Balance of Power

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Russia unleashed another record air attack on Ukraine overnight, hours after Donald Trump voiced his frustration at Vladimir Putin’s refusal to end the war.

The episode encapsulated the challenge facing the US president after six months of trying to broker a deal: Trump keeps asking for peace, while Putin continues waging war.

WATCH: Trump uses an expletive to describe Putin’s actions.

The US has so far held back from punishing Moscow, arguing that the Russian president wouldn’t engage with diplomacy otherwise. Trump noted yesterday, though, that Putin’s “very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

He lifted a controversial US pause on sending defensive weapons to Ukraine and said he’s looking “very strongly” at a Senate bill that threatens Russia with harsh new sanctions.

Ukraine and its European allies are left wondering if Trump is starting to pivot toward confronting Russia as the aggressor in the war. They watched the US’s attempts at rapprochement with Putin with mounting anxiety, fearful that Kyiv would be forced into a humiliating peace deal.

It’s unlikely Kremlin officials were surprised by the change of tone, after Putin made clear in last week’s phone call with Trump that Russia won’t back down on its war aims in Ukraine.

They may be counting on the mercurial Trump changing his mind again. Or calculating that the US won’t do anything to prevent Russia grinding out its advance on the battlefield.

That’s even as Trump showed in Iran that he’s capable of ordering a sudden and decisive application of US military power to tilt the outcome of a conflict.

Trump entered office pledging to end the war in Ukraine quickly. He has now identified Putin as the obstacle to achieving that goal.

For Ukraine and Europe, the question is whether he’ll follow through, or whether Putin turns out to be the better judge of Trump. — Anthony Halpin

Rescue workers at the site of a Russian air strike on a residential building in Kyiv on Friday. Photographer: Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg

Global Must Reads

Trump vowed to forge ahead with his aggressive tariff campaign, stressing he won’t offer additional extensions on country-specific levies set to hit in early August while indicating he could announce substantial new rates on imports of copper and pharmaceuticals. His remarks on copper triggered market chaos after he suggested the US would implement a higher-than-expected 50% tariff on imports of the metal, spurring a record spike in New York futures and a drop in the global benchmark.

Taiwan is preparing to kick off its most expansive annual military drills ever — underscoring President Lai Ching-te’s drive to protect the self-run democracy from Chinese assertiveness. The exercises will last 10 days, double the usual number, more than 20,000 reservists are being called up and local governments will test their ability to maintain essential services and distribute supplies in a crisis.

Taiwanese reservists participate in training today. Photographer: I-Hwa Cheng/AFP/Getty Images

China hit back at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen after she accused the nation of distorting trade and limiting access for Europe’s firms — a back-and-forth clouding the outlook for an upcoming summit. Beijing has imposed export controls on rare-earth magnets, while the European Union has slapped tariffs on electric-vehicle imports and excluded Chinese firms from public contracts for medical devices, sparking retaliation. Separately, China challenged Germany’s accusation that one if its warships behaved dangerously toward a plane in the Red Sea.

Trump said Jerome Powell should “resign immediately” if allegations from an administration official that the Federal Reserve chair misled lawmakers prove true, while deepening his personal attacks against the head of the US central bank over interest-rate policy. In a social-media post, Trump accused Powell of “whining like a baby about non-existent Inflation for months, and refusing to do the right thing.”

On the rare occasions Santiago Caputo is spotted in public, he’s often lighting up a cigarette in his signature Ray-Bans, adding to the allure of the 39-year-old, who was a nobody outside of niche political circles until relatively recently but has risen to become Argentine President Javier Milei’s top strategist. Read our profile here of the man described as the “hottest ticket” for meeting requests from hedge-fund executives and institutional investors.

Santiago Caputo. Photographer: Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo

The Philippines said its visiting-forces agreement with Canada is ready for signing and is negotiating a similar pact with France as it builds a coalition of like-minded countries amid tensions with China.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged the UK to recognize the state of Palestine in an address to the British parliament that emphasized the need for cooperation amid uncertainty over US support.

Trump said South Korea should pay more for its own defense, upping pressure on the Asian ally after he sent a letter to extend time for negotiations before 25% across-the-board levies kick in for its exports to the US.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a slew of anti-corruption measures as he seeks to overcome a graft scandal involving two close collaborators that has rocked his government.

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Chart of the Day

Trade negotiators from around the world have racked up thousands of air miles travelling to Washington to seek a deal with Trump — especially Asian delegations who have the farthest to go. With final pacts still out of reach for most, the travel isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Since he unveiled his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2, delegates from Asian countries including Japan, India and Indonesia have made at least 20 trips to the US capital: That's over 770 hours in the air, equivalent to a full month of flying, covering more than 350,000 miles — or 14 times around the globe.

And Finally

The image of two beef patties on a sesame-seed bun with lettuce and cheese looks oddly familiar, and so does the stylized golden M on the carton of French fries. But this isn’t a McDonald’s, it’s an outlet of Vkusno i Tochka, which filled the void after the US firm sold its restaurants in Russia to a local franchisee. The combination of Western classics and local expertise is a sign of how Russian knock-offs have dug in. And with no end to the war on Ukraine in sight, the conditions for big consumer companies to return are still too risky.

Stars Coffee in the former location of a Starbucks in Moscow in 2023. Photographer: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo

Global Must Reads

Chart of the Day

And Finally

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