By Alexandra Sharp
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how U.S. President Donald Trump is balancing the Russia-Ukraine and Iran wars, the European Union’s long-awaited trade deal with the United States, and Japan raising its interest rate to a 31-year high.
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U.S. President Donald Trump attends a working lunch with leaders of the G-7 and the Middle East in Évian-les-Bains, France, on June 16.Evelyn Hockstein via Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took the G-7 leaders’ summit by storm on Tuesday, calling on all attendees to bolster their military and diplomatic support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. But while most Western powers reiterated their commitment to Kyiv, Washington sang a slightly different tune.
U.S. President Donald Trump signaled on Tuesday that the Russia-Ukraine war is not among his top priorities. “Look, we have nothing to do with it. It has no impact on us, other than we sell weapons” to Ukraine, Trump told reporters. He added, “We’re thousands of miles away.” Instead, the U.S. president stressed that his focus remains on Iran, though he argued that Tehran will be “in the rearview mirror” soon.
That is not to say that Trump has completely abandoned the issue. On Tuesday, he said that Russian President Vladimir Putin should engage in peace talks with Zelensky—a proposal that the Ukrainian leader outlined in a rare open letter to Moscow published earlier this month. Trump described his discussion with Zelensky on Tuesday as “very good” and said that they planned to meet again later in the day. And he foreshadowed that the United States will be able to reimpose sanctions on Russian oil “soon” now that the Strait of Hormuz is set to reopen on Friday; the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Moscow earlier this year to combat high energy prices caused by the Iran war.
Still, Trump’s lackluster attitude toward the Russia-Ukraine war highlights persistent divisions between the United States and its G-7 allies. Whereas the White House has framed U.S. involvement in peace efforts on more humanitarian grounds, citing the growing number of fatalities on both sides as its reason to intervene, European officials have argued that stopping Putin from winning the war is vital to prevent Russia from attacking NATO members.
Despite these differences, several leaders have sought to portray a united front at the summit. On Tuesday, Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron were overheard discussing how to handle Trump in an effort to keep the U.S. president engaged in the conference; Trump left last year’s G-7 summit early to deal with Israel-Iran tensions. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gifted Trump a soccer jersey on Tuesday as a belated birthday present, writing on X, “After all, we’re on the same team.”
Whether that proves true in practice, though, remains to be seen. Zelensky urged attendees on Tuesday to supply Ukraine with more air defense weapons that are capable of countering Russia’s ballistic missiles. “It is important that the United States is ready to provide backstop support in these areas of work,” Zelensky wrote on X.
His request came the same day that Ukrainian drones targeted an oil refinery in Moscow just 10 miles from the Kremlin. “This is a just response to Russian strikes and prolonging the war by the Kremlin,” Zelensky said, referring to Russian bombardments across Ukraine on Monday that killed at least 11 people, injured dozens more, and badly damaged the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, an Eastern Orthodox cathedral that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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U.S.-EU trade deal. The European Parliament approved legislation on Tuesday to implement the European Union’s trade deal with the United States. Passing the measure by 440-151 votes (with 50 abstentions), lawmakers agreed to remove tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and some agricultural products, likely averting a new round of trade conflict ahead of Trump’s threatened deadline of July 4.
The United States agreed last year to cap its tariffs on most EU goods at 15 percent in exchange for the removal of most EU levies on U.S. products. However, the European Parliament shelved the deal’s final approval twice: once after Trump threatened to take control of Greenland and again after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the White House’s sweeping tariffs. Frustrated by the delays, Trump threatened to impose a 25 percent duty on European cars as well as “much higher” tariffs if the trade deal wasn’t implemented by the United States’ 250th anniversary.
Tuesday’s vote was the last significant legislative hurdle to implementing the agreement, which will last through 2029 unless it is extended. “A deal is a deal – and the EU is delivering its part,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. The commission warned, though, that it will suspend tariff concessions if the United States continues to apply a duty of more than 15 percent on EU steel and aluminum beyond the end of 2026.
Inflation concerns. Japan’s central bank raised interest rates on Tuesday to the country’s highest level in 31 years. Shinichi Uchida, the Bank of Japan’s deputy governor, said that increasing the benchmark rate from 0.75 percent to 1 percent is a direct response to fears that energy costs will continue to rise despite the United States and Iran planning to formally sign a peace deal on Friday.
Under that memorandum of understanding, Tehran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and Washington will lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports. Doing this is expected to provide much-needed relief to global markets suffering from supply chain delays, high crude costs, and shipping uncertainty. Still, it is unclear just how quickly the world’s economy will be able to bounce back to prewar conditions, as experts predict that expensive gas, groceries, and flights will likely outlast the conflict.
Japan isn’t alone in these concerns. The European Central Bank also increased its interest rate on Thursday to 2.25 percent, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday that inflation had accelerated for a third straight month in May at its fastest pace since April 2023. “We don’t know what will happen next,” Uchida said on Tuesday.
“Glimmers of hope.” United Nations chief António Guterres traveled to Haiti on Tuesday to express solidarity with victims of rampant gang violence. According to U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq, Guterres will meet with acting Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and “assess the support given by the United Nations to Haiti in facing its multidimensional crisis, including the logistical and operational support to the Gang Suppression Force.”
Since the start of January, gang violence in Haiti has resulted in at least 2,300 deaths, 1,100 injuries, and 99 kidnappings. Fighting has internally displaced nearly 1.5 million people in recent years, and more than 5 million residents face high levels of acute food insecurity. In July 2023, Guterres traveled to Port-au-Prince to meet with affected civilians, and last year, the U.N. Security Council approved a new multinational “Gang Suppression Force” to tackle organized crime.
However, little progress has since been made to address political instability and security concerns in the Caribbean’s poorest country. “The humanitarian situation here is desperate, but there are faint glimmers of hope,” Guterres wrote on X on Tuesday, though he didn’t say what those glimmers were. He added that the international community must “stop looking away” from the crisis and instead “stand with Haiti.”
Residents in a northern Croatian town have welcomed their newest four-legged neighbor with open arms. A month-old pony named Mile recently moved into a fourth-floor apartment building in the coastal town of Rovinj to receive round-the-clock care following a life-threatening infection. Although Mile spends his days on a ranch, he returns to human living arrangements at night, sleeping on a couch or mattress in the one-room flat. At just 35 pounds, Mile is the size of many standard pets, but within a month, he will likely grow too big for the building and will have to stay at the farm full-time.
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