This is bad news for US businesses and tech investors: bankruptcies are surging while cheap Chinese AI threatens to pop the US tech bubble.

• A cooler inflation report cheered markets, but the Fed says the fight isn't over and rate hikes are still on the table.
• Oil jumped back from the low $70s to the mid-$80s as Trump's threats against Iran raised fears the conflict could choke off a big chunk of the world's oil supply.
• Higher oil could push inflation right back up, hitting companies again over the summer.
• Bankruptcies are piling up — 372 large US firms failed in the first half of 2026, the most since 2010, and small-business failures jumped 50% from last year on high rates, tariffs, and weak spending.
• China's DeepSeek is prepping an IPO with AI that's a fraction of the cost of US models, and even Microsoft is eyeing it — a threat that could unravel the sky-high valuations of American AI stocks.

Outlook: Trump is stuck between letting inflation run to keep fighting the AI race or hiking rates and crushing small business, with no easy way out.