The U.S. Is Planning To Invade Cuba & More "Deal or No Deal" With Iran

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today we’re covering the (non)developments in Iran, a mysterious terror plot in Britain, the outcomes of the Trump-Xi meetings, the U.S.’s planned invasion of Cuba, Nvidia’s record-breaking stock buyback, and SpaceX’s Starship launch.

“I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.” ― Nikki Giovanni

Straight Talk About The Strait

Last Friday, Iran publicly offered a peace deal to the U.S. at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. In exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the conflict, the deal would see the U.S. lift its blockade on Iran, unfreeze Iranian assets held outside of the country, and remove sanctions on Iranian oil sales. Trump roundly rejected the deal the next day, telling reporters, “They want to make a deal to open the Hormuz Strait immediately because they're losing ​so badly.” 

On Sunday, NBC News published a report stating that eight U.S. Marines had been injured in an Iranian attack on September 14. Citing anonymous U.S. officials, the outlet claims that the attack involved an Iranian cruise missile hitting a U.S. vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. The Department of Defense didn’t report on the attack at all; instead, the agency snuck the information into a database 10 days after the fact and refused to comment when asked about it.

Adding insult to injury, Iran issued a statement claiming that the war won’t end until both sides agree to a diplomatic end to the conflict. “Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening ‌the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on these conditions being met,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi posted on social media. “Only a negotiated solution can get them out of this deadlock.” According to Trump, though, the U.S. is poised to win its war against Iran “very soon.” On Monday, he told White House reporters, “We're going to win, ​as far as ​I'm concerned, it's going to ‌be ⁠one way or the other. It's ​going ⁠to go pretty quickly.”

Understandably, all this back and forth hasn’t inspired much confidence that the war is anywhere close to ending. On Monday, oil prices spiked due to Trump’s refusal to end the war, but dipped after U.S. sources announced that Qatari diplomats would be mediating peace talks with both the U.S. and Iran in order to work out an end to the conflict. The deal, according to the source, would be a modified version of the one offered by Iran at the U.N., and the U.S. is reportedly open to discussions despite Trump’s claims. Analysts expect oil prices to remain high even as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz increases, as traffic is still well below pre-conflict levels. 

The (Alleged Terror) Plot Thickens

• On Sunday, U.K. police arrested five men in relation to an apparent terror plot targeting RAF Fairford, a British airbase that the U.S. Air Force uses to house its B-52 bombers (including those used to bomb Iran). The suspects were detained after a local farmer reportedly came across a large group of masked men in some fields near the airbase who’d apparently blocked a local road using three white vans. Soon after she called in the sighting, police evacuated the homes of 85 families living near the incident site, arrested five men, and brought in a bomb disposal robot to the area. After their arrest, President Trump chimed, claiming that the men had planned to do “big damage” to the airbase, adding, “We had them under view for a long time and we got them.”

• But things took a turn on Monday when all five of the suspects were released on bail. A representative from Britain’s counterterrorism police said that the men were still under investigation and would be subject to “stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others,” but their release could signal that investigators are barking up the wrong tree. “The investigation remains ongoing,” said British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, asking the public to allow authorities to “establish the full facts.” Trump, meanwhile, made it clear that he thought the U.K. had done the wrong thing by releasing the suspects. “I wouldn’t have done that,” he said on Monday. “We know everything about them. We would not have released them.”

What Happened At The Summit

• Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the U.S. for three days’ worth of meetings with President Trump. Those talks failed to generate any joint statements or real agreements beside an extension to the two countries’ ongoing trade truce, but they did land the U.S. president in hot water for allegedly offering to sell U.S. weapons to China.

• Over the weekend, David Perdue, the U.S. Ambassador to China, said that Trump had offered to sell American weapons to China while discussing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. “President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’” Perdue said on Fox News on Sunday. “He actually asked President Xi would he like to buy some at one point.” If true, Perdue’s claims would mark a significant departure from U.S. foreign policy by Trump – in the State Department’s own words, “U.S. law prohibits arms sales to China.” 

• Trump denied the story on Monday by claiming that Perdue had confused China with Taiwan, but then reversed course again, saying “maybe it’s a good idea” to sell weapons to Beijing. The offer “speaks to (Trump’s) treatment of China in almost exclusively commercial terms, even at the potential expense of the U.S. military position in Asia,” according to one expert, who labeled it “a shocking policy change.”

Additional World News

• Over 800 Killed in Renewed Houthi-Saudi War in Yemen, W.H.O. Says (NYT, $)

• EU Commission ignored its own advice before weakening car CO2 rules (Politico) 

• South Africa reels from spate of mass shootings that killed 38 people in a week (NPR)

• Kyiv Science Academy hit, 10 dead as Russian jet-drones strike across Ukraine (Reuters)

• Pakistan locks down Islamabad as Imran Khan’s party vows to march on capital (Guardian) 

• South Korea demands apology from Ukraine over disclosure of North Korean POW transfer (CNN)

Should We Call This One The Bay Of Cows?

• According to CBS News, the U.S. military is setting up for a future invasion of Cuba. The outlet claims that the military is examining whether it can provide the police forces, medical personnel, and other support staff needed to back up a potential invasion of Cuba sometime within the next four months, citing an internal U.S. Army message and multiple anonymous U.S. officials. 

• The Army message states that the various support units would “possibly [be] needed in 90-120 days,” and asks various command groups if that timeline is feasible. For the moment, though, it seems like the U.S. is angling for a diplomatic solution to its problem with Cuba (which is the fact that the island nation exists). On Saturday, Trump told the press that he still believes “Cuba and us will make a deal,” though he went on to add, “Cuba is failing very badly. We want to help Cuba. We want to open Cuba up to our people.”

Nvidia Spends Its Green

• Yesterday, Nvidia announced that it would be spending another $150 billion (with a B!) on its stock buyback program, marking the biggest-ever buyback authorization increase in history. Combined with earlier buyback increases, the tech giant is now authorized to buy back $235 billion worth of its own stock from investors. 

• A stock buyback, if you were curious, is a financial operation that involves a company purchasing some of its shares – or in this case, a boatload of its shares – back from outside investors. Buybacks are a way for companies to show their confidence in their future (essentially signaling that the company believes its stock is undervalued at current levels) and also return value to its shareholders (by outright purchasing their shares and also increasing their value by decreasing the supply of available shares).

• “The AI buildout won't continue at its current pace forever, but Nvidia is signaling confidence that demand for its hardware and services has staying power,” said one analyst. “Its cash generation is currently strong enough that it believes it can continue investing heavily in ​the business while also returning capital to shareholders.”

Additional USA News

• The Problem With Democrats’ Favorite Policy Proposal (Atlantic, $)

• The Senate passes the Protect College Sports Act, but the bill's future is unclear (NPR)

• Trump controversies pile on Senate Republicans as they seek midterm escape (Politico)

• Investigation of alleged gang-rape at Cornell University fraternity house reopened (Guardian)

• Taxpayers have funded nearly $1.5M in pro-Trump ads. Criticism is mounting, including from the GOP (AP)

• Concern mounts over slow-moving, planetary-scale ‘Kelvin’ wave heading for California (Guardian): “Concerns are mounting about an ocean phenomenon known as a Kelvin wave that could raise sea levels along the California coastline by up to a foot.”

Starships Were Meant To Fly

• Yesterday, SpaceX launched its Starship spacecraft into orbit for the first time. The 171-foot-tall rocket took off from the firm’s Texas Starbase facility at almost 8:00 a.m. local time, spending roughly three hours in the sky before splashing back down to Earth off the northern coast of Hawaii. The spacecraft was originally scheduled to spend 10 hours in flight, orbiting the planet six times and deploying dozens of Starlink satellites in its wake, but the team decided to cut the journey short due to an engine issue.

• The Starship is the only spacecraft capable of deploying SpaceX’s next-gen Starlink V3 satellites into space, meaning the company is pressed to make each test launch successful. “Any failure or delay in the development of Starship at scale or in achieving the required launch cadence, reusability and capabilities thereafter would delay or limit our ability to execute our growth strategy,” the company wrote in a growth plan filed before its record-breaking IPO earlier this year. Luckily, though this trip was cut short due to engine issues, Starship was able to deploy 26 V3 satellites. Federal Aviation Administration documents indicate that the next Starship launch will likely take place sometime in October – SpaceX’s next goal is to catch a Starship using a massive mechanical arm located at its Starbase facility, though October’s launch won’t involve such a feat.

Additional Reads

• How The Barcode Was Invented (World of Systems)

• FDA advisory panel recommends a multi-cancer blood test (NPR)

• The way we talk to bots matters even if they aren’t conscious (Psyche)

• The Cellmate Who Taught Me the Codes of Russian Prison (New Yorker, $)

• What GLP-1 users should know about the potential risk of a rare type of vision loss (ABC)

• Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs (Reuters): “Anthropic IPO could value the company at more than $2 trillion; Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud.”

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