Crypto News: Netanyahu seeks out Trump

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Kamala Harris gets a taste this week of the challenges she'll face if she becomes the next US president, in the form of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He's the first foreign leader Harris will meet as the Democratic nominee for November's election. While she'll likely be in listening mode at their Washington talks tomorrow, he'll be taking her measure before sitting down with her Republican opponent Donald Trump in Florida on Friday.

Vice President Harris is something of a mystery — and a concern — for Israelis who rely intensely on US support. She's been at President Joe Biden's side as he supported and then tried to curb Israel over the war with Hamas in Gaza.

WATCH: Netanyahu spoke while in Washington on his first foreign trip since the conflict with Hamas began.

Unlike Biden, she doesn't go back decades with Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving premier. The two men will meet tomorrow, too, and they've always gotten along personally even as they've differed on policy, especially around the Palestinians.

Harris has also been more out front than others in the administration calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, focusing attention on human suffering rather than geopolitics. Her husband Douglas Emhoff, who'd be the first Jewish spouse of a US president, has spoken out against anti-semitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war.

Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress today, where he'll make a staunch defense of Israel's actions in Gaza and cast it as part of the West's fight to contain Iran.

With polling showing her neck-and-neck against Trump, Harris opted to attend a campaign event rather than preside over Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

Trump's likely to be more supportive of a hawkish Israel when he hosts Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Israel's national security minister told Bloomberg he wants Trump back in the White House. But even the former leader is keen for the war to end quickly.

Netanyahu insists that'll only happen once Hamas is defeated. Not only doesn't it seem imminent but the conflict is dragging on longer than Israelis expected. — Ethan Bronner

Demonstrators in Washington yesterday. Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

Trump's inner circle is pushing the idea that the former president, if re-elected, should demand NATO allies spend 3% of gross domestic product on defense, more than the 2% goal that some members are still struggling to achieve. It fits into his transactional approach to diplomacy, to float threats as a negotiating tactic to cajole allies to shift their positions. This offers a flavor of what Trump 2.0 could mean.

Trump during a NATO meeting in 2019. Photographer: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Poland has a growing migration crisis on its eastern front and is taking action by choking off a key Chinese freight train route to Europe. The line goes through neighboring Belarus, an ally of Vladimir Putin that emerged as the sole railway link for Chinese goods heading to the European Union after Russia's invasion of Ukraine shuttered trade connections. The migrants are coming predominantly from Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Elon Musk is wading more and more into politics, endorsing Trump and amplifying criticism of Democrats, although how much the world's richest man has actually given the Republican nominee remains unclear. Musk denied reports that he pledged $45 million a month to a super political action committee supporting Trump's campaign. In tweets on his X social media platform, the Tesla boss said the donations are at a "much lower level."

China's promise to gradually raise the retirement age has created unease among its working population amid growing anxiety about the job market. This raises the question of whether the Communist Party will recalibrate its approach to an unpopular policy and buy itself more time to figure out how to boost birth rates with a population that shrank by more than 2 million last year.

Nicolas Maduro's biggest accomplishment might just be crushing hyperinflation, the bane of many a Latin American economy over the decades. The Venezuelan president is seeking a third term and resisted the spending and printing more money that are typical during an election year. But for many Venezuelans driven into poverty, it's too little and too late.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will join finance ministers from Group of 20 nations in Rio de Janeiro where the talk of the town is US politics rather than a global tax deal.

The UK's new Labour government is meeting with environmental groups to try and unlock house-building projects that can't get off the ground due to anti-pollution rules.

Thailand is in an economic slump and its government is betting a $14 billion cash handout will help.

Biden will make an address from the Oval Office today to discuss the decision to end his reelection campaign. In a post on X, he said the speech would cover "what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people."

The president hasn't spoken about his momentous decision publicly. He returned to the White House yesterday from Delaware, where he had been recovering from the coronavirus.

Biden endorsed his vice president shortly after saying that he wouldn't run. Since then, Harris has secured the backing of nearly every major Democrat and raised more than $100 million. She hit the campaign trail after a majority of delegates pledged to support her at the party's convention in August.

Another person to watch today: Trump holds a rally in North Carolina, his first since Biden dropped out.

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Trump may already be influencing the economic agenda in China, according to Goldman Sachs. Officials in Beijing are likely holding fiscal largesse in reserve until they really need it to withstand blowback from a potential Trump presidency on the world's second-largest economy, Andrew Tilton, Goldman's chief economist for Asia Pacific, said in an interview yesterday.

Musk's Tesla may be eclipsed by BYD in annual electric-vehicle sales this year as demand surges in China and stalls in the US and Europe, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report. That's a shift from January, when BI said it expected Tesla to retain its EV sales crown through the end of the decade. Still, BYD's reign may be short-lived as punitive US and EU tariffs limit the Chinese automaker's growth opportunities to Asia and emerging markets.

A Tesla Cybertruck at the company's store in Vallejo, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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