※[Global Morning Briefing] summarizes global news delivered by the Seoul Economic Daily.
Ceasefire Collapses After 20 Days… U.S., Iran Each Strike More Than 80 Targets in Retaliation
Armed conflict between the United States and Iran has reignited before negotiations to end the war could resume on the occasion of the NATO summit, pushing the Middle East back toward its highest level of tension. Just 20 days after a ceasefire took effect, an attack on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz escalated into an armed conflict in which the two sides struck more than 80 targets each.
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on the 8th while attending the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, said the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran had effectively been nullified and that he no longer wants to negotiate. Trump criticized Iran's leadership in harsh language and even raised the possibility of actual use of nuclear weapons should Iran come to possess them.
Earlier, U.S. Central Command announced the previous day that it had completed retaliatory strikes on more than 80 targets, including Iranian air defense networks, command-and-control facilities and small vessels, reportedly the largest attack since the ceasefire was signed last month. The trigger for the strikes was Iran's launch of missiles at three vessels, including a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier and oil tankers, near the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) decided to revoke the license permitting Iranian crude oil transactions it had issued last month, just 15 days after issuance, with all related transactions to be banned after the 17th. As a result, shipments of approximately 63 million barrels of Iranian crude are expected to be disrupted. In the aftermath, Brent crude prices at one point surged more than 6%, soaring to the high $70s per barrel.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed on the 8th that it had struck 85 U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, and also said it shot down one U.S. military drone. Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) uniformly condemned Iran's provocations, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte expressed support, saying a hard-line U.S. response was inevitable.
Amazon's $25 Billion Bond Sale Falls Flat… AI Bond Sentiment Turns Cold in Six Months
Amazon (AMZN), the world's largest cloud provider, issued $25 billion (about 38 trillion won) in corporate bonds to fund artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investment, but suffered weak demand in book-building. Amazon disclosed on the 7th plans to issue dollar-denominated bonds in a total of eight tranches, including three-year floating-rate notes and fixed-rate bonds with maturities of three to 40 years, with spreads set at 40 to 125 basis points over U.S. Treasuries.
Amazon previously issued $37 billion in bonds in March, bringing its corporate bond issuance this year to nearly $90 billion. The company has set this year's capital expenditure at about $200 billion, up more than 50% from last year, with most of it expected to go to data centers and AI infrastructure expansion.
According to Bloomberg data, AI-related corporate bond issuance this year totals about $335 billion, more than double last year's full-year volume in just six months. But investor sentiment is increasingly cooling. In the book-building for Amazon's bonds, orders that at one point reached $62 billion shrank to a final $41 billion, just 1.6 times the issuance amount — far below the 4-times average subscription ratio for U.S. investment-grade corporate bonds this year.
The slowdown in investor demand is becoming more pronounced over time. The subscription ratio, which reached 4.7 times for Alphabet's (GOOGL) $20 billion bond issuance in February, fell to 3.4 times for Meta's (META) issuance in April and dropped to 1.6 times for Amazon's issuance this month. John Lloyd, head of credit at Janus Henderson, said investor concerns are growing over Big Tech's additional debt burden for AI infrastructure expansion. However, some counter that concerns over financial soundness are excessive, given that hyperscalers' net debt ratios are only about one-sixth of the average for U.S. listed companies.
12 European NATO Nations to Invest 75 Trillion Won Over 10 Years in Independent Long-Range Weapons, Breaking From U.S.
Major European NATO members have begun in earnest to develop long-range precision-strike weapons capable of directly targeting the Russian mainland without depending on the United States. According to Bloomberg on the 7th, Britain, France and Germany unveiled the plan at the NATO summit held in Turkey. Twelve European NATO countries, including the three, decided to invest a total of $50 billion (about 75.395 trillion won) over the next 10 years to develop weapons systems capable of precision strikes on targets at ranges from at least 300 kilometers to more than 2,000 kilometers.
European members have long lagged far behind Russia in long-range precision-strike capability. Germany's Taurus and the British-French jointly developed Storm Shadow (SCALP) have ranges of only around 500 kilometers, and stockpiles have been depleted by support for Ukraine. Separately from this plan, Europe is also pursuing $54 billion (about 81.8 trillion won) in defense industry contracts, of which $26 billion (about 39.4 trillion won) will go to air power integration and missile defense.
The move follows growing European anxiety over U.S.-made weapons after President Donald Trump scrapped plans to deploy long-range missiles, including Tomahawks, in Germany, citing differences over the Iran war. Britain is also pursuing "Breakstop," a Ukraine support program that completely excludes U.S. technology and components.
Trump, attending the NATO summit, pointed out that Europe had been uncooperative in the Iran war and said he was "very disappointed in NATO," displaying open hostility. By contrast, he praised Turkey, which had stepped in to mediate negotiations with Iran, as "a great ally" and hinted at the possibility of selling F-35 fighter jets.
