A Delicate Gamble: The Standoff in Rafah Threatens U.S. Peace Blueprint for Gaza

Economic

Middle East Situation

Summary:

A trapped Hamas unit in Gaza’s tunnels is testing the viability of the U.S.-backed ceasefire plan. Their fate, and how both Hamas and Israel respond...

Underground stalemate disrupts ceasefire implementation

Amid ongoing negotiations between the U.S., Israel, and regional powers over the Gaza ceasefire and future administrative control, an increasingly volatile situation is emerging beneath Rafah. An estimated 100–200 Hamas fighters remain trapped in tunnels within an Israeli-controlled buffer zone known as the "Golden Line." Israeli forces monitor the area intensively, making any surface escape almost impossible.

This enclave of resistance poses a significant challenge to the ceasefire agreement reached in October. For Israel, these militants represent a security threat. For the U.S., their presence is a litmus test: Can Hamas be neutralized without collapsing the fragile ceasefire structure?

A test of diplomacy and strategic patience

According to Joe Truzman of the Long War Journal, the U.S. is walking a diplomatic tightrope. Washington seeks to maintain the truce while appeasing critical intermediaries like Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt. The longer the stalemate persists, the more pressure builds on Israel from international stakeholders.

The Biden administration views itself as the principal architect of Gaza's reconstruction plan one that includes the disarmament of Hamas, deployment of international peacekeepers, and the formation of a new administrative body. Yet this vision is unraveling under the weight of unresolved realities underground.

Israel’s hardened stance on Hamas leverage

Israel suspects that Hamas is using the trapped fighters as bargaining chips to gain concessions, particularly over the return of Israeli hostages. Some remains, like that of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, have been returned. However, other bodies from the October 7, 2023, attacks remain unrecovered.

Security analyst Kobi Michael argues Hamas intentionally left the fighters behind, possibly as a tactical maneuver to launch future attacks from within Israeli-monitored zones. He dismisses the idea of allowing the fighters to return armed to Hamas-controlled territory, proposing exile to a third country such as Turkey or Egypt as the only tenable option.

A deeper crisis: Hamas refuses to disarm

Truzman notes that the fundamental issue lies not with the fighters in Rafah but with Hamas’s outright refusal to disarm the cornerstone of Washington’s phased roadmap for Gaza. Under this plan, the stages include a major ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange, dismantling of tunnels and missile infrastructure, international deployment, and the restructuring of governance without Hamas.

However, implementation remains sluggish, with Israel accusing Hamas of preserving secret command networks and stockpiling weapons. On the ground, Gaza’s administrative vacuum is quickly being filled not by neutral forces, but by Hamas itself.

Rising tensions in the West Bank and Gaza’s shadow state

While the ceasefire temporarily pacifies Gaza, the West Bank is flaring. October saw a record number of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians. Any misstep in Rafah could cascade into a broader regional escalation.

Meanwhile, in areas vacated by Israel, Hamas has reinstated local governance collecting fees, controlling goods, and influencing markets. Though they deny reimposing taxes, civilians describe fluctuating prices and minimal income, likening conditions to a volatile stock exchange.

Despite enormous losses during the war, Hamas is still paying tens of thousands of security and public sector workers a sign that the organization is entrenching its authority, not relinquishing it. This undermines American ambitions for a Hamas-free Gaza, especially given the impasse in talks between Hamas and Fatah on forming a unity government. Israel, for its part, opposes the Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza altogether.

A brewing collapse in U.S. peace architecture

The Biden administration’s Gaza plan is facing its most critical test not through rocket fire, but through the silent resistance hidden beneath Rafah. With a post-war administration gridlocked, Hamas refusing to disarm, and Israeli opposition to political reintegration of the West Bank authority, the road to peace appears increasingly elusive.

Unless this underground standoff is resolved with both strategic restraint and coordinated diplomacy, the fragile architecture of U.S. policy in Gaza may collapse setting the stage for renewed conflict on multiple fronts.

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Gerik

Economic

Commodity

Mounting suspicions over China's understated gold purchases

According to Financial Times and Société Générale, China’s official reports of gold purchases 1.9 tons in both July and August, and 2.2 tons in June appear too low to reflect its actual accumulation. Analysts now estimate China could have purchased up to 250 tons of gold in 2025 alone, which would account for more than one-third of total global central bank demand. This discrepancy highlights concerns that the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is deliberately underreporting its reserve buildup.

Unlike oil shipments, which can be monitored by satellite, gold flows are notoriously opaque. Traders and analysts rely on indirect clues, such as bulk orders of serialized 400-ounce gold bars typically refined in Switzerland or South Africa and routed through London to infer the scale of Chinese acquisitions. These stealthy methods suggest that the actual inflow of gold into China is significantly higher than what official data implies.

Bruce Ikemizu, director of the Japan Bullion Market Association, suggests that China's real gold holdings might already be nearing 5,000 tons more than double its officially reported reserves.

Strategic motives: De-dollarization and political insulation

China's quiet accumulation of gold aligns with a broader global trend toward diversifying away from the U.S. dollar. Over the past decade, gold's share of non-U.S. foreign exchange reserves has risen from 10% to 26%, becoming the second-largest reserve asset after the greenback. The surge in central bank gold buying much of which is now unreported to the IMF has also contributed to pushing gold prices above $4,300/oz.

Analysts believe many central banks, including China’s, are opting not to disclose gold transactions to avoid market volatility or geopolitical backlash. The opacity also reflects broader concerns about financial weaponization in an increasingly multipolar world.

China's opaque reserve structure adds to market uncertainty

China remains the world’s largest gold producer and consumer, but its reserve reporting practices remain elusive. Aside from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), state funds and even the military may be accumulating gold independently, without reporting to international institutions. Discrepancies between official import data, domestic production, and civilian consumption may hint at the scale of these hidden reserves.

The lack of transparency in China's gold strategy complicates forecasting and intensifies market uncertainty. If China continues to stockpile gold quietly, it could reshape global reserve dynamics, undermine confidence in the dollar system, and push gold prices even higher.

This potential “gold veil” also signals China’s preparation for long-term economic and geopolitical shifts a hedge against both Western sanctions and systemic financial risks. The true extent of Beijing's gold hoard, however, remains a mystery the global market may never fully unravel.

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Manuel

Political

Economic

President Donald Trump issued an order on Friday reducing tariffs on beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, a move aimed at lowering costs on groceries as the administration faces pressure from voters to cut prices on everyday goods.

The exemptions would reduce trade levies on the commodities, which the White House said can’t be produced in the US in sufficient quantity to meet domestic demand. Hundreds of food products, including coconuts, nuts, avocados and pineapples were among the products listed by the administration for exemption from tariffs. The tariff breaks are backdated to take effect at 12:01 a.m. New York time on November 13.

The move comes as Trump has pivoted to focusing on affordability measures as voters are growing increasingly wary of the economy under his leadership. It is also a tacit acknowledgment that the president’s tariff policies have added to price pressures on US consumers.

A White House official, who requested anonymity to speak about the executive order, said earlier Friday that the president is following through on his pledge to negotiate trade deals and then adjust levies as needed.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer teased the plan Friday, saying that it fits in with Trump’s broader strategy to create tariff exemptions for key goods and sectors.

“Now is the right time to, you know, to release some of these items the president said he was going to release,” Greer said. “This is a natural outgrowth of exactly what the present signaled, and that’s what he’s doing today.”

Trump and senior US officials have pushed back on criticism that his trade policies have increased the cost of living but acknowledge the need to do more to reduce high prices that have frustrated voters for years. Trump has regularly praised the merits of tariffs, saying he believes the import taxes are offset in part by sellers’ price reductions, blunting the effect on consumers.

Source: Bloomberg

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Economic

The Labor Department will release its numbers on September hiring and unemployment next Thursday, a month and a half late, marking the beginning of the end of a data drought caused by the 43-day federal government shutdown.

The statistical blackout meant that the Federal Reserve, businesses, policymakers and investors have largely been in the dark about inflation, job creation, GDP growth and other measures of the U.S. economic health since late summer.

Thomas Simons and Michael Bacolas at Jefferies, a financial firm, wrote in a commentary Friday that over 30 reports from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau were delayed by the political standoff.

The Labor Department did not release its weekly report on the number of Americans signing up for unemployment benefits for seven straight weeks. That jobless claims report is seen as a potential early indicator of where the labor market is headed.

The Labor Department did release its consumer price index for September — the most popular measurement of inflation — nine days late on Oct. 24. The government made an exception for that report because of its urgency: It is used to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment for tens of millions of Americans receiving Social Security and other federal benefits.

The interruption of federal economic statistics came at an awkward time. President Donald Trump’s policies — sweeping, ever-changing import taxes and massive deportations of people working in the United States illegally — are creating uncertainty about the economic outlook.

And the economy has sent conflicting signals: Economic growth looked solid at midyear and unemployment has been low. But job growth has lost momentum, and inflation has remained stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, partly because of the impact of Trump’s tariffs.

Jefferies' Simons expects the September employment report to show that employers added 65,000 jobs that month — unimpressive, but up from a meager 22,000 in August. He figures that unemployment remained at a low 4.3%.

Investors and policymakers hungry for data

The data cutoff has caused consternation on Wall Street and deepened divisions among Fed officials over whether to cut interest rates for a third straight time at their next meeting in December.

This week, some Fed policymakers have suggested that a lack of data is one reason they may support holding off on another rate cut.

As a result, fresh reports on jobs and inflation in the coming weeks and months will carry huge weight at the Fed because new numbers could help resolve disagreements between those who support another interest rate reduction and those who are opposed.

Even with the government reopened, however, it could take a few more weeks for the data to fully recover. Earlier this week, Kevin Hassett, a top White House economist, said only a part of October’s jobs report — originally scheduled to be released Nov. 7 — will eventually be released.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will likely have enough data from businesses to calculate how many jobs were gained or lost last month. Much of that is submitted electronically. But a separate survey of households, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, didn’t take place during the shutdown.

As a result, for the first time in 77 years, the BLS may not calculate an unemployment rate for the month of October.

Other White House officials have previously said there also won’t be an October inflation report, because the data couldn’t be gathered due to the government shutdown. That will pose a challenge for the Fed, which is seeking to determine whether inflation is headed back to 2%.

The data interruption occurred just a couple of months after Trump fired the director of the BLS, Erika McEntarfer, after it produced employment figures Aug. 1 that he didn’t like. They showed only modest job gains in July and sharply smaller increases in May and June than previously estimated.

Still, economists said the upcoming reports should be free from bias. Currently, there are no political appointees at the agency, after Trump withdrew his nominee to head the BLS Sept. 30.

“The data are being produced by roughly the same set of people as in the past,” Aaron Sojourner, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute, said.

Source: AP

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Political

Economic

The Trump administration plans to lower the United States’ tariffs on goods from Switzerland, according to an announcement Friday from the White House and the Swiss government following a meeting with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The tariff rate the US charges on Swiss imports will fall to 15% from 39%, which had been among the highest levies the United States charges for any country’s goods.

As part of the agreement, Swiss companies committed to investing “at least $200 billion into the United States, with at least $67 billion worth of investment occurring in 2026,” according to a White House fact sheet published on Friday. In a separate statement, the Swiss government said the total investments would be completed by 2028. It also said it agreed to lower tariffs on “a range of American products.”

Additionally, tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors from Switzerland won’t exceed 15%, according to a joint statement. This comes as the Trump administration has been mulling higher tariffs on both sectors.

“They’re going to send a lot of manufacturing here to United States — pharmaceuticals, gold smelting, railway equipment,” Greer said in a CNBC interview on Friday, previewing details of the agreement.

Wristwatches, unsmelted gold and medical equipment are all among the top goods the United States buys from Switzerland. While gold had been excluded from the tariffs, wristwatches and medical equipment, as well as other Swiss exports, could get cheaper for Americans to buy.

The United States ran a $38 billion trade deficit with Switzerland last year, according to US Commerce Department data. Greer said the agreement reached seeks to lower that.

Before President Donald Trump’s second term, goods from Switzerland were generally charged a tariff of between 0% to 2.5%.

“Although overall tariffs remain higher than before the additional tariffs were introduced in April, the agreed reduction in additional tariffs is expected to have a positive impact on the Swiss economy,” the Swiss government said.

Source: CNN

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Political

Commodity

President Donald Trump is slated to sign an order on Friday reducing tariffs on beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, according to a White House official, a move aimed at lowering costs on groceries as the administration faces pressure from voters to cut prices on everyday goods.

The exemptions would reduce trade levies on the commodities, which can’t be produced in the US in sufficient quantity to meet domestic demand. The exact scope of the tariff reduction, how many total goods are included and how widely it would apply, were not immediately clear.

The White House official, who requested anonymity to speak about the executive order which has not been made public, said the president is following through on his pledge to cut trade deals and then adjust levies as needed. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer teased the plan earlier Friday, saying that it fits in with Trump’s broader strategy to create tariff exemptions for key goods and sectors.

Source: Bloomberg

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Cryptocurrency

Executives are turning to a novel structure to fund crypto accumulation vehicles as investor appetite thins.

They’re called in-kind contributions, and they now account for a growing share of digital-asset treasury, or DAT, deals. Instead of raising cash to buy tokens in the open market, DAT sponsors contribute large slugs of their own crypto, often unlisted and hard to value.

Digital-asset treasuries are a new breed of public company built to hold concentrated crypto positions. The structure surged in 2025 as small-cap firms, especially in biotech and mining, reinvented themselves as digital-asset proxies. Sponsors provide tokens or raise money to buy them, and the stock then trades as a kind of listed bet on crypto. For insiders, it’s a shortcut to liquidity. For investors, a wager on upside.

But not all DATs carry the same level of risk. Earlier deals raised money to buy tokens through regular markets, which offered at least some independent price check. In-kind contributions skip that step — letting insiders decide what their tokens are worth, sometimes before the token even trades publicly. That shift means pricing and trading risks land more squarely on shareholders, many of them retail investors.

Investor faith is already wobbling, with Bitcoin’s latest plunge well below $100,000 adding to the stress. Many DATs that once traded above the value of their holdings now trade below it. As insiders supply the tokens and set their price, it’s becoming harder for investors to tell what these deals are really worth, or when to get out.

The in-kind structure was on full display in a recent $545 million private placement by Tharimmune Inc., a biotech firm-turned-crypto proxy, to set up a buyer of Canton Coins. About 80% of the raise came in the form of unlisted Canton tokens, priced at 20 cents each, according to an investor presentation seen by Bloomberg News. The token began trading on exchanges Nov. 10 and is now around 11 cents, CoinGecko data show.

Tharimmune didn’t respond to a request for comment.

More deals are following the same template. In these placements, insiders contribute tokens — sometimes illiquid or unlisted — to form a treasury, lock in valuations and seed the perception of market demand. But when tokens list below deal price, public shareholders absorb the difference.

The rise of in-kind DATs highlight a broader shift in how crypto risk is being offloaded. With fresh capital harder to attract, sponsors are using public wrappers to crystallize token value and initiate price discovery. The vehicles can resemble circular trades, where the same actors supply the asset, set its value and benefit from the optics of a successful raise. What looks like market demand can instead be recycled inventory.

A sharp market selloff of the kind that occurred in October can leave retail investors bearing the brunt of in-kind trades unwinding.

“Ultimately, if market sentiment shifts, public investors in the fund, particularly retail, may be left exposed if the underlying illiquidity is finally tested, leaving them to absorb the very losses the sponsor’s contribution structure was designed to sidestep,” said Chris Holland, partner at Singaporean consulting firm HM. Especially for smaller tokens, an in-kind contribution “shifts much of the liquidity and market impact risk to the DAT,” he added.

Singapore-based 10X Research said in an October report that retail traders had lost an estimated $17 billion buying stocks modeled on Michael Saylor’s archetypal Bitcoin buyer Strategy Inc. New Crypto Deals Put Retail at Risk After $17 Billion Wipeout_1

New Crypto Deals Put Retail at Risk After $17 Billion Wipeout_1

Canton isn’t alone in leaning heavily on untested tokens to get a treasury deal done. Alt5 Sigma Corp. raised $1.5 billion in August to invest in tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture with ties to US President Donald Trump. Half of the total sum came in the form of WLFI tokens priced at 20 cents each. At that time, WLFI tokens weren’t trading on exchanges.

Then there’s Flora Growth Corp., a Nasdaq-listed company that announced a $401 million deal to start acquiring Zero Gravity tokens in September. On closer inspection, the firm had raised just $35 million in cash to pair with a $366 million in-kind contribution of then-unlisted 0G tokens. Those tokens were priced at around $3 a piece; they subsequently listed, and are now trading at about $1.20.

Flora Growth remains confident in the potential of DATs “to give investors new on-ramps into crypto,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel Reis-Faria said. “I have a long-term conviction-driven approach and belief in both 0G and decentralized AI infrastructure.”

Both companies’ shares have been under pressure from the moment they became crypto proxies. They are each down more than 65% since announcing plans to adopt a DAT strategy.

Alt5 Sigma didn’t respond to a request for comment. New Crypto Deals Put Retail at Risk After $17 Billion Wipeout_2

“An 80% in-kind DAT is effectively a thin equity wrapper around one single volatile token,” said Akshat Vaidya, who has overseen investments in crypto treasuries as co-founder and managing partner of Arthur Hayes’ family office Maelstrom. “If the token drops 50%, the share price falls 80%-100% because the premium evaporates at the same time that forced sellers hit the bid.”

Leon Foong, managing partner at Mythos Venture Partners, an active investor in DATs, said that in-kind contributions create “a reflexivity which can act both ways — on the upside but also a downward spiral.” The more illiquid the token, the riskier the deal, he added.

To be sure, in-kind contributions have been part and parcel of the DAT trade since it took off in the first half of the year. In July, crypto veteran Adam Back’s Blockstream poured 25,000 Bitcoin — worth about $3 billion at the time — into a blank check company that partnered with an investment vehicle backed by Cantor Fitzgerald to form a treasury company. But that kind of structure hasn’t raised eyebrows, thanks in part to how liquid and widely distributed the original cryptocurrency has become.

Contributions of less-liquid tokens, on the other hand, create “a very delicate balance,” according to Vaidya, “because the DAT sponsors are usually the same people who hold the most of the underlying token as well.”