Washington's Tariff, Changi's Warships
Plus a Workers' Party reckoning, record COE prices, and a Pomeranian's farewell
Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.
Washington Calls Its Best Customer a Cheat
The US Trade Representative published a 98-page report this week proposing a 12.5% tariff on roughly a third of Singapore's exports to the United States, the final chapter of a Section 301 forced labor investigation that MTI rejected, saying there is "no evidence" of Singapore's role in supply chains tied to forced labor. The US runs a goods trade surplus with Singapore, and Changi Naval Base hosts the US warships Washington would need if things go sideways in the Taiwan Strait. Carve-outs for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, certain electronics, energy and aerospace products will soften the blow, but the label is still going to sting (probably more than the levy, truth be told). Bilateral trade was S$139.2 billion ($106 billion) in 2025, with S$27 billion ($20.6 billion) of that Singapore's non-oil domestic exports to the US, its largest NODX market. The proposed rates would replace the baseline 10% reciprocal tariff that will expire July 24; USTR panel hearings are scheduled to begin in July.
Read more: Foreign Policy (PM Wong), Business Times (exemption list)
Chinese Curry Concentrate Gets Cut Off
Singapore used the Online Criminal Harms Act on June 6 to order YouTube, Facebook, and X to block 14 posts traced to a China-based platform, accusing them of trying to fracture the city-state's multiracial society with claims it was being "overrun" by Indians. The content, which started circulating in Chinese-language online spaces in May, used footage of busy Little India streets and a religious procession on Pagoda Street to dress up claims that the Indian presence had reached a "concentration of curry." Law Minister Edwin Tong, Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam, and Digital Development Minister Josephine Teo all went on record Saturday, an unusually thick ministerial response for 14 posts that in some cases had only a few thousand views. Tong was careful to say there is no evidence of a coordinated state campaign, saying it was likely the work of foreign netizens acting organically.
Read more: CNA (Josephine Teo), CNA (May timeline), Business Times (Edwin Tong), NDTV (OCHA legal basis), Times of India (racial demographics)
Factories Keep Growing as Finished Goods Slip
Factory activity was 51.0 in May, the highest reading since December 2024 and the tenth straight month of expansion. The electronics PMI ticking up to 51.9 for its twelfth month of growth in a row. AI demand is still doing the heavy lifting, but finished goods are sliding into contraction as inventory drawdowns outpace restocking activity. With the Iran war grinding into its fourth month, Strait of Hormuz issues continue to push input prices up and slow down supplier deliveries.
Read more: Business Times
Advertisement:
Temasek Chair Wants Risk on the Spreadsheet
Temasek chairman Teo Chee Hean used his first full press interview since taking the top job in October 2025 to say that the numbers on a spreadsheet aren’t enough anymore. The 71-year-old former coordinating minister for national security said geopolitical risk now needs to be measured alongside financial analysis before any major bet, because circumstances can "change fundamentally" even after a deal closes. He also addressed a question about value creation by making it clear that pumping money into the system can’t manufacture value that isn't inherently there. Temasek's net portfolio value was a record S$434 billion ($339 billion) as at Mar 31, 2025.
Read more: Business Times (portfolio restructuring), Business Times (geopolitical risk)
Singaporeans Are Richer, but Deeper in Hock
Household net wealth was S$3.3 trillion ($2.5 trillion) in Q1 2026, up 6.7% from a year earlier, but liabilities grew faster at 8.2%. That’s 10 consecutive quarters of accelerating borrowing. It's the second quarter in a row in which debt’s outpaced wealth-building. Mortgages, which are at least 70% of total household liabilities, grew 5.8% year on year, up from 5.4% the quarter prior. Personal loans, including those for autos, credit cards, education, and renovations, were increased for the ninth quarter running and now stand at S$118.6 billion ($88 billion). Total liabilities are S$415 billion ($309 billion). Net worth still works out to roughly 8.7 times annual take-home pay, which a Fitch Solutions unit reckons keeps widespread risk "very low."
Read more: Straits Times
Beijing Fines Brokers, Singapore Users Shrug
Chinese regulators fined Futu (which owns Moomoo), Tiger Brokers and Longbridge a combined US$330 million (S$425 million) in late May for serving mainland clients without required licenses. Singapore users don’t appear to care. MAS said the local entities are "financially independent" of the penalized group companies, and client money is in segregated trust or custody accounts that can't be touched to cover the brokers' liabilities. Longbridge's custodian is DBS. Singapore made up 41 percent of paying clients at Tiger's US-listed parent UP Fintech in 2025, according to Bloomberg Intelligence estimates, and Moomoo claimed more than 1.5 million local users as of July last year.
Read more: Straits Times
New Hands on the Reserves
Tan Chong Meng, Temasek's deputy chairman, took over as chair of the Council of Presidential Advisers on June 2, succeeding Eddie Teo, who spent more than seven years steering the body that advises the President. Piyush Gupta, who ran DBS before moving to become chair at Keppel, will step up from alternate to full member, alongside the re-appointment of former Singtel group CEO Chua Sock Koong and the elevation of Singapore LNG chairman Gan Seow Kee from alternate to member. Teo, 79, joined the council in 2018 and chaired it from January 2019, a stretch President Tharman Shanmugaratnam said had been "exceptionally demanding."
Read more: Business Times
Safran and SIAEC Take a Leap of Faith at Changi
SIA Engineering and France's Safran Aircraft Engines are putting US$118 million into a joint venture to build a full-service shop for CFM Leap engines in Changi North. Safran holds 51% and SIAEC the remaining 49%. The JV subsumes SIAEC's existing quick-turn Leap work and will expand to cover both the Leap-1A and Leap-1B, the engines powering the A320neo family and 737 Max fleets that are doing especially well these days throughout Asia-Pacific. SIAEC is chipping in up to US$57.8 million (including US$13.7 million in-kind), Safran up to US$60.2 million, with room for more if needed. The tie-up extends a 10-year Leap maintenance agreement the two signed in 2019.
Read more: Business Times
Fraud Charges Can't Dislodge the Kitchen CEO
Sally Chua Chwee Choo, CEO and executive director of SGX-listed Singapore Kitchen Equipment, was (along with senior manager Charlene Koh Sai Eng and former CFO Chow Mei Ling) charged this week with fraud by false representation and falsification of accounts. The charges are concerning eight payments totalling S$1.4 million ($1.1 million) made by majority shareholder QKE Holdings on behalf of main operating subsidiary Q'son Kitchen Equipment. QKE employees are said to have altered documents without the executive directors' knowledge. All three remain free on bail. The board, excluding Chua and her co-founder husband Alan Lee, has decided it is in the "best interest of the company" for Chua and Koh to stay in their jobs pending the results of the next court hearing on July 1.
Read more: Business Times
Commercial COE Closes in on Six Figures
The Category C COE was S$94,000 ($70,500) at the June 4 tender, another new record over the previous high-water mark that had been found two weeks before. EcoSwift CEO Ryan Woon thinks that S$100,000 is a lock before year's end, with EV demand, high diesel prices, and tight supply all pushing the same way.
Read more: Business Times (all COE premiums), Business Times (S$100K forecast)
Lion City Joins the Startup Big Leagues
StartupBlink's 2026 index put Singapore at #10 globally, the first time the city has cracked that tier in the 1,500 ranked. The fintech ranking is coming in ever better still. Singapore was listed as #2 in the world, with only the San Francisco Bay Area coming in ahead. At the country level Singapore sits in fourth place, on the back of a startup sector that’s valued at $292.1 billion (S$375.4 billion) and growing at a 24.4 percent clip (yoy).
Read more: The Independent Singapore
That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.
If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.