CNBC Daily Open: Iran-U.S. tensions, China's factory data and a steady Bank of Japan

Vessels transit the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the coast of southern Yemen on July 25, 2026. Khaled Ziad | Afp | Getty ImagesHello, this is Justina Lee writing to you from Singapore, filling in for Leonie.U.S. President Donald Trump has called on Congress to add tariffs on Iran to a sanctions bill against Russia and Tehran that has bipartisan support, but those duties are likely to have little effect to Iran's economy. Signs of a recovery in crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz are easing supply concerns, with oil prices extending declines on Friday. In Asia, China's factory activity contracted unexpectedly in July for the first time since February, the Bank of Japan kept its policy rate steady, while shares South Korea's chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics come roaring back to life. What you need to know todayHostilities between the U.S. and Iran continue to intensify, after U.S. President Donald Trump called on Congress to add tariffs on Iran to a sanctions bill against Russia and Tehran that has bipartisan support."I'd like to see tariffs on Iran. It would make it much stronger," Trump said of the bill. However, those duties would have little effect, given that the U.S. imports nearly nothing from Iran. Data from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative showed the U.S. imported just $1.4 million in goods from Iran in 2025. Works of art, collectors' pieces and antiques were the largest category of those imports, making up 55% of the value, according to the firm Trading Economics.Meanwhile, signs of a recovery in crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz are easing supply concerns. Oil prices extended declines on Friday, with West Texas Intermediate futures for September delivery dropping 1.6%. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, fell by nearly 1%. Moving over to mergers and acquisitions, Canadian convenience and mobility retailer Alimentation Couche-Tard announced plans on Friday to acquire Poland's largest convenience store operator Zabka Group.The deal, which values Zabka at approximately 32.62 billion zloty ($8.6 billion), would expand Couche-Tard's presence in central and eastern Europe. Over in Asia, a slew of economic and market news dominated the headlines on Friday. China's factory activity contracted unexpectedly in July for the first time since February, weighed by a slump in domestic orders and production disrupted by typhoons. The latest survey of businesses by China Beige Book also found that one of the Chinese economy's few growth drivers lost steam in July, with "U.S.-bound shipments fell outright for the first time in several months." Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan kept its policy rate steady on Friday, while warning that the country's core inflation could exceed its 2% target. In Asian markets, the AI rally comes roaring back with South Korea's chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics surging over 20% on Friday, tracking huge gains in U.S. technology stocks. Blockbuster earnings from Amazon and Microsoft helped renew optimism around AI spending.—Justina LeeAnd finally...Anthropic says its Claude models ‘gained unauthorized access’ to other organizations’ systemsAnthropic on Thursday said it discovered three instances where its Claude artificial intelligence models accessed the internet during an evaluation and "gained unauthorized access to the real systems of three different organizations."The company said it found these incidents after carrying out a "a large-scale retrospective review" of its cybersecurity evaluations. Anthropic said the review was prompted by a separate but similar security incident that OpenAI disclosed last week.OpenAI said a combination of its models escaped an isolated testing environment that had very limited internet access. The models chained together a series of vulnerabilities to reach the open web and eventually gain access to Hugging Face, which operates an open-source developer platform.—Ashley Capoot