How the White House Overturned a World Cup Red Card

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0:33European leaders debate a divorce or carrying on a loveless marriage with the United States. Plus, how strong battery performance could change American views on electric vehicles. After five years on the road, the average EV will still be able to drive up to 95 % of its original range. And the World Cup gets political as President Trump intervenes. It's Monday, July 6th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

1:10Drama, intrigue and controversy. The World Cup served up all the storylines over the weekend. England beat co-host Mexico to finally win in Mexico City. Five-time champion Brazil went out, while France overcame the tactics of Paraguay that for many showed the dark side of the beautiful game. But despite all that, it's President Trump who's dominating the headlines. That's after FIFA decided to overturn a red card given to top-scoring American player Fuller and Balogun handed out in the last match. That decision came after a phone call from Trump to FIFA's president. Balogun should be in the lineup tonight when the U.S.

1:46men's team faces Belgium and Seattle for a chance to reach the quarterfinals. We all, you know, agree that was an unfair red card. Speaking ahead of the match, courtesy of FIFA, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino refused to say whether it was appropriate for President Trump to get involved. It's not surprised me. I came from a culture, Argentina or Europe, that football, soccer is more than a religion, you know. People familiar with the matter said FIFA President Gianni Infantino agreed to look into it after Trump called, but didn't commit to overturning the red card. Yesterday, it was rescinded under a provision that allows FIFA's disciplinary committee to exercise its discretion when reviewing sanctions.

2:32From the Belgian perspective, their coach compared yesterday to April Fool's Day and nodded to the fact it appears to be the first time since 1962 that a red card handed out during a World Cup match didn't result in a player being suspended.

2:48In market news, stock futures are pointing to a positive start to the week in the U.S., with contracts tied to the Nasdaq 100 up more than 1%. While investors seem to have rekindled their enthusiasm for tech stocks, this week will bring a number of tests, including a Nasdaq listing for South Korean chip star SK Hynix and earnings from its peer Samsung. Plus, Elon Musk's SpaceX joins the Nasdaq 100 tomorrow. Minutes from the first Fed interest rate meeting will also be scrutinized for clues about how hawkish the central bank might be under new chair Kevin Warsh. Meanwhile, oil prices continue to retreat.

3:23That's after OPEC and its allies agreed to boost output, raising the prospects of an oil glut as shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz gradually resumes. Here's energy markets reporter Rebecca Fung. Right now we have a very sudden and probably temporary glut that there are too much oil at the sea. But in the long run, analysts were telling us that it would take 15 to 18 months to refill the world's inventories, which are right now at historical level of lows. But also it's just a way for OPEC countries to get more income, frankly, because during the past four months or so, Hormuz is just effectively closed.

4:04So now that we're seeing traffic normalizing to about 30 to 60 ships a day, we're seeing increasing amount of oil getting out. The latest data from the ship tracker company Vertexa shows that in June, there are about 4.7 million barrels a day coming out compared with 2 million barrels a day in May. So there is a recovery, but we're still not back to pre-war levels, and the world's oil inventories are still filling up and it will take time. OPEC Plus said late on Sunday that they will raise production to about 188 ,000 barrels a day as of next month. UK budget airline EasyJet has finally agreed to a takeover bid from U.S.

4:42investment firm Castle Lake in a deal that could exceed$7 billion. It was the fifth proposal from the Minneapolis-based firm following weeks of courtship and represents a 24 % premium to EasyJet's closing price on Friday. Its shares are rallying this morning, adding to a 40 % surge since Castle Lake made its interest public, helping the airline recover losses triggered by the war in the Middle East. And U.S. electric vehicle sales are down 25 % so far this year following the end of federal subsidies. But industry analysts don't expect the slowdown to last. Autos reporter Stephen Wilmot says that consumers have yet to develop trust in EV batteries, but that newfound knowledge of battery durability could be a game-changer.

5:24We're used to the experience that our phones lose a lot of their battery life after a fairly short period of time. And I think people just then assume the same will happen with EVs. And it's a reasonable expectation. And in fact, the early EVs, like the Nissan Leaf, which came out more than 15 years ago, they did have quite poor battery longevity. But it's turning out that the latest EVs, with their kind of more automotive-grade batteries, last as long as a combustion engine car, basically. According to a test that's been done by a company called Recurrent, that after five years on the road, the average EV will still be able to drive up to 95 % of its original range.

6:00Globally, EVs already make up 15 % of new car sales and are expected to form nearly a quarter of the global market by 2030. Coming up, can NATO leaders put on a brave face and pretend there isn't growing distrust within the alliance? We look ahead to tomorrow's summit just after the break.

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6:54President Trump will come face to face with a host of European and Western leaders this week at a NATO summit in Turkey in what will be a critical test for the alliance. But it will also mark an important moment in determining the broader relationship between the U.S. and many of its traditional allies who've been alienated by Trump's policies. The journalists Joe Parkinson, Drew Hinshaw and Dan Michaels write that Trump's threats on tariffs, drawing down military support and seizing Greenland from Denmark have pushed European leaders to discuss the idea of a breakup, as they feel they've reached the limits of so-called flattery diplomacy.

7:29Senior reporter Drew Hinshaw joins me with more. Drew, you write that there have been these behind-the-scenes crisis meetings between European leaders about how to manage the relationship with the U.S. and what the future might look like if there is a fracture or how to salvage it. What have those talks look like? They're quite candid in your reporting. That's right. You have these meetings where European prime ministers, presidents are told to come alone, no aides, don't even bring a phone. They meet behind closed doors. The idea is they should have a moment to speak candidly. And in those discussions, some of them have been so almost like vent sessions about the US that leaders have joked about calling it therapy night.

8:09You've seen them say that this strategy of placating Trump with flattery and concessions on issues like defense and trade, it's not working, that normalcy, in their view, isn't coming back. What is interesting to us is that several leaders have seen an example that they can turn to, which is Mark Carney of Canada, who is trying to build up sort of a dense web of defense and security connections with other countries around the world to avoid being overly reliant on America. And it's an example that European leaders in these kind of very sensitive closed door sessions have turned to and cited as a direction of travel that they can follow.

8:43And so what if leaders floated on how to save this relationship or how to decouple from the U.S.? What would that look like? Well, nobody wants to leave NATO or break it up. It's a marriage that neither side can afford to get a divorce. What you've seen European governments do is press the gas pedal on something like an experiment in de-Americanization. Governments from France to the Netherlands have quietly removed American technology from their system. They're adopting their own software and asking civil servants to not use Microsoft Teams or Office. The European Union is launching hundreds of satellites into space so that its officials can discreetly discuss issues over satellite connections without using Elon Musk's Starlink network.

9:22You're seeing European defense companies pitch themselves as a sovereign alternative to platforms like the F-35, which some governments have tried to back out of because they feel that the U.S. could, in a conflict, potentially de-arm or disactivate American weaponry. And just on that, obviously, there will be a lot under discussion at the summit this week in Turkey. The journal spoke to NATO Chief Mark Rutte last week, and he said European leaders in Canada have done a lot to meet President Trump's demands, including on military spending, but that one of their issues is on military production.

9:55And that is where the U.S. may be key. So there are some important talks to come. That's right. And one of the issues, one of the frictions here is that the war on Iran burned through a lot of the U.S.'s supply of long-range and air defense missiles that allies were counting on. And you've seen several governments move to domestically produce more of their own and not be reliant on the U.S. for those systems, which on the one hand is a boon for the U.S. It's good. We don't want allies to be over-reliant. On the other hand, it is like a net negative, perhaps, for American defense contractors for whom Europe has always been this fantastic market.

10:30Okay. So it seems there are many ways in which European leaders are looking to decouple from the U.S. That doesn't exactly set the scene for unity at this NATO summit. What are you expecting? This week's NATO summit is going to test how much leaders are able to put on a brave face and pretend that there is not growing mutual distrust within the ranks of the world's most powerful military alliance. Militarily, it is hard to imagine any of these allies going their separate ways. Nobody wants to leave. But I think U.S. threats to annex Canada, take Greenland. They forced European leaders to reassess the U.S.

11:01as potentially not just unreliable, but possibly a threat. That's Journal's senior reporter, Drew Hinshaw. Drew, thank you for this. A pleasure. Thank you. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sondra Kilhoff. And I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.

11:48Thank you.