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• Trump’s about to be outplayed.
• Ford is throwing EV shade.
• AI gets a passing grade.
• Not as many people prayed.

In another universe, in another lifetime, perhaps President Donald Trump would be spending this Friday attending the opening night of the Alaska State Fair, where he’d participate in the Scarecrow Contest, watch the Goat Milking Demo and chow down on a turkey leg.

Instead, Trump is flying to Anchorage to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk about the war in Ukraine. I would say the itinerary is void of any fun — they are most certainly not there to ride bears — but that would imply that there is an itinerary.

As Marc Champion says, this trip hasn’t been planned out at all. “Hastily arranged encounters rarely result as hoped, and everything about the visit by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow that produced the Alaska invitation last week screams confusion.” If the US president wanted these talks to go down smoothly, Marc says his best course of action would be to postpone the summit until he’s more prepared to face his frenemy-turned-foe. Alas, such a U-turn would be unlikely given Trump’s resolve.

From Putin’s seat, he’s just happy to watch the chess pieces fall. “To him, this is a windfall he can use both to defuse Trump’s threat of sanctions and further his war effort,” Marc explains. “By insisting on a bilateral sit down with Trump, Putin can seek to propose terms this US administration might accept, but he knows Ukraine can’t. That would once again make Zelenskiy the person Trump blames for standing in the way of peace, taking the pressure off Putin.”

And the location couldn’t be more perfect: The Russian Empire literally owned Alaska not that long ago. Marc says that past sends “a strong signal of Putin’s rehabilitation, while also pointing to the Kremlin’s long historical reach as a great power.”

“If the summit also serves to delay US sanctions or produces a ‘peace’ plan that sows dissension between Ukraine and its allies, all the more so. But any genuine path to a lasting end to hostilities will need a lot more pressure, both financial and military, as well as preparation,” Marc writes. “There will be a time and place for a Trump-Putin summit. But it’s unlikely to be this week in Alaska.” Read the whole thing.

With each passing week, dissonance in America’s energy sector grows louder. Car companies in Detroit are ratcheting up EV production because, as much as it pains their gas-guzzling hearts, they know that electric is the future. And yet the oil industry is chugging and glugging away like never before:

Vice President JD Drill, Baby, Drill Vance will no doubt be pleased to hear that US oil production is going strong. In fact, Javier Blas says it’s holding up even better than his already upbeat prediction. “In May, I anticipated that output would peak at around 20.4 million barrels a day and then stay close to that zenith in an undulating plateau,” he writes. But US petroleum topped that, hitting an all-time high of 20.96 million barrels. That strength, he says, is “crucial for the crude market as two out of every 10 barrels worldwide are pumped by the US. For the OPEC+ cartel, more resilient American oil production will lower prices for the rest of this year and into 2026.”

At the same time, Liam Denning writes that “we are in year one of a Trump administration that is determined to crush what he has called the EV ‘hoax.’” Elected Republicans are slimming down rebates and loosening tailpipe emissions standards and penalties — actions that Liam argues amount to total sabotage: “To witness a US administration seeking to undermine a technology in which our own auto sector is investing to secure its future is quite remarkable, and appalling.”

Never mind all that, though: Ford just announced plans to release an all-electric mid-sized pickup truck in 2027 that costs $30,000, a figure Liam says “is not only about $10,000 cheaper than comparable, gasoline-run models sold today, but it is the same amount of money Ford lost on each of the existing EVs it sold over the past 12 months.” The moonshot will require cheaper, smaller batteries and an entire rethink on how the vehicle is built. If you think that sounds like something Elon Musk would try — and fail — to do, you’re not alone. Liam says the spirit of Tesla “haunted the event.” It’s safe to say that Big Oil is winning — for now.

Here’s a rare spot of praise from the Bloomberg Editorial Board: The White House’s AI Action Plan is surprisingly … good! It encourages innovation by removing red tape. It prioritizes R&D spending. And it even addresses the elephant in the room — where the heck is all this energy going to come from? — with plans to streamline AI infrastructure and update the electrical grid. 

Yet the editors say the plan still has a critical flaw: “Nowhere in its roughly two dozen pages does the word ‘immigration’ appear,” the editors write, despite data showing that 60% of America’s top AI companies are founded by immigrants. Many of the innovators you know by name today — Jensen Huang, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk — were born overseas. But in an era of mass deportations, there’s zero impetus for high-skilled immigrants to share their talents with the US. “Ignoring such a fundamental issue — one that 93% of tech executives consider essential — is a glaring lapse in an otherwise solid agenda,” they write.

China, meanwhile, is happy to pick up the slack. Hal Brands says Beijing’s 13-point AI plan “focuses more on AI diplomacy —  on shaping the global environment in which that technology will be developed and employed.” Eventually, he says “China could win the competition for global market share — and the competition to use AI most effectively — even if its models never command the bleeding edge.”

This might be a first for Britain: Rosa Prince says both the nation’s premier — Keir Starmer — and the official leader of the opposition party — Kemi Badenoch — have a shared attitude toward God. That is, they don’t believe in him (or her!!) at all. Rosa says their lack of faith in a higher power “mirrors the general direction of the wider British public on matters of faith — according to the Pew Research Group, 40% are not religious, up 11 points in a decade.” Does the shift matter for British politics? As long as the country’s leaders continue to “believe in the basic tenants of humanism: reason, the promotion of happiness, empathy and a concern for others,” Rosa is happy to have them at the helm.

A strange mystery is keeping Shuli Ren up at night: Why, oh, why are interest rates in Hong Kong so low at a time when the housing market is so awful? “Because of its peg to the US dollar, the city’s borrowing costs should move in lockstep with those in the US,” and yet it isn’t, she writes: “The gap between the one-month Hong Kong interbank offered rate, or Hibor, and the US secured overnight financing rate, or SOFR, has been widening to unprecedented levels since May.” At the same time, the once-ironclad link between the housing and stock markets is breaking down: “It’s now cheaper to own than to rent, thanks to a much lower Hibor,” she writes. A gravity-defying puzzle, indeed!

Inflation is coming from more than just tariffs — airline fares and event admissions add to the Fed’s dilemma. — Jonathan Levin

President Trump promised to fix “Bidenflation.” But people say prices are still too high. — David M. Drucker

US economic data is far from perfect, but the global economy would be flying blind without it. — Daniel Moss

National capitalism is here, and yet US stocks are staying calm. — John Authers

A recent success in rare earths shows shows how America can reclaim its supplies — but only with government support. — Thomas Black

The S&P 500 cannot be stopped.

The monthly jobs report, on the other hand...

 Shohei Ohtani got accused of real estate sabotage.

A zoo where pets are fed to predators. (h/t Andrea Felsted)

Carnivore babies are concerning. (h/t Robert Burgess)

Did these showgirls inspire Taylor Swift?I mean, probably.

Notes: Please send your most unhinged TS12 theories and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net.

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