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By Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland and Ernest Scheyder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical minerals agreement aimed at countering China on Monday at a meeting marked by Trump's jab at Australia's envoy to the United States over past criticism. China loomed large at the first White House summit between Trump and Albanese, with the U.S. president also backing a strategic nuclear-powered submarine deal with Australia to bolster security in the Indo-Pacific. While Trump and Albanese greeted each other warmly, the U.S. president expressed ire about past criticism of him by Australia's U.S. ambassador Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister. Rudd in 2020 called Trump "the most destructive president in history," later deleting the comment from social media. Trump said he was not aware of the critical comments and asked where the envoy was now. Upon seeing him across the table, Trump said, "I don't like you either, and I probably never will." The visit otherwise appeared to go smoothly, with Albanese and Trump signing a minerals deal that Trump said had been negotiated in recent months. Albanese described it as an $8.5 billion pipeline "that we have ready to go." A copy of the agreement released by both governments said the two countries will each invest $1 billion over the next six months into mining and processing projects as well as set a minimum price floor for critical minerals, a move that Western miners have long sought. A White House statement on the agreement added that the investments would target deposits of critical minerals worth $53 billion, although it did not provide details on which types or locations.  "In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them," Trump told reporters. EXIM ANNOUNCES OVER $2.2 BILLION IN INVESTMENTS The U.S. Export-Import Bank, which acts as the U.S. government's export credit agency, later announced seven letters of interest totaling more than $2.2 billion to advance critical minerals projects in Australia. It said the letters went to Arafura Rare Earths, Northern Minerals, Graphinex, Latrobe Magnesium, VHM, RZ Resources, and Sunrise Energy Metals. EXIM said the projects span a range of critical minerals essential to advanced defense systems, aerospace components, communications equipment, and next-generation industrial technologies. The investments would help support the re-industrialization of America’s high-tech manufacturing base, while helping to "counter China's export dominance and ensure Western supply-chain resilience," it said. Additionally, the Pentagon plans to build a gallium refinery in Western Australia. China blocked gallium exports to the United States last December. The United States has been looking to boost its access to critical minerals around the world as China takes steps to strengthen control over global supply. Trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated ahead of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea next week. The term critical minerals applies to a range of minerals, including rare earths, lithium and nickel. China has the world's largest rare earths reserves, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, but Australia also has significant reserves. The minerals are used for products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars. TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR SUBMARINE DEAL Albanese got welcome support from Trump for the A$368 billion ($239.46 billion) AUKUS agreement, reached in 2023 under then-President Joe Biden. Under the deal, Australia is to buy U.S. nuclear-powered submarines in 2032 before building a new submarine class with Britain. While Trump has been eager to roll back Biden-era policies, he signaled his intent to back the AUKUS submarine agreement, months after his team launched a review of the deal over concerns about the ability of the United States to meet its own submarine needs. Navy Secretary John Phelan told the meeting the United States and Australia were working closely to improve the original AUKUS framework for all three parties "and clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement." Trump said these were "just minor details," adding that "there shouldn't be any more clarifications, because we're just – we're just going now full steam ahead, building." Ahead of Monday's meeting, Australian officials emphasized that their country is paying its way under AUKUS, contributing $2 billion this year to boost production rates at U.S. submarine shipyards, and preparing to maintain U.S. Virginia-class submarines at its Indian Ocean naval base from 2027. The delay of 10 months in an official meeting since Trump took office had caused some anxiety in Australia as the Pentagon urged the Australian government to increase defense spending. The two leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month. The rare earths agreement came a week after U.S. officials condemned China's expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains. Resource-rich Australia, wanting to extract and process rare earths, put preferential access to its strategic reserve on the table in U.S. trade negotiations in April.  As part of the rare earths agreement, Trump and Albanese agreed to cut permitting for mines, processing facilities and related operations in order to boost production. The deal called for cooperation on the mapping of geological resources, minerals recycling and efforts to stop the sale of critical minerals assets "on national security grounds." This was an oblique reference to China, which has bought major mining assets across the planet in the past decade, including the world's largest cobalt mine in Congo, from U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan in 2016. $1 = 1.5368 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney, Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland, Jarrett Renshaw and David Brunnstrom in Washington, and Ernest Scheyder in Houston; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Colleen Jenkins, Will Dunham and Nick Zieminski)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services on Monday recommended investors vote down plans for AI company CoreWeave to buy infrastructure company Core Scientific in what was billed as a $9 billion deal. Investors will vote on October 30. ISS wrote that Core Scientific has achieved considerable success as a standalone company and could continue going it alone. CoreWeave, which offers cloud infrastructure for artificial-intelligence capabilities, proposed to acquire Core Scientific, which offers computing power, in an all-stock deal with an implied value of $20.40 when it was announced in early July. Soon after, investor Two Seas Capital said it would vote against the deal, citing concerns with the sale process, deal structure, and valuation. It said the fixed exchange ratio left Core Scientific shareholders vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of CoreWeave shares. CoreWeave's shares have fallen since July, thereby reducing the deal's value. On Monday, Core Scientific's stock price jumped over 5% in post-hours trading after having closed trading at $18.81, signaling investors may prefer to have the company stay independent. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Sonali Paul)

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By Manya Saini (Reuters) -After a turbulent week in which some regional U.S. banks flagged bad loan and fraud issues, investors began scrutinizing the lenders' earnings reports for signs of a wider strain across the sector. However, Zions Bancorporation posted a rise in third-quarter profit on Monday, helped by stronger interest income, despite the $50 million fraud-related charge-off it announced last week. Since the 2023 banking crisis, investors have had little patience for uncertainty, analysts said. Even isolated loan or fraud troubles now trigger broad-based selloffs as traders rush to reduce exposure. "Years of easy credit and low transparency have left investors uncertain about where risks truly lie; even small negative surprises can spark outsized repricing," said Tim Hynes, global head of Credit Research at Debtwire.  The KBW Regional Banking Index has dropped 4.8% this year, lagging the KBW Bank Index, which tracks large-cap banks and is up 15.9% so far in 2025. Last week, bank stocks seesawed sharply after Zions disclosed $50 million in losses tied to two loans and Western Alliance initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC. Cantor has denied the allegations. Zions' third-quarter profit rose despite the charge-off, lifting the bank's shares 2.9% in after-market trading. Zions' losses were related to two commercial and industrial loans from its California division. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF rose 2.49% on Monday. HBT Financial reported results, with non-performing assets at $8.6 million, or 0.17% of total assets, compared with $6.5 million, or 0.13%, in the prior quarter. Its shares rose 4.15% on Monday after it agreed to merge with CNB Bank in a deal valued at $170.2 million. Meanwhile, Jefferies rose 4.25% on Monday, after sharp drops last week. The bank was caught up in the First Brands collapse, though executives have said the investment bank was "defrauded" and any losses are absorbable. Among regional lenders, Washington Trust Bancorp will also report results. The bank had earlier disclosed that its third-quarter profit will be hit by $11.3 million in loan losses. 'ADDITIONAL COCKROACHES'  Even before problems surfaced at Zions and Western Alliance, investor confidence had taken a hit from the twin bankruptcies of auto parts maker First Brands and subprime lender Tricolor. Fifth Third booked a $178 million loss last week tied to the bankruptcy of Tricolor, while JPMorgan Chase wrote off $170 million. "Asset quality metrics across banks have been deteriorating but have held up better than we expected. Losses have been low, so these recent numerous larger loan problems have raised fears of a broader deterioration," said Michael Driscoll, credit rating officer, Global Financial Institutions Ratings at Morningstar DBRS. "But one of the lessons from 2023 regional bank failures was that banks' funding can unravel faster than in the past if sizable issues emerge."  But many including Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence have downplayed comparisons to the 2023 regional banking crisis, when Silicon Valley Bank's failure sparked a broader turmoil. "We view recent weakness in the bank group as being driven by three key reasons," Deutsche Bank analysts said. "These include a number of idiosyncratic credit events occurring over a short period of time, less near-term focus over credit overall and mixed messaging from the banks." Large Wall Street banks last week also described the recent stress as idiosyncratic, but investors worry that problems emerging in quick succession point to deeper cracks in credit quality. "A wave of additional 'cockroaches' could reset risk tolerance across markets, pressuring valuations and tightening financial conditions further," Hynes said.  Analysts said markets have taken note of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's recent comment about the potential for more cases like First Brands, amplifying investor anxiety about weaknesses in the industry's more opaque corners. "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned of this one," Dimon said last week. (Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Joel Jose; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Richard Chang)

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