The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced that it will buy back more of its own bonds, a move that partially reversed a selloff in longer-term U.S. debt that is threatening to drive up politically important interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans.

A number of factors have been pushing up yields on longer-term debt to their highest levels since 2007, such as concern that the conflict with Iran is showing little sign of resolution, growing competition for financing with borrowers that are building out artificial intelligence infrastructure and widening U.S. government deficits.

Treasury said it would “at least double” the size of its buybacks, in which the department reabsorbs older debt securities with a maturity of at least 10 years. The previous ceiling was $2 billion per operation, and that number will be at least $4 billion, effective Sept. 9 and through Nov. 4.

The move is the latest by Secretary Scott Bessent to affect U.S. Treasury yields. Earlier this month, the department conducted a joint intervention with Japan to boost the yen, which had been trading in July at its weakest level against the dollar in roughly four decades. Bessent warned in January that turmoil in Japanese government bonds was spilling into the Treasury market.

Treasury also recently signaled the possibility that it could decide to issue less longer-term debt in coming quarters.

The Senate voted 86 to 11 to pass the sweeping Russia sanctions bill championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on Friday, advancing legislation that would give the White House more leverage against Moscow as it seeks to end the war in Ukraine — and a brand new tariff tool.

Now that the bill has cleared the upper chamber, it’s up to lawmakers in the House to determine its fate when they return in September. President Donald Trump has already signaled he would sign the bill if it lands on his desk.

The bill, which Graham and cosponsors including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have worked to advance for more than a year, would issue mandatory sanctions not only on Russia’s leadership and energy sector, but also on abetters of Russia’s defense industry and so-called shadow fleet in an effort to curb the flow of cash to Moscow’s war chest.

Ukraine’s supporters on the Hill and officials in Kyiv have been urging its passage, arguing that it would deal a timely blow to Russia’s war efforts as Kyiv seeks to capitalize on a series of recent favorable turns in the war to end it altogether.

In comments on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and vocal backer of the bill Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) stressed the “urgency” of the moment.

“The momentum is on Ukraine’s side,” Shaheen said. “Now is the time to put more pressure on Putin.” She added that the situation on the ground could turn back in Moscow’s favor within months — especially with assistance from foreign foes like China.

It has already been a long road for the sanctions measure, which Graham and Blumenthal first introduced in April 2025. The lawmakers negotiated for months with the White House, which wanted more control over what entities it could sanction, and by how much. In July, Graham announced — from Kyiv — that the White House had agreed to a revised version of the bill.

The new iteration of the bill includes broad authority for the president to waive any sanctions that are applied, as long as the White House provides a written certification that the waiver is “in the national interests of the United States” and a report outlining the basis for the certification.

Following a last-minute demand from Trump, lawmakers also added language to the bill to extend certain sanctions on Iran.

Graham’s sudden death just days after winning Trump’s green light spurred his fellow senators to support the legislation, which cleared a procedural hurdle at the end of the month by a wide margin.

But a provision in the bill that would grant the White House authority to issue 100 percent tariffs on top buyers of Russian oil, and countries facilitating sanctions evasion, nearly derailed the measure’s passage in the upper chamber before lawmakers left town for August recess.

An amendment pushed by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that would have stripped the tariff language from the bill entirely failed in a 64 to 32 floor vote Friday.

Still, nearly one-third of the upper chamber voted in favor of striking the tariff language, highlighting Democrats’ worries about handing more tariff powers to a White House already eager to use that tool against Washington’s global allies and enemies. That Democratic discontent is likely a foreshadowing of a similar sticking point for lawmakers on the House side when they return from recess in September.

As Senate leadership tried to reach an agreement to fast-track consideration of the bill before the chamber adjourned for the summer, lawmakers opposed to the tariff provisions threatened to derail that effort over squabbles about what amendments should get a floor vote.

One of those amendments was an effort from Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), to add language curbing the tariff powers afforded to Trump in the bill. Warnock — who voted to advance the bill in July — had threatened to thwart Senate leadership’s effort to fast-track consideration of the legislation this week if his amendment didn’t get a floor vote.

But Warnock pulled the amendment at the eleventh hour Thursday evening after securing the Trump administration’s commitment to enact a clear off-ramp for countries hit with tariffs, according to a person familiar with the senator’s plans granted anonymity to speak about internal conversations.

That move may not go far enough to quell the concerns of Democrats in the House — some of whom have already expressed frustration over the provision.

House Foreign Affairs ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) issued a joint statement following the Senate vote slamming the current bill text as “unacceptable” and citing the broad waiver authority and tariff powers granted to the White House.

But the lawmakers vowed to “continue to seek a path forward that remedies this bill’s flaws.”

Brussels is bracing for an unusual fight between the EU’s smallest country and a British ex-footballing legend.

Peter Shilton, the England goalkeeper who conceded the “Hand of God” goal from Diego Armando Maradona in 1986, has started a new life as an anti-gambling advocate after overcoming a decades-long addiction.

Despite being a diehard Brexit supporter, he’s become the poster boy of the European Parliament’s push to tax online betting in a bid to raise some much-needed funds to finance the bloc’s next €2 trillion budget.

But the campaign has run into strong opposition from Malta. The tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of just over half a million people, is home to a burgeoning betting sector. It says that higher taxes will cripple its gambling industry, boost illegal operators and drive firms outside the bloc.

“[Malta] will not accept the introduction of any EU-level taxes designed to sustain the bloc’s spending,” the country’s Prime Minister, Robert Abela, told the Maltese Parliament in June.

But Shilton, who lost more than £1 million in betting on horse racing over 45 years and now runs his own gambling addiction charity, dismisses the arguments by Malta and the gambling lobbies as “window dressing.” He’s in favor of higher taxes as he wants to shrink advertising revenue that is used to lure in new gamblers.

“Deep down they’re after everybody’s money. Simple as that,” he told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels in June.

The topic has split the EU’s 27 governments, pitting gambling-heavy Southern European countries against their more supportive Western European peers, led by France. Capitals are already fighting even though the Commission hasn’t yet issued a formal proposal for the possible tax, which would ultimately need to be unanimously approved by governments.

It’s one of numerous budget battle lines being drawn, with Ireland — which is steering the talks as chair of the rotating Council presidency — set to restart negotiations to facilitate an overall deal on the EU budget before the end of the year.

That’s no mean feat given Dublin’s task to mesh competing spending priorities into a single budget — financing everything from farmers’ subsidies to foreign aid — that is acceptable for each of the EU’s 27 governments.

National capitals will have to unanimously approve new EU-wide taxes — known as own resources — to pay for soaring defense spending and post-Covid debt repayments if they want to avoid drastically increasing national contributions to Brussels.

Supporters of the gambling levy point to the fact that it would rake in over €13 billion throughout the next budget cycle and — for some, more importantly — address a serious public health issue. An estimated 80 million adults globally have experienced a gambling addiction, according to experts.

“We look on it [gambling] as an illness. It’s something that’s inborn in you and that can be ignited,” Shilton said.

Malta’s game plan

Malta has invested heavily in the gambling industry — including lotteries, betting and casinos increasingly operating online — which now accounts for around 12 percent of its gross domestic product.

These firms have relocated to Malta because of its light-touch licensing regime, business-friendly tax regime and balmy weather.

The country is “as dependent on the online gambling industry as Germany is on cars,” said an EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak freely.

While gambling firms need local authorization to operate in most other European countries, securing the Maltese license is crucial to access banking services and gain a foothold in the EU market.

Malta-based firms dominated the German and Austrian online gambling markets before national regulators cracked down. This has prompted the Maltese government to refuse to recognize some court rulings and sanctions issued by other EU countries against its gambling firms.

Given its influence, it is hardly surprising that the gambling industry has found a friendly ear among Malta’s politicians in Brussels.

The Maltese president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, last year gave the opening speech at an international gambling conference in Rome that also featured Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani.

“I’m more than a little proud that it started in my island home of Malta,” she said, referring to SiGMA, a Maltese events company that focuses on online gambling founded by Eman Pulis, a university friend of Metsola.

Betting lobbies say they oppose higher gambling rates on the grounds that they will fuel appetite for the illegal market, away from the grasp of EU rules.

“A higher tax would lead to worse odds for the customers … and it is relevant because access to the illegal markets in Europe is, obviously, one click away,” said secretary general of the European Gaming and Betting Association, Maarten Haijer.

Nicola Matteucci, an economist at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy who has undertaken extensive research on the gambling sector, argued there is a “point where prices exceed a certain level and the demand [for gambling] diminishes. But it’s not as immediate as suggested by the industry.”

Matteucci said that most gamblers will be undeterred by slightly higher taxes and worse odds as they are not fully rational consumers.

Anti-gambling groups reason instead that higher taxes will reduce the sector’s spending on commercials, preventing would-be punters from getting sucked in to gambling in the first place.

“Higher taxes will therefore mean less gambling advertising overall and many people would regard that as a public benefit,” said Derek Webb, the founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling advocacy group.

Club Med joins Malta

Malta has joined forces with fellow Mediterranean countries — Italy, Portugal and Spain — to challenge the mooted tax which was first proposed by the Parliament’s socialist lawmaker Victor Negrescu, said four diplomats with knowledge of the discussions.

According to the European Commission’s estimates, seen by POLITICO, a 3 percent tax on the net turnover of the online gambling sector would generate an estimated €1.9 billion per year.

With its big online gambling market, Spain is expected to be among the biggest financial losers, should the tax go ahead. It is estimated to be on the hook for €414 million per year, almost a quarter of the total amount. That compares to a projected bill of €165 million per year for Malta— a disproportionality high amount for such a small country.

Portugal is also reluctant to back the levy. It fears that higher taxes would eat into revenue brought in by state-run betting and lotteries that is currently channeled to the charity Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa‘s healthcare and youth support programs, said a Portuguese official.

Meanwhile, given the relatively low uptake of online gambling, Italy’s misgivings have surprised anti-betting advocates. Rome is expected to pay a mere 7 percent of the proposed new levy — a significantly lower proportion than its regular EU budget contributions.

However, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has previously been receptive to the gambling industry. Last year its MPs passed a resolution encouraging the reversal of a ban on professional football clubs advertising gambling firms.  

Palantir is shifting profits from its European operations to the United States, allowing the Florida-based data analytics giant to pay minimal taxes in Europe, a new report finds.

The report by the U.K.-based Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, a group partly funded by labor unions that researches corporate tax avoidance in an effort to win reform of global tax rules, found that Palantir’s European subsidiaries, which took in €440.5 million in annual revenue in 2024, report far smaller profit margins in Europe than in the U.S.

“Although a substantial part of Palantir’s revenue is realized in Europe, almost all of the pre-tax profits are funneled to the United States,” the report said.

Palantir pays no U.S. federal income tax because previous losses, tax credits, and R&D deductions offset its taxable income; and virtually no state income tax, with the exception of Maryland, which levies a digital services tax.

The profit gap between the U.S. and Europe is stark. In 2025, Palantir’s American business pocketed 47.7 cents in profit from every dollar of revenue — more than double the previous year’s 22.5 cents. Outside the U.S., the profit margin was just 6.3 percent. In some European subsidiaries, it fell to around 3 percent, according to the new report.

CICTAR argues that Palantir “intentionally and artificially” shrinks European profits — and therefore its European tax bills — to concentrate profits in the U.S. There is no claim in the report that such arrangements, often referred to as “profit shifting,” are illegal. Multinational companies often reduce reported profits by paying subsidiaries or other related entities for intellectual property, loans or expertise.

In Sweden, for example, Palantir reported €13.7 million in revenue in 2024, but only €1.1 million in profit. At Sweden’s 20 percent corporate tax rate, that left the company with a tax bill of just €424,000.

In its Q2 earnings report on Monday, Palantir made no explicit reference to earnings from its European subsidiaries. Instead, it highlighted its U.S. business, where revenue rose 115 percent year-on-year to $1.57 billion (€1.36 billion), and boasted of its 62 percent profit margin.

A U.K.-based Palantir spokesperson said that the majority of the company’s 2025 revenue and profitability was driven by its U.S. business. “Our tax position in each jurisdiction reflects the level of economic activity there, and we meet our tax obligations in every market in which we operate,” the spokesperson said.

Not alone

Palantir is not the first U.S. tech company to draw scrutiny over how it books profits in Europe.

In 2024, the European Court of Justice ordered Apple to pay Ireland €13 bn in back taxes, ending an 8-year-long fight over what Brussels said amounted to illegal state aid. Amazon also fought the European Commission over claims it had received an unlawful tax advantage worth around €250 million in Luxembourg — a case the company ultimately won. Microsoft, meanwhile, has faced scrutiny over its Irish subsidiary, Microsoft Round Island One, which avoided paying millions to the state after claiming tax residency in Bermuda. The U.S. software giant has denied that it is circumventing Ireland’s tax laws.

Jan Willem Goudriaan, General Secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions — a supporter of CICTAR— said that companies such as Palantir, Amazon and Microsoft focus on minimizing the taxes they pay, “thus robbing funding for public services.”

“Companies bidding for public contracts should have to demonstrate responsible tax conduct by disclosing where their revenues, workforce, profits and taxes are located,” he said.

Another reason for the low profits of Palantir’s European subsidiaries is their high personnel costs. In the U.K., where most of the company’s non-U.S. workforce is based, Palantir reported £173 million (€204.3 million) in employee costs for 749 staff in 2024 — an average of £230,974 (€272,803) per employee.

The report also points to Palantir’s use of stock-based compensation across its European subsidiaries, especially in the U.K., Spain and Norway. This means employees are paid partly in company shares or awards. Those awards are recorded as staff expenses, which can lower a subsidiary’s corporate tax bill.