Europe
The European Union avoided a full-on confrontation with the United States on July 27 by signing a new trade deal with President Donald Trump at his golf course in Scotland. Under Trump’s terms, EU businesses must invest $600 billion in the U.S. by 2028, the bloc must spend $750 billion on U.S. energy over three years, and EU goods sold in the U.S. will incur a 15 percent tariff, making them less competitive. The only major “win” for Europe is that the tariff was not Trump’s threatened 30 percent.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou called it a “dark day” for Europe. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the EU had been “eaten for breakfast.” The Financial Times reported one ambassador as saying, “There is no hiding the fact that the EU was rolled over by the Trump juggernaut. Trump worked out exactly where our pain threshold is.”
“The trade deal is a humiliation for the EU, but it reflects the imbalance of power,” Clemens Fuest, president of German think tank the Ifo Institute, posted on X. “The Europeans need to wake up, focus more on economic strength, and reduce their military and technological dependence on the U.S. Then they can renegotiate.”
Watch for the Europeans to do just that. They lost this trade battle, but the war is not over. Read “Europe Lost This Trade War—It Won’t Lose the Next.”
This year, for the first time since World War II, Europe will outspend the U.S. in procuring military equipment, according to Aviation Week Network. In May, Europe’s 19 top defense spenders, including Turkey and Ukraine, were projected to spend $180.1 billion this year on military procurement, compared to $175.6 billion for the U.S. Possible German purchases include up to 2,500 armored fighting vehicles and 1,000 tanks, according to sources cited by Bloomberg on July 4.
On July 23, Germany’s federal cabinet approved a draft law aimed at accelerating the country’s armament efforts. The proposed legislation would bypass lengthy bidding processes for military contracts. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius hailed it as a “groundbreaking law” and a “quantum leap” for Germany military capabilities. Read “Germany Is Preparing for World War III” on page 2 of this Trumpet issue.
On June 15, Germany held its first-ever Veterans’ Day, honoring active and former soldiers who have served in the Bundeswehr since its founding in 1955. At a ceremony in Hamburg, Pistorius said of members of the Bundeswehr, “Their place is at the center of society.” He added that, to ensure peace, security and stability, “We need operational armed forces.”
The navy is also getting more active. Pistorius announced on June 30 that Germany is planning a deployment to the Arctic. The plan is to send a warship from Iceland to Greenland and then Canada next year as part of Operation Atlantic Bear. This will be the first time a German warship has visited Greenland since World War II and the first time a German warship has participated in Canada’s “Nanook” training exercises. It comes after President Trump emphasized the strategic importance of Greenland, even calling for it to become part of the U.S. Germany is clearly opposed, another sign that the NATO alliance is dying.
Germany’s federal intelligence service is getting a big overhaul. In 2019, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) opened a new headquarters in Berlin, an imposing $1.3 billion building with a footprint roughly the size of 36 soccer fields. Now the BND is getting a new president, German ambassador to Ukraine Martin Jäger, as well as significantly more money and more flexibility in espionage abroad and technical reconnaissance, Spiegel reported on June 11.
“Historians conducting an internal study of ties between employees of the German foreign intelligence agency and the Third Reich have made a shocking discovery,” Spiegel Online wrote in 2011. “In 2007, the bnd destroyed personnel files of employees who had once been members of the SS and the Gestapo.” The article noted: “It has long been known that around 10 percent of the employees at the bnd and its predecessor organization once served under SS chief Heinrich Himmler in Nazi Germany.” This is evidence that the Nazi spirit is rising from the underground. Read Mr. Flurry’s article “Rising From the Underground.”
Asia
A deep alignment between Russia, China and India is taking shape, the National Security Journal wrote on July 18. The partnership of Russia and China has been evident for years. But India’s interest in joining them was long in doubt due to its desire to balance between the United States and Russia, and its long-standing rivalry with China. In recent years, though, India has increasingly supported Russia, even amid its war on Ukraine. The nation has provided diplomatic support to Moscow, made steady energy purchases that bankroll the conflict, and has even sent soldiers to train with Russian forces.
Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping in October and agreed to give China de facto control over disputed areas along their border. That landmark meeting was followed up in July by a group of Indian officials traveling to Beijing, the first such visit in five years. Led by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, the Indians pledged to further improve India-China trade ties, reset diplomatic relations, and further deescalate border tensions.
Some analysts have been surprised to see India throwing its weight behind Russia and China. But because of Bible prophecy, the Trumpet has long said these nations would unite and that it would mean global war is near. As Gerald Flurry wrote in “Asia Still Stands With Putin” in our May-June 2022 issue, “When nuclear-armed powers show such solidarity in wartime, what does this mean for the world? I tell you, it is woe to the world!” Find out more in your free copy of Russia and China in Prophecy.
Middle East
Russia announced on July 3 that it had accepted the credentials of Gul Hassan Hassan as ambassador for Afghanistan, which makes it the first country to officially recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers. Russia was the first country to sign an economic agreement with the Taliban in 2022, and it removed the group from its list of terrorist organizations earlier this year. China, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates have ambassadors in Kabul but have not yet officially recognized the regime.
“Who are the main victors of America’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal?” the Trumpet wrote during the 2021 evacuation of U.S. forces. “At first glance, it may look like the Taliban came out on top. … But in the broader geopolitical picture, the even bigger winners are China and Russia.”
On July 17, Israel Defense Forces struck the Holy Family Church, the only Roman Catholic church in the Gaza Strip. Three people were killed and nine were injured. Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who has jurisdiction over Gaza’s Catholics, told Vatican News: “What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the church directly.” The Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem said it “strongly condemns this tragedy and this targeting of innocent civilians and of a sacred place.”
Several days before the church strike, Israeli settlers had been accused of setting fire to a long-ago ruined church in the Palestinian community of Taybeh. Pizzaballa drew attention to the incident on July 14, making a highly publicized visit to Taybeh, condemning the alleged perpetrators, and accusing Israeli authorities of being complicit. The Catholic magazine Pillar, citing “sources close to the patriarchate,” claimed that “internally, church authorities were considering the possibility that the tank attack was a direct response” to the Taybeh visit.
That visit and the patriarchate’s response to the tank strike reveals the Vatican’s true views of the IDF, the State of Israel and the Jews. The Bible forecasts that the Vatican will ultimately seek to seize direct control of Israel’s land. Daniel 11:45 states, “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain ….” Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about this verse in 1951 that “the capital of this revived Roman Empire, along with the Vatican, will make a lightning move to Palestine—probably Jerusalem!” Read Jerusalem in Prophecy and keep watching for the Vatican to get more heavily involved in the Middle East.
Anglo-America
The United States is becoming more divided. A Gallup poll of 1,000 respondents published on June 30 found that only 58 percent of American adults say they are “extremely” or “very” proud to be American. This statistic is 9 percent lower than last year and 5 points lower than the previous all-time low. National pride among Republican voters rose after Donald Trump’s historic victory in the 2024 presidential elections, but this was more than offset by low results among Democrats and independents. Another poll of 2,000 respondents published by John Hopkins University last year found that nearly half of Americans think that people from the opposing political party are evil. To understand the source and the gravity of the division in the United States, read Gerald Flurry’s book America Under Attack.
Democrats highlighted the widening divide in America by electing a Muslim socialist as their nominee for mayor of New York City. Zohran Mamdani declared victory over Andrew Cuomo on June 24 in his party’s primary. Mamdani has promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next time he visits the city. He wants to socialize city buses, child care, grocery stores and apartments. In November, he could become the first Muslim and the second open socialist (after David Dinkins, 1990–1993) to lead America’s largest city. This ongoing radicalization is leading to disaster. Ezekiel 7:15 prophesies, “The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.”
On July 7, the Internal Revenue Service settled a lawsuit with a group of Texas churches. A 1954 law prohibits churches and other tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. The churches argued that endorsements made during services or customary church communications are akin to private discussions and not subject to this law: President Trump’s IRS agrees. This is part of a fulfillment of Amos 7:13, which prophesied that a kingly political leader of end-time Israel would be supported by a religious movement called “the king’s chapel.”
The Bible also makes clear that American Christianity has its own sins to repent of. On July 21, the Institute on Religion and Democracy published an exposé showing that Christian universities are compromising their commitment to biblical teaching on sexuality in return for grant money. Baylor University recently rejected a $643,401 grant to study “the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women” in the church, yet many other Christian universities have embraced perverted sexual ideologies in return for either accreditation or federal grant money. American Christianity is becoming less biblical and more radically leftist.