Evening Brief, Tuesday 14 July

Donald Trump said the United States would impose a 20% fee on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, then the US and Iran resumed strikes for a third night after a brief ceasefire collapsed. US strikes hit Bandar Abbas and Kish Island, Iran claimed attacks on a US base in Jordan, and two UAE tankers were struck in Omani waters, killing one Indian crew member. Brent crude touched $85.50 a barrel, while only five oil, chemical and dry bulk carriers crossed the strait on Monday.

Dubai is already building around the danger. DP World is discussing a new east-coast port in Fujairah and another terminal at the existing port, after traffic through Jebel Ali fell by 90% to 95% during the disruption. The plan would let ships unload on the Gulf of Oman and move containers by truck to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and neighbouring states, with a first phase possible in 18 months.

The shock is spreading into prices and trade. China said crude imports fell 41.3% year-on-year in June to 7.12m barrels a day, the lowest since October 2016, while US inflation cooled in June only because energy costs briefly fell before oil rallied again in July. A toll on a chokepoint is not just a tariff; it turns shipping insurance into monetary policy by another route.

Emmanuel Macron turned his final Bastille Day parade as president into a military message about Ukraine. Roughly 500 troops from the 35-nation Coalition of the Willing marched on the Champs-Elysées, followed by 25 Ukrainian soldiers, as nearly 6,700 troops, 98 aircraft, 31 helicopters and 315 vehicles displayed France's rearmament drive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk attended, and the parade followed a summit on support for Kyiv (fd450e10-4f6d-b26d-b90d097fe8e4).

The hardware agenda moved faster than the choreography. Nine European countries and Ukraine announced a coalition in Paris to develop an integrated ballistic missile-defence system, with Kyiv presenting its Freya interceptor and European firms discussing radars, interceptors and industrial cooperation. France also said it would let Ukraine produce French cruise missiles, precision bombs and interceptors, while the UK joined an EU-backed support loan for Ukraine.

Poland supplied the reminder that Europe is not rehearsing in a vacuum. Polish fighters intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft about 30km off Ustka, and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz framed the flight as part of a hybrid war against NATO members. Europe has learned to parade unity; the harder work is turning that formation into enough interceptors before Russia fires the next salvo.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham Nordone, the younger sister of Lindsey Graham, to fill the late senator's seat until January 2027. Lindsey Graham died on July 12 at 71 from a tear in the main artery caused by heart disease, shortly after returning from Ukraine and a NATO summit in Turkey. Donald Trump had publicly recommended Nordone, who has no political experience and previously served on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind.

The succession is the easy part. The Senate now faces the fate of Graham's Sanctioning Russia Act, a bipartisan bill with 85 co-sponsors that would punish buyers of Russian oil and gas. Graham had announced a White House breakthrough on the measure only two days before his death, and supporters saw his personal relationship with Trump as the bridge between Ukraine hawks and a reluctant president.

Republicans are already competing to define the tribute. Trump suggested passing a crypto bill in Graham's honour, while Senator Mike Lee pointed to election legislation that Graham had reportedly discussed with the president before he died. The South Carolina Republican Party will hold a primary on August 11 for the full six-year term, but the sanctions bill faces a more immediate test. Graham's seat has been filled; his leverage has not.

ICE agents fatally shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man, during a surveillance operation in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13. The Department of Homeland Security said agents tried to stop a vehicle leaving an address linked to someone with a final removal order, and that an officer fired after the vehicle attempted to flee. Maine Senator Angus King's office later confirmed that Guerrero was not the person ICE was seeking.

Advocacy groups said Guerrero lived locally with his wife and young daughter, had a Social Security number and was authorised to work in the United States. No officers wore body cameras, while nearby surveillance footage showed a white SUV ramming Guerrero's sedan before agents surrounded it with guns drawn. A neighbour reported hearing several shots and seeing an agent pull the bloodied driver from the car.

The death is the second fatal ICE shooting in less than a week, after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston on July 8. Since Donald Trump intensified deportations after returning to office, at least nine people have died in ICE enforcement encounters, while Human Rights Watch has documented at least 52 deaths in ICE detention centres over the same period. The FBI has opened an investigation, the officer has been placed on leave, and protests filled Biddeford's streets on Monday evening. A deportation warrant aimed at one person has now become a test of whether federal force can be audited after the fact.

Italy placed seven cities, including Florence, Bologna, Rome and Turin, under red heat alerts for July 15, while Sardinia braced for 45°C and delivery riders prepared a two-day strike over heat protections. At least eight people died from suspected heat-related illness on beaches and coastal resorts between July 11 and 14, and Rome has recorded 24 consecutive days above 35°C with almost no meaningful rain.

France is fighting the same dry arithmetic. Fires in the Fontainebleau forest have burned more than 2,000 hectares and forced around 1,000 residents to evacuate, with more than 800 firefighters deployed and Canadair aircraft skimming the Seine for the first time to fight a blaze in the Paris region. Six people were taken into custody, and prosecutors said one volunteer firefighter admitted setting fire to twigs with a lighter and gasoline.

Northern Europe supplied the violent counterpoint. Tennis ball-sized hail damaged Heidenau, flooded streets around Hannover and briefly closed Hannover-Langenhagen airport, while Polish storms triggered red alerts, flooded Jelenia Góra, damaged a factory warehouse and forced the evacuation of 123 people. Spain, meanwhile, kept yellow heat warnings in Murcia and Oria, with Murcia forecast to reach 39°C and Catalonia still enduring tropical nights. The weather map now reads less like a forecast than a staffing plan for firefighters, hospitals and power crews.

IBM shocked investors with a profit warning after preliminary second-quarter revenue came in at $17.2bn, below forecasts near $17.9bn, and adjusted earnings per share reached $2.93 against a $3.02 estimate. Infrastructure sales fell 7%, software revenue rose 5%, and the share price dropped as much as 25%, its worst one-day fall since the 1987 crash. Chief executive Arvind Krishna said corporate buyers had shifted late-June budgets toward servers, storage and memory to secure scarce AI infrastructure before expected price rises.

Wall Street banks had the opposite quarter. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Wells Fargo reported a combined $43bn in profit, helped by volatile markets, strong equity trading and a global deal boom that pushed announced mergers above $3trn in the first half. Goldman Sachs' equities revenue jumped 72%, Bank of America's sales and trading revenue hit a record $7.1bn, and JPMorgan's equity trading revenue surged 86%.

The contrast is blunt. AI is still lifting technology spending, but it is rewarding chips, memory and data-centre kit before software promises, while banks earn fees from the volatility that follows geopolitical stress and higher investment. IBM has discovered that in an AI gold rush, selling shovels beats selling plans for shovels.