Raising the stakes on Ukraine

The next 50 days will show whether Trump's actions match his rhetoric on Russia's war on Ukraine – and if Europe is ready to step up.
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Donald Trump seems to have realized that Vladimir Putin wasn't serious about peace talks to end his war on Ukraine and that the Russian president needs to be forced to the negotiating table.

The next 50 days will show whether Trump's actions match his rhetoric, and if Europe will play its part after much talk about its readiness to do so.

The US president yesterday agreed to provide Ukraine with much needed weapons — as long as Europe pays for them.

That's a significant shift from former President Joe Biden's approach. The US under Trump no longer has a direct commitment to arm Ukraine, it's only prepared to sell weapons to Europeans willing to aid a fellow democracy.

Ukraine needs air-defense systems and drone interceptors as well as artillery ammunition and missiles to defend against Moscow's incessant bombing and advancing troops. It could also do with capabilities to strike military targets inside Russia.

A Patriot air-defense system. Photographer: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Providing America can produce enough materiel, the money required isn't massive — just 0.25% of European Union member states' GDP by some estimates. Ultimately, it's about political will.

Germany is one of the few that has said it's willing to stump up the cash. Others, including France, Italy and Spain, have previously resisted EU initiatives to commit to a steady stream of financing.

Trump said he'd sanction countries like China and India that buy Russia's oil and help finance its war if Putin doesn't agree to a ceasefire within 50 days.

It's a move that could hit Moscow's finances hard if implemented properly and one that Biden declined to pursue amid worries about global oil prices.

But 50 days is a long time on the battlefield, and Trump may dial back his threat if Putin feigns interest again in peace talks.

Six months of US diplomacy didn't bring Putin to the table. It's unclear why waiting seven more weeks will make any difference. Alberto Nardelli

WATCH: Trump said the US will send "top-of-the-line weapons" to Ukraine.

Global Must Reads

Nvidia plans to resume sales of its H20 artificial-intelligence chip to China after securing assurances from the Trump administration that shipments would be approved, a dramatic reversal from the government's earlier stance. It comes after weeks of thawing relations between Washington and Beijing, guided by an opaque truce that's designed to see both sides approve exports of critical technologies.

EU officials have finalized a second list of countermeasures to target US goods worth around $84 billion, including Boeing aircraft, automobiles and bourbon, if it decides to retaliate against Trump's tariffs. The president indicated he's open to more trade negotiations, including with the EU, even as he insisted that his letters threatening new levies are "the deals" for US partners.

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has lost control of the government only twice in the last 70 years, but a fringe party cobbled together on social media is tapping voter frustrations and anti-foreigner sentiment with a "Japanese First" election slogan. The LDP and its coalition partner Komeito risk losing their majority in Sunday's upper-house election, potentially weakening Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government further as trade negotiations with the US drag on.

Detained Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu is expected to return to public view tomorrow when he appears in court on charges of threatening the city's chief prosecutor. The man widely seen as the strongest threat to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faces up to seven years in prison and a ban from politics if convicted, ending any hope of him being the opposition candidate for the 2028 election.

Rachel Reeves will highlight plans to spur homeownership by easing access to UK mortgages in her flagship annual address to the City of London today, a key moment for Britain's finance minister as she seeks to bounce back from a rocky period that included a market-moving tearful appearance in Parliament. The chancellor of the exchequer has been under pressure since a U-turn over planned welfare reforms.

WATCH: James Woolcock previews the Reeves announcement on Bloomberg TV.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the acceleration of a "new model" for property development, advocating a measured approach to urban planning and upgrades while falling short of investor expectations for more aggressive policies.

An Israeli ultra-Orthodox party said it's walking out of Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition, threatening to leave the government with a razor-thin majority in parliament and making the prime minister vulnerable to no-confidence motions.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou will outline a plan today to sharply narrow the nation's budget deficit, setting the stage for a parliamentary battle that risks triggering another government collapse.

A majority of Brazilians see Trump's threat of a 50% tariff as unjustified meddling in their affairs and believe President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration is responding appropriately, according to a new poll.

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Chart of the Day

Trump's threat to impose financial penalties on the Kremlin has put the spotlight on the two biggest buyers of Russian crude oil — India and China — but markets remain skeptical of disruption, at least for now. India sourced more than a third of its purchases from the OPEC+ producer this year compared with less than 1% prior to the Ukraine war, according to data from Kpler. China's imports have also climbed over the same period.

And Finally

Jane Fonda, one of Hollywood's most outspoken actors and campaigners, has urged fresh action to tackle failures in politics and a lack of progress on reducing harmful emissions. "We're losing the democratic infrastructure and norms to deal with climate, and we're losing the climate stability that is essential for democracy," 87-year-old Fonda told the Bloomberg Green Seattle conference yesterday. Fonda has spent much of the past decade devoted to climate activism and has been arrested more than once.

Fonda speaks at Bloomberg Green Seattle. Photographer: Daniel Berman/Bloomberg

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