaliatory tariffs.

At the time, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said Canada had to be deliberate in its response, adding she and her colleagues on Parliament Hill were working on a path forward.

 Personnel work among steel coils and beams at a shipping terminal in Trois-Rivières, Que., Friday, April 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
‘Unfairly traded, subsidized steel’

While Trump’s tariffs may have shut Canadian metals exports out of the U.S. market, they also redirected Asian subsidized steel exports into Canada.

That’s according to Keanin Loomis, president of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction, who told CTV News that Canada must align itself more closely with the U.S. on issues of metals imports.

“There’s a lot of unfairly traded, subsidized steel … that’s decimated our domestic industries,” he said during an interview with CTV News Channel. After the U.S. imposed tariffs on imports, “this steel is trying to find a home and looking, of course, northward,” he added.

New tariffs unveiled in the coming weeks will combat symptoms of “persistent global overcapacity,” the government news release explained.

Luca Caruso-Moro

CTVNews.ca 

Breaking Digital Assignment Editor