Top story for this morning: Trump pressures NATO, Anthropic denied lifting Pentagon sanctions

US President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure on NATO and revisited the Greenland issue amid disagreements with allies over war with Iran, while highlighting the fragility of a truce in the Middle East. OpenAI is gearing up for an IPO with retail investors and a massive infrastructure investment. On these and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of April 9.

An appeals court in Washington, D.C., has denied Anthropic a temporary reversal of the U.S. Department of Defense's decision to deem the company a "supply chain risk," saying the potential financial loss was inferior to national security interests, CNBC writes.

At the same time, a court in San Francisco earlier in late March prohibited the Trump administration from restricting the use of the Claude model in other government agencies, except for the Pentagon. Therefore, the AI company is excluded from the US Defense Ministry's contracts, but can work with other government agencies until the proceedings are completed, the TV channel recalled.

OpenAI plans to reserve some shares for retail investors in its IPO after strong demand in the last round, where the company raised about $122 billion and reached a valuation of $852 billion, CNBC reports. The company's chief financial officer (CFO) Sarah Fryar said OpenAI wants to expand participation in the listing to a broader audience and is considering going public in the coming quarters.

The company is betting on infrastructure scaling and the corporate segment: business clients already give OpenAI 40% of revenue and can reach parity with the consumer direction by 2026, said the company's Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser. The key competitive advantage of OpenAI remains access to computing power, on which the company plans to spend up to $600 billion over five years, notes CNBC.

Oil prices have started to recover after the biggest one-day drop since April 2020, with Brent and WTI rising to $97 a barrel amid virtually unchanged traffic through the Strait of Hormuz since the peace deal was signed and new Israeli strikes on Lebanon that threaten a fragile truce, Bloomberg writes.

Meanwhile, the spot price of Brent was around $125 per barrel, remaining almost $30 above June futures, CNBC writes. This points to a persistent supply shortage: real supplies remain tight in the coming weeks and the market does not believe in a quick recovery.

US President Donald Trump criticized NATO for its lack of support in the war with Iran and again raised the topic of Greenland, saying he was disappointed with the allies and threatened to leave the alliance, CNBC writes. The disagreement intensified amid the refusal of a number of NATO countries to participate in the military campaign in the Middle East and help with the provision of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

At the same time, Washington is discussing the expansion of its military presence in Greenland, which increases tensions with Europe. The situation is complicated by the fragile truce with Iran: new Israeli strikes on Lebanon and Tehran's accusations of violating the terms of the deal cast doubt on the prospects for negotiations.

Walt Disney plans to lay off up to 1,000 employees in the coming weeks, mostly in the marketing division, as part of cost cutting and business reorganization, The Wall Street Journal reports. The cuts will affect less than 1% of the company's staff, which employs about 231,000 people.

The initiative is related to the merger of marketing functions at Project Imagine under new Chief Marketing Officer Asad Ayaz and was launched prior to the appointment of Josh D'Amaro as CEO of the company.

- Japan's broad Topix index was down 0.9 percent on April 9, while the Nikkei 225 was down 0.8 percent.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 0.4 percent, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index was down 0.6 percent.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was down 1.8 percent and the Kosdaq was down 1.6 percent.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was little changed.

- Futures on the S&P 500 fell by 0.2%, futures on the Nasdaq Composite - also by 0.2%. Exchange contracts on Dow Jones Industrial Average - by 0.2%.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor