The element gallium is named for the Latin Gallia, the region where you’ll find modern France. The element germanium is named for the Latin Germania, which requires no explanation unless you need to enroll in a geography class.

These two high-tech elements — along with antimony and other hard materials — were weaponized on Tuesday in the latest escalation of the Sino-American trade war. China said it will ban exports of each to the United States. The impact, so far, is mostly symbolic.

Out of Their Elements

Beijing’s move came swiftly in response to the White House’s decision to slap new curbs on exports of vital components for chips and AI accelerators to China. The Biden administration said it would stall China’s military from developing advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence systems. China similarly justified the retaliatory tariffs by citing national security.

Prashant Garg, an economist and visiting researcher at the International Finance Corporation and University of Cambridge, tweeted that gallium in particular is “central to countless downstream industries,” from aircraft parts to lasers, satellites, welding machinery, and telecommunications. Last year, virtually all of the US gallium supply was imported, while roughly 50% of the germanium supply came from abroad, according to the United States Geological Survey, with China listed as one of the leading sources of both. The best read of the situation so far might be small but not insignificant blowback:

• A report by the Geological Survey published earlier this year estimated a Chinese export ban on gallium and germanium would cause the US gross domestic product to fall by a range of $1.7 billion to $9 billion. That’s pretty infinitesimal compared with America’s $27 trillion GDP.
• But the broad semiconductor manufacturing industry would bear 40% of the net loss, not to mention dealing with an estimated 150% rise in gallium prices and 26% rise in germanium prices, the Geological Survey said.

Markets responded, accordingly, with an initial yawn. The iShares Semiconductor ETF was muted during trading hours Tuesday, falling half of a percentage point, and rising a little more than half a point during the after-hours session.

Already Ready: China already placed export limits on strategically important materials, including gallium and germanium, last year, which means US companies have started sourcing elsewhere. In fact, Chinese customs data shows no reported exports of gallium and germanium to America in 2024 — although, since the restrictions were announced, gallium prices have risen 80% and germanium prices have doubled, showing export bans can still impact the US market.

Written by Sean Craig

The masses are taking antitrust law into their own hands. 

On Tuesday, two separate antitrust class lawsuits were filed against Microsoft and Apple in the UK. The Microsoft case relates to how the company bundles up its cloud computing business with its Windows software, while the Apple case is focused on how the company levies payment fees on its App Store. Both are subjects that have drawn regulatory scrutiny in the US and Europe, but now litigants are the ones driving the antitrust action.

Class Act

This year has been big for US trustbusters, with the Department of Justice winning its antitrust case against Google’s search engine business, which the DOJ said is far too dominant. The DOJ wants to split Google up, which is not a sure thing, and as we head into a new administration, it’s unclear whether the pace of US antitrust enforcement will remain as high as it has over the past four years, particularly with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan looking likely to get replaced under the new Trump Administration. 

But regulator action in Silicon Valley companies’ home country isn’t the only antitrust threat against them. As global companies, they’ve faced multibillion antitrust fines in the EU, and the Microsoft case brought on Tuesday looks to leave a similar dent in the company’s finances:

• The case is being brought by the UK arm of US law firm Scott + Scott on behalf of businesses and organizations, and the firm said in a press release it’s seeking over £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in compensation. The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft charges businesses which don’t use its cloud service, Microsoft Azure, more to license its Windows Server, thereby unfairly raising prices for companies that don’t combine its services.
• Microsoft is already facing regulatory scrutiny over how it ties its various services together. The EU said in June that Microsoft broke antitrust law by bundling its Teams workplace communications platform with its business software.

The class action lawsuit should sit well with Google, which filed an EU complaint in September essentially alleging the same thing, that Microsoft abuses its position as a software provider to leverage its position in the cloud market — where it happens to be much more dominant than Google. 

Bad Apples: The developer case against Apple, over the allegedly anticompetitive commissions of as much as 30% charged on App Store sales, could cost the Cupertino company as much as $995 million and comes on the heels of another UK class action lawsuit against the iPhone giant. Last month UK consumer watchdog group Which? brought a case alleging that Apple has been “trapping” customers with Apple devices into using its cloud service, which it says is overpriced. The group is going after £3 billion ($3.8 billion) to distribute among UK consumers. That would be a big bite of the Apple.

Two years on, it’s pretty clear who’s winning the breakup.

During an Investor Day event on Tuesday, AT&T projected sustained profit growth over the next three years and promised to return $40 billion to shareholders — signalling that CEO John Stankey, who took the position in 2020, has effectively turned the corner on his turnaround plan after AT&T entered the decade on the backfoot. The obvious turning point? Ditching Warner Bros back in 2022, and getting out of the media world writ large.

Tuning Out

The logic behind AT&T’s mammoth $80 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. in 2018 was pretty simple: own the airwaves, own the content that comes over the airwaves, become an unstoppable media and communications supergiant. (When streamer HBO Max, now just Max, launched in 2020, AT&T made a big deal of bundling it in for existing wireless and broadband customers).

Then came reality: Streaming is an expensive endeavor, once-lucrative linear TV is the Titanic, and the debt load weighed heavily on the balance sheet — eating a big chunk out of annual shareholder dividends. Stankey flipped the Hollywood studio to Discovery for just $43 billion in cash and debt (Warner Bros. Discovery’s current market cap? Just $25 billion), and moved to offload DirecTV to private equity giant TPG.

Now it’s a slimmer AT&T, but a healthier one. The firm remains in a solid third place behind Verizon and T-Mobile in the inch-by-inch all-out turf war for US wireless customers, but it has gained an edge in the new battle for fiber-optic broadband subscribers. Which means, after ditching HBO, AT&T can once again sell the only story all investors love anyways — growth:

• AT&T said Tuesday it will achieve double-digit profit growth and reach free cash flow of $18 billion by 2027. It will coincide with an increase in capital expenditures; the company says it wants to invest $22 billion annually over the next three years, with ambitious plans to expand its industry-leading fiber-optic broadband reach from around 28 million locations today to more than 50 million by 2029.
• More importantly, for shareholders, it plans to maintain its $1.11-a-share annual cash dividend, as well spend another $20 billion on share buybacks through 2027.

Sky High: The news earned AT&T a 5% bump on Tuesday, enough to notch a three-year high; shares are up around 37% year-to-date and around 34% since the Warner Bros.’ separation. Shares of WBD, meanwhile, are down nearly 10% year-to-date and over 75% since the deal. But only scoundrels keep score after breakups.