The Strait of Hormuz crisis is now exposing a second layer of global supply-chain vulnerability that goes well beyond crude oil, LNG or refined fuels. The most important point in this case is that the same disruption making electric vehicles more attractive by raising diesel and gasoline prices is also threatening some of the raw-material supply chains needed to build those EVs.

Sulphur exports through Hormuz have collapsed from an average of 1.27 million metric tons a month before the war to just 180,000 tons in March and 30,000 tons in April. That is a dramatic interruption for a material that normally receives little public attention but sits deep inside battery-metal processing.

The surge in diesel prices is beginning to move from energy markets into the produce aisle, and the path is clearest in highly perishable goods that must travel long distances under refrigeration. Produce shipments from California to New York now costs about $11,000, up 46% from last year. By the time the product moves through refrigerated warehouses and local delivery routes, fuel alone can add roughly 40 cents. That is how a war-driven oil shock becomes a grocery-price problem.

The reason produce is so exposed is that its supply chain is unusually energy-intensive. Fruits and vegetables often move thousands of miles quickly, in temperature-controlled trucks, warehouses, port facilities and local delivery fleets. Diesel is not only burned on the highway; it is embedded in cold storage, distribution, farm operations and last-mile delivery.

The Trojarova antimony project in Slovakia has become a revealing test of whether Europe can turn its critical-minerals rhetoric into actual industrial capacity. On paper, the case for action looks obvious. Antimony is a small-volume but strategically important metal used in munitions, night-vision systems, infrared sensors, fire retardants, solar equipment and some nuclear applications.

China dominates both supply and processing, and Beijing’s export controls have already disrupted flows to Europe and pushed prices sharply higher. Yet a potentially important European deposit, located within the EU itself, is still struggling to secure the financing and offtake support needed to move from strategic promise to production.

Copper’s renewed push toward record territory shows that industrial metals are beginning to trade on their own supply-and-demand logic rather than simply following every headline from the U.S.-Iran war. Copper rose as high as $13,643 a ton in London, near its highest close ever and not far from the extraordinary January spike above $14,500.

The move came even after President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal as “totally unacceptable,” suggesting metals traders are no longer pricing copper primarily as a geopolitical-risk asset. They are treating it as a market with its own tightening fundamentals.

Europe’s next phase of renewable growth is increasingly being built around a simple commercial reality: solar and wind projects need batteries beside them if they are to remain profitable in a power system that is producing more zero-marginal-cost electricity than the grid can always absorb.

Europe’s co-located renewable and battery capacity is expected to rise from 6.3 gigawatts in 2025 to around 35 gigawatts by 2030, an increase of more than 450%. Solar-plus-storage already accounts for more than 60% of existing deployments, which makes sense given that solar is the technology most exposed to midday price collapses.

China’s clean-tech exporters are turning the Iran war into an opening for global expansion, because the conflict has made fuel-import dependence more expensive and more politically uncomfortable for many countries. The war has disrupted oil and gas flows from the Middle East, pushed up diesel and gasoline costs, and strengthened the commercial case for solar power, batteries, electric vehicles, and storage systems.

Chinese clean-tech exports reached a record $26 billion in March, up 30% from February and 52% from a year earlier, with battery systems, solar equipment, and EVs all benefiting from the shift. This is not simply a windfall created by high fuel prices. It is also a release valve for Chinese manufacturers facing weak profitability and slowing demand at home.

China’s April inflation data look like a turning point at first glance, but the underlying story is less about a healthy reflation cycle than about an imported cost shock hitting an economy that still suffers from weak domestic demand. Producer prices rose 2.8% from a year earlier, the strongest increase in 45 months and far above the 1.6% expected.

That followed March’s 0.5% rise, which had already ended a 41-month stretch of producer-price deflation. Consumer inflation also accelerated, with CPI rising 1.2% year on year, above expectations and up from 1% in March. The immediate driver is the Iran war and the surge in global energy and commodity prices it has caused.

The Trump-Xi summit is being framed as a stabilizing encounter between the world’s two largest economies, but the agenda already shows how limited any genuine breakthrough is likely to be. U.S. officials say Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are expected to discuss Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, rare earths, trade, agriculture, energy, and possible aircraft purchases during the May 14-15 talks in Beijing.

That breadth is itself revealing. The meeting is not centered on a single solvable dispute; it is an attempt to keep multiple strategic flashpoints from worsening at once. The most urgent topic is likely to be Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already said the war will be on the agenda, and U.S. officials are pressing Beijing over the revenue and dual-use goods China provides to Iran and Russia.