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For all the political theater at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump’s main foreign-policy message was that he’s a peacemaker. That’s of particular interest to Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin isn’t hiding its satisfaction at the prospect of Trump and his running-mate, JD Vance, winning November’s presidential election on a platform that includes a pledge to end the war in Ukraine quickly. Russia’s foreign minister this week said Vance’s stated opposition to further aid for Ukraine was “what we need.”

Ukraine fears Trump may force it to make territorial concessions to Putin or face Russia’s army without US backing. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy challenged Trump in a Bloomberg interview this month to explain how he’d end the war, and they may speak by phone today.

Russia’s military is largely bogged down in Ukraine after incurring huge losses. By digging in for another four months, Putin now knows American voters may help him deliver the victory he failed to achieve on the battlefield.

And there’s a potentially even greater prize on the horizon.

The Russian president has started arguing for a new security architecture embracing Europe and Asia to replace the “outdated” US-led world order, with a central role for Russia.

The Kremlin may hope the offer of a grand bargain to reshape global security will appeal to Trump, a famously transactional dealmaker.

Europeans are already fearful he’ll leave them exposed to Russia by pulling the US out of the NATO military alliance.

In his convention speech yesterday, Trump said the planet is “teetering on the edge of World War III.” He declared he’d “end every single international crisis that the current administration has created” including the war in Ukraine.

It was Putin who started the war in February 2022.

The question for the Russian leader is what a peacemaking Trump may now offer him to end it.

Global Must Reads

Trump used his 93-minute speech accepting the Republican nomination for president to fire off insults at his usual targets: immigrants, Democrats and the media. Basking in total control of the party, he vowed to reverse President Joe Biden’s policies to promote electric vehicles and criticized what he said was trillions of dollars of wasteful spending “having to do with the green new scam.” He also recounted to thousands of rapt supporters his narrow escape from a would-be assassin’s bullet.

The pressure on Biden to quit his reelection bid keeps building. While his surrogates insisted that he was “not wavering” on running, even some of his cabinet ministers discussed among themselves whether he should step aside due to his health and doubts over his ability to defeat Trump in November. The harshest blow was a report in the Washington Post that former President Barack Obama told allies the pathway to victory for Biden, who is isolating at home due to Covid-19, was greatly diminished.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves warned “difficult decisions” lie ahead as she tries to fix the UK’s public finances, raising the prospect of tax hikes or spending cuts in her maiden budget. Reeves, Britain’s first female finance minister, told Bloomberg in her first TV interview since the Labour Party’s landslide election victory that she would be honest about the scale of the challenges ahead.

A wave of arrests kicked off Tunisia’s election season with the targeting of rivals and critics of President Kais Saied, stirring fears of a barely contested presidential vote on Oct. 6 that would deal a hammer blow to what was once the Arab world’s most progressive democracy. In a matter of days, three prominent aspiring candidates have faced police action in a crackdown that’s also swept up members of the largest remaining opposition party.

French President Emmanuel Macron scored a political victory when lawmakers reelected a centrist candidate from his party to a second term leading the National Assembly. Yael Braun-Pivet of Macron’s pro-business Renaissance party won the vote for parliamentary president by 13 ballots, with the support of centrist and center-right lawmakers from outside his alliance.

Computer systems failed across the globe today, taking down services at airlines, banks and the London Stock Exchange after a widely used cybersecurity program crashed and Microsoft separately reported problems with its cloud services.

One man was killed in the heart of Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv today by an explosion from a suspected drone, with Yemen’s Houthi militants claiming responsibility.

Russian prosecutors have asked a court to hand down an 18-year sentence in a penal colony on espionage charges for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the Interfax news service reported.

Bangladesh was hit by a nationwide internet shutdown as students armed with sticks and stones clashed with police in protests against the government’s job quota policy that reports said have left at least 39 people dead.

Washington Dispatch

The moment that markets and economists as well as people seeking mortgages and lower credit-card charges have long anticipated may finally be at hand. The US Federal Reserve, after more than two years of a laser focus on inflation, may be prepared to cut interest rates in September.

The central bankers have expressed increasing confidence that price stability is within sight, while risks to the labor market have grown. They’ve laid the groundwork for the coming decision in speeches over recent weeks, and Chair Jerome Powell will likely offer more specifics after a policy meeting on July 30-31.

It’s not quite a sure thing. Fed officials still want to see monthly price numbers continuing to trend down toward their 2% annual inflation goal before they commit to lowering borrowing costs from a two-decade high. Yet Powell and his colleagues are also determined not to squander the chance of a so-called soft landing for the American economy, which is showing at least a few signs of losing momentum.

One person to watch today: Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, will speak at a conference.

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Chart of the Day

At the current pace, public fast-charging sites for electric vehicles will outnumber gas stations in the US in about eight years, and the momentum is expected to accelerate. North American operators will spend a collective $6.1 billion on the necessary infrastructure this year, nearly double their 2023 investment, according to BloombergNEF estimates. The annual outlay is expected to double again by 2030.

And Finally

While the vast majority of the world supports a two-state solution to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the Knesset rejected the establishment of an independent Palestinian state at a sitting yesterday in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit Washington next week where the Biden administration is expected to urge him to accept a nation for Palestinians as the way to bring Arab states into the rebuilding of Gaza and normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Pop quiz (no cheating!) Which former French president never kept his promise to swim in the Seine to show how clean it was? Send your answers to balancepower@bloomberg.net.

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