The high-level negotiations over China’s export controls of rare earths is giving U.S. businesses some relief, even though it may be only for now.

China has approved “a certain number” of export permits for rare earth elements and related items, its commerce ministry said on Thursday, one day after U.S. President Donald Trump declared that Beijing would supply to the U.S. companies those key elements and the magnets made from them following a two-day trade talk in London.

“I will be one of the happiest people out there if, if in fact, China starts to release some of those heavy rare earths and allows them to get into the world economy because the world economy is going to shut down without those heavy rare earths,” said Mark Smith, chief executive officer of NioCorp., which is developing a new mine in Nebraska to produce niobium, scandium, titanium and an assortment of rare earths.

Export controls of the minerals apparently eclipsed tariffs in the latest round of trade negotiations between Beijing and Washington, after China imposed permitting requirements on seven rare earth elements in April, threatening to halt production of cars, robots, wind turbines and other high-tech products in the U.S. and around the world.

Negotiators from the two governments said they reached a framework to move forward, with details yet to be agreed to by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but businesses welcomed the developments, even though uncertainties persist.

Rare earth elements are some of the most sought-after critical minerals.

— Associated Press

Wholesale inflation up a modest 2.6% in May

U.S. wholesale prices rose modestly last month from a year earlier, another sign that inflationary pressures remain mild.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it its consumers — rose 2.6% from May 2024. Producer prices rose 0.1% from April to May after dropping 0.2% the month before.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, wholesale costs were up 0.1% from April and 3% from May 2024.

The readings were slightly lower than economists had forecast.

Wholesale energy prices were unchanged, although gasoline prices rose 1.6% from April after falling the month before. Food prices at the wholesale level ticked up 0.1% after dropping 0.9% in April. Egg prices, volatile because of the bird flu, rose 1.4% following 39.3% drop in April; they are up 125% from May 2024.

The report came out a day after the Labor Department said that consumer prices rose a modest 0.1% last month from April and 2.4% from a year earlier.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has rolled out 10% tariffs on nearly every country in the world as well as specific levies on steel, aluminum and autos. Importers in the U.S. pay the taxes and pass them along to consumers via higher prices when they can. For that reason, economists expect inflation to pick up later this year.

U.S. jobless filings unchanged over week

U.S. filings for jobless benefits were unchanged last week, remaining at the higher end of recent ranges as uncertainty over the impact of trade wars lingers.

New applications for jobless benefits numbered 248,000 for the week ending June 7, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts had forecast 244,000 new applications.

A week ago, there were 248,000 jobless claim applications, which was the most since early October and a sign that layoffs could be trending higher.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and have mostly bounced around a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy five years ago, wiping out millions of jobs.

Google Cloud outage disrupts online services

Popular online services across the globe were disrupted Thursday due to ongoing issues at Google Cloud.

Tens of thousands of users of Spotify, Discord and other platforms began noticing issues with their services early in the afternoon, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages.

“We have identified the root cause and applied appropriate mitigations,” Google Cloud said later in the day.

— From news services