President Joe Biden calls on a reporter as he answers questions after speaking about his administration’s plans to combat rising gas prices in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Thursday, March 31, 2022, in Washington. President Joe Biden brandished one of the biggest weapons in his economic arsenal Thursday in hopes of turning the United States into a leading producer of electric-vehicle batteries and the minerals used to make them. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Patrick Semansky
President Joe Biden brandished one of the biggest weapons in his economic arsenal Thursday in hopes of turning the United States into a leading producer of electric-vehicle batteries and the minerals used to make them.
Biden issued an order under the Defense Production Act, a powerful procurement tool that dates to the Truman era and the Korean War, to compel the production and processing of critical minerals and rare-earth elements.
“We need to embrace all the tools and technologies to help free us from our dependence on fossil fuels and move us toward a more homegrown clean energy,” he said from the White House.
“Technologies made by American companies and American workers, so we can bolster domestic supply chains here at home and export those technologies around the world to reduce greenhouse gases.”
It’s an ambition shared by America’s neighbour to the north — but one that for Canada will depend heavily on robust U.S. demand in order to succeed.
“It’s a pretty blunt instrument to be using for trying to incentivize domestic production,” said Mark Agnew, vice-president of policy and government relations for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
With demand poised to soar, Agnew has been among a chorus of voices lobbying Ottawa in recent months to get serious about energizing production in Canada, which is home to rich reserves of more than 30 different critical minerals.
A series of departmental reviews of supply chains, ordered by Biden shortly after he took office, included one from the Department of Defense that made clear the U.S. would need the help of “international partners and allies” to ensure a reliable supply of the minerals, which are also vital in a number of military applications.
However, Biden — mindful, perhaps, of the coming midterms in November that are widely expected to give Democrats a rough ride — made no mention Thursday of whether the U.S. plans to work with foreign producers.
“There was a pretty meaty section in there that talks about the potential that Canada has and the role that it could play,” Agnew said of the supply-chain report.
“The DPA (announcement) doesn’t seem to even give lip service to that, which is concerning.”
Thursday’s announcement was included in a suite of new steps framed as a fresh White House effort to reduce the cost of gasoline, which has been soaring to record levels — especially since the U.S. banned the import of Russian oil and gas.
Indeed, the White House is bending over backwards to deflect blame for the spike back on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, repeatedly describing it as “Putin’s price hike.”
The administration is putting more pressure on U.S. energy producers to ramp up production, urging Congress to impose “use-it-or-lose-it” fees on wells that are sitting idle instead of helping to ease a shortage that keeps prices high.
Biden is also authorizing the release of a million more barrels a day from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve over the next six months, the single largest release of oil reserves in history.
Building what he called “a Made in America clean-energy future” will help safeguard U.S. national security, address climate change and create secure jobs for future generations, Biden said.
It made for a tricky balancing act: reconciling a historic release of oil from U.S. reserves and demands for higher fossil-fuel production with a dramatic display of presidential power to foster the growth of electric vehicles.
“Look, the bottom line is this: between ramping up production in the short term and driving down demand in the long term, we can free ourselves from our dependence on imported oil from across the world,” Biden said.
“I know gas prices are painful — I get it. My plan is going to help ease that pain today, and safeguard against tomorrow.”
Canada is not sitting on its hands when it comes to battery production. Last week, automaker Stellantis and South Korean tech giant LG announced plans for a $5-billion battery plant in Windsor, Ont., billed as the largest single investment ever in Canada’s auto sector.
But ramping up production and processing of the necessary raw materials is a labour-intensive exercise that takes time to bring on stream, said Brendan Sweeney, managing director of the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing in London, Ont.
“There’s a public recognition — from Quebec first, the federal government second, and the province of Ontario very recently — that we’ve got the start of a plan to get these things out of the ground and to customers,” Sweeney said.
“The two things that are going to be the bottleneck for this decade are going to be labour and getting things like lithium out to customers.”
Canada has vowed that critical mineral production within its borders will adhere to modern-day environmental and labour standards — a stipulation that is likely to slow production compared to less climate-conscious producers like China, but makes the finished product more politically palatable to a customer like the U.S.
“It’s a very, very, very important process, and it’s what sets us apart from African countries and authoritarian countries that we do this stuff, but it takes a long time — it’s not easy,” Sweeney said.
“We’re going to need some time to actually do this if we want to do it properly.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
