The ground is shaking under U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s feet after two top cabinet officials resigned over her blueprint for Brexit.
The big picture: Two years after May moved into Downing Street in the wake of the Brexit referendum, and nine months before the U.K. is set to leave the EU, the truce she worked tirelessly to maintain within the Conservative Party has officially broken down, and the path to Brexit remains far from clear.
When President Trump meets President Putin next week in Helsinki, talk may turn to their shared belief in state sovereignty and hard borders. Putin’s approach to sovereignty is, of course, hypocritical — used selectively to justify aggression abroad while providing an excuse for oppression at home.
What's next: Trump should take Putin’s high talk of sovereignty and borders at face value and use it to his advantage. After all, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued occupation of Crimea and the Donbas remains the greatest infringement of a sovereign state’s rights since the Cold War. If ensuring a state’s ability to protect its borders is a leader’s highest calling, as both presidents claim to believe, it would seem Ukraine should enjoy those rights too.
British Prime Minister Theresa May won a snap general election last year while promising a "strong and stable" U.K. throughout the Brexit process, but the twin departures of Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson underline just how unstable things have become within her own government.
The big question: This is the biggest test May's premiership has faced. She's survived more than a few Brexit scrapes thus far — is this the one that brings her down?
Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary, resigned from Prime Minister Theresa May's Cabinet on Monday — just hours after Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned over May's proposed plan for a "soft" Brexit, per the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg.
Why it matters: This is now a full-fledged crisis for May's premiership — Johnson has long been eyeing her position, having been an early frontrunner for prime minister just after the Brexit vote in 2016 — and it comes just before her plan to push a version of Brexit that would maintain a close economic relationship with the European Union.
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi saw its shares close down 1.2% on its first day of trading in Hong Kong, following what was already a disappointing IPO.
Why it matters: Xiaomi was seen as a bellwether for other Chinese tech offerings that are expected in the second half, such as China Tower and Meituan Dianping, with original plans to be valued at around $100 billion.
David Davis, the United Kingdom's Brexit Secretary, resigned from Prime Minister Theresa May's Cabinet late Sunday night after weeks of speculation, intensifying the chaotic struggle to define what Brexit will look like and putting May's position at risk.
The big picture: Davis, an advocate for a "hard," lasting Brexit, made his move one day after May's Cabinet agreed to a "collective" plan for the U.K.'s ongoing negotiations with the European Union. Per the BBC, that plan was viewed by many as a "soft" version of Brexit, choosing to maintain a close economic relationship with the EU that created a "common rule book" between the two entities.
I fly to Europe this week to cover President Trump as he meets with NATO allies in Brussels, Theresa May in London, then Helsinki for his first one-on-one summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
What we're hearing: Senior European officials have told Axios they are worried that Trump will spend the entire NATO summit beating up on America's closest allies — especially Germany — for not spending enough on their defense. They're worried he'll make these deficiencies the focus of the summit rather than solidarity in face of the Russian threat. And that he'll have a friendlier summit with Putin just a few days after a tense NATO gathering.
A British woman who was exposed to the Russian-produced nerve agent Novichok — the same used on a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in the U.K earlier this year — died in hospital on Sunday evening, prompting police to launch a murder inquiry, per The Guardian.
The details: The woman, Dawn Sturgess, 44, fell critically ill last month following exposure to the nerve agent. A 45-year-old man, who was also admitted, reportedly remains in critical condition. It’s unclear whether this is related to the poisoning of Skripal, which was blamed on the Russian government, but both incidents occurred just miles apart near Salisbury, England.
Israel has presented the Trump administration with its "red lines" for the nuclear deal the United States is currently negotiating with Saudi Arabia to build reactors in the kingdom.
The big picture: A senior Israeli official told me the Israeli government realized it will not be able to stop the deal — set to be worth billions of dollars for the U.S. — and decided instead to attempt to reach an understanding with the Trump administration regarding the parameters of the deal.
Sen. Lindsey Graham said on "Fox News Sunday" that he sees "China's hands all over" North Korea's latest statement calling the U.S. push for complete denuclearization "regrettable." He added, “If I were President Trump, I would not let China use North Korea to back me off of the trade dispute. We've got more bullets than they do when it comes to trade.”
The big picture: Kim Jong-un has kept China updated on developments in his talks with the United States, visiting Beijing three times in the past few months to meet President Xi Jinping. And China's influence with North Korea is crucial leverage against Washington amid an escalating trade war.
The United States shocked world health officials by staunchly opposing a U.N. resolution that says mothers' milk is healthiest for babies and countries should work to curb misleading marketing from companies producing baby formula, reports the New York Times.
The details: The resolution, which is based on extensive research about the health benefits of breast milk for babies, was expected to pass easily. "Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations," the Times' Andrew Jacobs writes.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told Dana Perino on Fox News Sunday that she thinks "Russia is trying to flip Turkey," adding, "They're trying to flip many of our allies. They want to destabilize the strongest defense alliance in the history of the world."
The backdrop: U.S. allies are concerned that President Trump — who has been critical of NATO — will slam NATO members at the group's July 11-12 summit in Brussels, then lavish praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Helsinki just days later.
" [President] Trump’s lack of preparation has added a further level of unpredictability to his interactions with foreign leaders," per the WashPost.
Why it matters: "The president rarely reads his nightly briefing book, which focuses on issues likely to come up in meetings ... To slim down Trump’s workload, aides have sometimes put the most critical information in a red folder."
President Trump prides himself on negotiating savvy. But North Korea is trying to outfox him with a return to harsh public rhetoric immediately after the first overnight visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who came with press in tow.
The big picture: But then Pyongyang issued a statement accusing Pompeo of trying to jam them with denuclearization demands: "The U.S. is fatally mistaken if it went to the extent of regarding that [North Korea] would be compelled to accept, out of its patience, demands reflecting its gangster-like mindset."
