Today’s essential intelligence on markets, energy, AI and geopolitics.
Key takeaways:
• Geopolitical strategy and Iran sanctions
• Space mission development and autonomous operations
• Critical mineral supply and energy infrastructure
UK National Wealth Fund Backs Hemerdon Tungsten Mine
The UK’s National Wealth Fund—a state-owned vehicle directing public capital into domestic infrastructure and strategic industries—is injecting £71 million into Devon’s dormant Hemerdon tungsten project (FT). Rhine Group Launch in Geneva
The creation of the Rhine Group—a newly formed Geneva-based think tank co-chaired by Mario Draghi and Patrick Collison to advocate for European market reforms—underscores EU governance sclerosis.
Read the full newsletter: https://thegist.online/2026-08-25-the-uks-national-wealth-fund-invests-71m-in-en/
Subscribe free: https://thegist.online/subscribe-to-the-gist/?utm_source=podcast-en&utm_medium=show_notes
Transcript
JOHN: Welcome to The Gist. I’m John.
MARY: And I’m Mary. It is Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. Let’s get into it.
JOHN: Today, we are looking at a classic case of who pays when the free market says “no.” For our Gist View, we head to the UK. The British government is injecting 71 million pounds into the Hemerdon tungsten mine down in Devon.
MARY: This mine has been sitting completely dormant since 2018. Private investors walked away. They simply refused to absorb the financial risk of wild swings in commodity prices.
JOHN: But now, the UK’s National Wealth Fund—a state-owned investment vehicle used to fund domestic infrastructure—is footing the bill. Why? It comes down to simple physics. Tungsten has a melting point of over 3,400 degrees Celsius. You absolutely need it to build ballistic munitions.
MARY: The free market priced this mine as a loser. But London is treating it as a sovereign defense asset. The government wants a captive, secure supply chain for its aerospace and military sectors.
JOHN: It makes total sense. Relying on geopolitical rivals for critical minerals is a massive vulnerability. But let’s look at the resource flow. By underwriting this project, the state is taking an industrial subsidy and turning it into a permanent national security expense.
MARY: Exactly. The defense sector gets a reliable local supply, which is a huge win for them. But the operational risk? That lands directly on the shoulders of the British taxpayer. It is the literal cost of buying peace of mind in a fractured world.
JOHN: Speaking of a fractured world, let’s pivot to the Global Overview. The US Treasury is flexing its financial muscle with a new campaign called ‘Operation Economic Outcast.’
MARY: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is targeting third-party countries. If companies outside the US trade with Iran in technology, gold, or digital assets, they face a severe threat: getting kicked out of the US dollar system.
JOHN: The US dollar is still the baseline for global trade. Losing access to it is a corporate death sentence. But Beijing is already pushing back. They argue that international law protects their trade with Iran.
MARY: It is a stark power play. The US uses its control over global finance to squeeze adversaries. But doing so accelerates global friction. Targeted countries are highly incentivized to find workarounds to bypass American financial dominance.
JOHN: Meanwhile, trade tensions are flaring closer to home. The tariff negotiations between the US and Canada abruptly collapsed last week. President Trump is publicly denying that he demanded concessions over the French language, but the stalemate drags on.
MARY: Moving from trade to technology, we are seeing a fascinating split in how big institutions handle artificial intelligence. NASA is aggressively pushing for fully autonomous space missions. They are using advanced AI to let spacecraft fix their own faults without human help.
JOHN: The incentives there are obvious. Space is hostile, and humans are millions of miles away. But back on Earth, the United Nations is sounding the alarm over that exact same technology.
MARY: Right. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is urging member states to restrict AI in autonomous weapons ahead of talks this November.
JOHN: It highlights a wild contradiction. We pour vast resources into AI to survive extreme environments in space. Yet, we struggle to establish basic rules when that same autonomy is applied to lethal force on the ground.
MARY: Let’s bring things back home for our European Perspective. A new think tank just launched in Geneva. It is called the Rhine Group.
JOHN: It is co-chaired by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. Their primary goal is to push for massive European market reforms based on Draghi’s 2024 competitiveness report.
MARY: But notice exactly where and how they are doing this. They set up shop in Switzerland—deliberately outside the European Union. And they are operating under the Chatham House Rule.
JOHN: For listeners who might not know, the Chatham House Rule is a strict confidentiality protocol. If you attend a meeting, you can use the information discussed, but you cannot reveal who said it. It guarantees total honesty.
MARY: By working outside Brussels and using secret, frank debates, they are explicitly isolating their agenda from EU bureaucracy. When formal institutions freeze up, parallel networks pop up to bypass the roadblocks.
JOHN: The Rhine Group has zero actual law-making power. They rely entirely on voluntary persuasion. But they are building a powerful network to kickstart Europe’s economic engine without waiting for slow-moving parliaments.
MARY: Finally today, a very physical reminder of Europe’s vulnerabilities. Authorities found a third drone near the Leipzig airport right here in Germany.
JOHN: This really escalates the story from the August 4th attack at that same airport. On August 14th, investigators found a device sitting next to 50 grams of RDX.
MARY: RDX, also known as hexogen, is a highly stable, military-grade explosive. It is exactly the kind of compound used in state-level sabotage.
JOHN: Leipzig is a vital cargo hub for NATO. The incentive for adversaries here is crystal clear. They use remote, easily deniable drone strikes to disrupt the physical supply chains that keep Western defense running. It is wartime statecraft, playing out quietly in commercial logistics networks.
MARY: That brings us to today’s temperature check. Across the board, the state is increasingly footing the bill for global security—whether it is mining tungsten in Devon or chasing down sabotage drones in Leipzig. Meanwhile, the drive to innovate, from the Rhine Group in Geneva to NASA’s AI in space, is aggressively bypassing traditional red tape just to survive in a highly unpredictable world.
JOHN: Thanks for spending your time with us. If you found today’s breakdown useful, we’d love for you to join our daily readership. You can subscribe to The Gist newsletter for free—just tap the link right there in your show notes. Catch you tomorrow.
The Gist is an independent daily digest: AI-curated, human-directed, unapologetically liberal (how it’s made). Hundreds of sources, only what matters. Subscribe free or listen to the podcast.
Leave a Reply