Good morning. China is limiting the flow of critical minerals to Western defense manufacturers, delaying production and forcing companies to scour the world for stockpiles of the minerals needed to make everything from bullets to jet fighters.

• Locked up: Earlier this year, as U.S.-China trade tensions soared, Beijing tightened the controls it places on the export of rare earths. While Beijing allowed them to start flowing after the Trump administration agreed in June to a series of trade concessions, China has maintained a lock on critical minerals for defense purposes. China supplies around 90% of the world’s rare earths and dominates the production of many other critical minerals.
   
• Ballooning prices: Certain materials needed by the defense industry now go for five or more times what was typical before China’s recent mineral restrictions, according to industry traders. One company said it was recently offered samarium—an element needed to make magnets that can withstand the extreme temperatures of a jet-fighter engine—for 60 times the standard price. That is already driving the cost of defense systems higher, say suppliers and defense executives.
   
• ​Leverage: The squeeze on critical minerals highlights how dependent the U.S. military is on China for much of its supply chain—giving Beijing leverage at a time of rising tensions between the two powers and heated trade negotiations. Defense manufacturers supplying the U.S. military rely on minerals that are mainly produced in China for microelectronics, drone motors, night-vision goggles, missile-targeting systems and defense satellites.

Crypto ATMs increasingly used in scams, money laundering, FinCEN said. 

The U.S. Treasury Department is warning that cryptocurrency ATMs are increasingly being used to send payments to swindlers and to launder drug proceeds.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, in an alert on Monday, warned financial institutions to be on the look out for suspicious activities involving convertible virtual currency kiosks, commonly known as crypto ATMs, which the regulator said are increasingly being used in scams and money laundering.

White House preps order to punish banks that discriminate against Conservatives.

The White House is preparing to step up pressure against big banks over perceived discrimination against conservatives and crypto companies with an executive order that threatens to fine lenders that drop customers for political reasons.

A draft of the executive order, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directs bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial protection laws.

• The U.K. High Court ruled in favor of European banks refusing to honor 280 million euros, equivalent to $330 million, in bond payments to a Russian fertilizer company, on grounds it would violate EU sanctions against designated oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, founder of EuroChem Group.
   
• ​A former Fidelity Investments employee is facing fraud and money laundering charges after allegedly taking more than $2 million from a former client and spending it on gambling, travel, and personal debts, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.

• The U.K. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a commission from a bank to a car dealer isn’t considered a bribe and that dealers don’t violate so-called fiduciary duty by not fully disclosing this commission to the customer.

Mexico’s drug cartels bedevil Sheinbaum’s dealmaking with Trump.

In July, a man facing allegations that he smuggled drugs and laundered some $150 million for Mexican gangs escaped from a house where he was being held by Mexico’s national guard. The ordeal infuriated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, according to people familiar with the incident. 

The brazen escape underscores the weakness of Mexico’s efforts to fight organized crime amid rising scrutiny from the Trump administration, which has labeled Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations and insisted on their destruction as a condition to lift tariffs on Mexican goods.

• The European Union is preparing to suspend a package of retaliatory tariffs it had intended to impose on goods from the U.S. had it failed to secure a trade deal with President Trump by Aug. 1.
   
• Orders from U.S. factories fell in June, declining for two of the past three months, the Commerce Department said Monday.
   
• President Trump said Monday he would increase tariffs on India over its purchasing of sanctioned Russian oil.

• Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are helping to launch a SPAC targeting American manufacturers, adding to the array of companies the president’s sons are involved in beyond their family’s real-estate empire.
   
• The Israeli government on Monday voted to fire the country’s attorney general, who is overseeing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, as part of a broader effort to overhaul the judiciary.
   
• Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn plans to work with partners to convert a former electric-truck factory in Lordstown, Ohio, into a plant making cloud computing hardware for artificial-intelligence applications, people familiar with the plans said Monday.
   
• Democratic lawmakers blocked the Texas House from meeting Monday, preventing Republicans from moving ahead with a new congressional map requested by President Trump.
   
• A young submariner’s death has highlighted the Navy’s struggles to maintain its fleet

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