Chinese President Xi Jinping has spent the Iran war doing what he does best — patiently exploiting America's distraction and discord, Axios' Jim VandeHei writes in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: The conflict allowed China to bolster its diplomatic leverage, clean-energy muscle and intelligence on the U.S. military — all without firing a shot or spending a dollar.

The implications touch supply chains, energy procurement, geopolitical risk, and the race for superior AI and weaponry.

• Even with progress toward a framework for peace between the U.S. and Iran, significant disruptions continue in the Strait of Hormuz. The strategic damage is done.

🪖 The military impact is the part that should scare the hell out of Pentagon planners:

• The U.S. committed roughly 80% of its JASSM-ER stealth cruise missile inventory to the Iran fight, pulling stockpiles from the Pacific to feed it. The conflict significantly depleted U.S. supplies of Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, THAAD interceptors and drones.
• Beijing got a free masterclass in modern American warfighting: how we use AI to target, how we rotate carrier groups, how cheap Iranian drones drain our most expensive interceptors. For Chinese war planners gaming out a Taiwan invasion, it's better than any simulation.

🛢️ On energy, China emerges a huge winner of the ongoing Hormuz shockwaves:

• When oil and gas supplies get weaponized, import-dependent countries accelerate renewables. China owns over 70% of global solar, wind, battery and electric vehicle supply chains. The longer Hormuz stays disrupted, the deeper the world's dependency gets.
• The war was the stress test that Beijing's energy strategy was designed for.

💼 The diplomatic optics couldn't have been better for the Chinese:

• While Trump was threatening to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages," Beijing was quietly helping Pakistan bring both sides to the table in Islamabad — while capitals from Riyadh to Jakarta are weighing which superpower to align with.
• As Ian Bremmer points out, America's allies saw the U.S. pull missile defense assets from South Korea, leave allies in Asia without Patriot coverage, and shift naval power from the Pacific to the Gulf. The message received in Seoul, Tokyo, Canberra and Taipei: American security commitments have an asterisk.

🦾 China's AI push got a clear boost from the war's financial consequences:

• The Gulf's massive AI buildout — billions from Microsoft, Oracle, Nvidia and others — faces indefinite geopolitical risk after Iranian strikes on AI-related targets across the region.

🧲 The rare earths piece, out of sight for most Americans, might be Beijing's biggest asset right now:

• There's currently no heavy rare-earth separation capacity in the U.S. at meaningful scale. China controls roughly 70% of rare-earth mining and 90% of separation and magnet manufacturing. New Pentagon procurement rules banning Chinese-sourced rare earths take effect in 2027 — but domestic alternatives won't be ready for years.
• The weapons the U.S. fired in Iran — Tomahawks, JDAMs, Predator drones — all require rare earths for their precision guidance systems.

The bottom line: The country that may have gained the most from the Iran war never fired a shot.

• Share this column ... Axios' Dave Lawler and Shane Savitsky contributed.

Smart deeper dive: Ian Bremmer, "How the Iran war made China stronger."

• 📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Ask to join Jim's new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.

Joe Rogan, who endorsed President Trump in 2024 but has recently been critical, popped into the Oval Office yesterday as the president signed an executive order to speed reviews of certain psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine, to help treat serious mental illness.

• A tieless Rogan, standing behind Trump, said: "I want to tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information: We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country ... With one dose of ibogaine, more than 80% of people are free of that addiction. ... The text message came back: 'Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it.' It was literally that quick."

Trump smiled and the guests laughed.

• Ibogaine — currently designated a controlled substance — has been embraced by combat veterans and conservative lawmakers despite risks.

Read the executive order ... White House Fact Sheet.

Lawmakers in a handful of states are trying to make it easier to use gold and silver as currency and establish gold stockpiles, Axios' Emily Peck writes.

• Why it matters: These efforts are touted as a way to deal with the burden of rising inflation because the value of gold and silver has increased, while the dollar hasn't.

🍑 A draft bill in Georgia would authorize "mechanisms" that would let you pay for things in gold and silver, possibly using prepaid debit cards. It failed to pass, but backers plan to try again.

• Similar "transactional gold laws" have been proposed in Arizona, Oklahoma and Iowa — to varying degrees of success.
• Utah passed a law earlier this year.

Go deeper: "A new gold rush: States stockpile bars, encourage gold-backed debit cards."

Right-leaning personalities were the dominant sources of news for 2024 election voters, according to a new Jordan Center/Ipsos poll.

• 8 of the top 10 non-politicians who were cited by voters as regular news sources — including all of the top 5 — were pro-Trump voices in the last election.
• The Republican advantage grew even more profound when including politicians: Donald Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Karoline Leavitt all cracked the top 10. No Democrat did.

More cuts from the poll.

The world's largest data center project — backed by Trump allies and bearing his name — is stalled by delays and logistical hurdles that could stop it before it even starts, Axios national energy correspondent Amy Harder writes.

• The latest sign of trouble emerged Friday: Fermi America co-founder and CEO Toby Neugebarger abruptly departed, sending the company's already-fading shares plummeting in aftermarket trading.

Why it matters: Fermi America, co-founded by President Trump's former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, is a high-profile test of whether the biggest, most ambitious AI infrastructure projects can deliver on their promises.

🖼️ The big picture: The problems facing the company include the lack of a publicly confirmed anchor tenant — typically a hyperscaler — which is widely seen as essential to move forward.

• These hurdles are documented in an independent report by Cleanview shared exclusively with Axios, as well as earnings calls, public filings and comments from company executives.

Read on.

AI makers say the newest models are smart, funny, empathetic, self-reflective and now also "tasteful."

• Why it matters: Some AI optimists and some AI critics — who agree on very little — argue that taste is one of the many uniquely human traits that can't be taught to a machine, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.

Anthropic says its newest model — Opus 4.7 — is "more tasteful and creative when completing professional tasks, producing higher-quality interfaces, slides, and docs."

🧬 How it works: Taste, here, doesn't mean Claude can tell you the pesto needs more garlic. It means aesthetic judgment and creative polish on work outputs.

• Consumer tech firm Patron Fund says it's building AI agents trained to exhibit aesthetic judgment and cultural fluency.

Keep reading.

Seven memos among Supreme Court justices in 2016, obtained by The New York Times, illuminate the origins of the "shadow docket" — the expedited, secretive track that this Supreme Court has used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump 20+ victories.

• A 5–4 vote halted a signature climate initiative by President Obama.
• The justices, writing "on formal letterhead, but addressing one another by their first names and signing off with their initials … sound notes of irritation, air grievances and plead for more time," The Times reports.

👀 My favorite paragraph, about Obama and Chief Justice Roberts: "The two men, both cerebral, polished Harvard Law graduates, had long posed a puzzle: How could such smooth personalities create so much friction?"

• Gift link: "The Shadow Papers" ... All 7 memos.

The all-American burger is becoming a luxury item, with many consumers opting for cheaper proteins like chicken and pork, Axios' Kelly Tyko writes.

• Why it matters: U.S. beef supplies are shrinking, imports are rising, and there's little relief in sight.

🥩 U.S. beef production is forecast to fall again this year.

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