Reuters World News - Canada U-turn, vote-a-rama, ICE raids and birthright

Starting point is 00:00:01 Today, vote-a-rama begins on Trump's big, beautiful bill. Ice raids strip migrant-dependent farms of workers. And the birthright citizenship ruling sparks a new round of court action. It's Monday, June 30th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. Canada has scrapped its planned. digital services tax targeting US technology firms, just hours before it was set to take effect.

Starting point is 00:00:55 The move aims to revive stalled trade negotiations with the US. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Donald Trump will now resume talks with a goal to reach a deal by July 21st, that's according to Canada's Finance Ministry. Trump had abruptly called off trade talks over the tax, saying that it was a blatant attack. The Senate debate over President Donald Trump's massive spending and tax cut bill moves forward, setting it up to potentially pass into law. After a marathon overnight session, Republicans passed a procedural vote of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Next up, a vote on a potentially long list of amendments known as Voterrama.

Starting point is 00:01:43 Supporters of the bill say it will help younger Americans by boosting economic growth and entrepreneurship. But nonpartisan analysts say it will effectively transfer wealth to older generations. Reporter Andy Sullivan is in Washington. This bill does a lot of things. It cuts taxes. It trims safety net programs like Medicaid. And the net effect analysts have found is that this tends to benefit wealthier people and hurt poor people. Everybody gets a tax cut, but that doesn't matter so much if you're not earning enough money to pay federal taxes to begin with. Now, how this transfers into the age dimension is that younger people tend to earn less than older people, so they would benefit less from these tax cuts. And at the same time, they're more exposed to these benefit cuts as well as things like the changes to the student aid programs.

Starting point is 00:02:34 Those are being trimmed back as well. The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting the bill could add $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over a decade, debt which is already at $36. trillion. What does that mean for younger people? Say you're 30 years from now, you're 35 years old, you're looking to buy your first house, you're looking to get a mortgage. Because of this debt in this bill, the mortgage interest you pay would be about 1.5 points higher than somebody who's getting a mortgage for the first time. The government will have less room to spend money on things at once, just because this debt load will be higher. That also would lead to a drag on the economy, creating slower wage growth, fewer job opportunities, etc.

Starting point is 00:03:20 How to deal with debt is top of the agenda at an international financing conference kicking off in Spain today. But the U.S. is a no-show. Kamal Krimmins is here to explain. So this conference happens every 10 years and it's meant to shape how countries deal with things like aid and debt relief for poorer nations. The United States isn't coming this time. The Trump administration is unhappy with suggested reforms. on taxation and debt relief, and it wanted mentions of climate, sustainability and gender equality removed from the Conference communique. The absence of the US could hobble the event's impact, but Spain's economy minister, Carlos Cuerpo, told the Reuters Econ World podcast, he was hopeful

Starting point is 00:04:11 about what coalitions of the willing could do on debt relief. You can hear that interview on the latest episode of that pod. We'll put a link in the description to today's show. One of the two Republicans who voted against Trump's big beautiful bill, Tom Tillis, says he will not seek re-election. That's after Donald Trump, clearly unhappy with the dissent, said he'd consider supporting challenges to Tillis. Tillis, however, did not mention Trump in his statement. Two firefighters have been shot dead while they were responding to a fire in northern Idaho. The suspect was found dead sometime later. Sheriff Bob Norris says authorities believe the suspects started the fire to ambush the responders.

Starting point is 00:05:01 A shelter-in-place warning has now been lifted. The jury and the trial of a woman accused of murdering three of her relatives by poisoning them with a beef Wellington laced with deadly mushrooms has retired to consider its verdict. Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her in-laws and another in 2023. You can hear the whole story in. in our weekend special episode. We'll put a link to that in today's podcast description. As Donald Trump's Immigration Roundup continues,

Starting point is 00:05:42 some farms in the vast Ventura County north of L.A. are struggling. ICE officers have detained people in the fields, and that's impacting an industry reliant on foreign-born workers. Our reporter Tim Reed visited some of the farms. So I went to a region in Ventura County near a city called Oxford. which is a huge aquacultural area in California that produces billions of dollars of fruit and vegetables every year. And it's worth noting that a third of U.S. vegetables and over three quarters of America's

Starting point is 00:06:20 fruits and nuts are all grown in California. So I went around some farms with a sixth-generation farmer from that region who told me that looking at the number of laborers in those fields, she estimated that there were roughly 70% fewer workers in those fields and there normally would be at a peak harvest time. And this, as we were touring these farms, came roughly about a week or so after some ice officials raided fields in the area and were chasing workers in the area.

Starting point is 00:06:56 What did people tell you there? If they don't harvest within two or three days, then the crop is sunburned or overmature or breaking a different color or the market changes. So with the vegetable crops, it's very critical. We spoke to two farmers, two field supervisors and four farm workers in the area. They all said there's a huge amount of fear after the ice operations and that many of the workers are basically at home in, hiding because they fear getting arrested and deported.

Starting point is 00:07:35 Many of them parted from their families, children who were born in the US and are US citizens. Could there be knock-on effects? So if you have a problem with a state like California supplying fruit and vegetables, if there's hits to the supply chain or less fruit and vegetables are being harvested, that will almost inevitably have a knock-on effect with the prices of fruit and vegetable. in markets and supermarkets and stores right across the country. So almost inevitably you will get a rise in prices for basic stuff like fruit and vegetables.

Starting point is 00:08:15 Another part of President Trump's immigration crackdown is the drive to restrict birthright citizenship. That policy would refuse citizenship to children born in the US who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident. On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled, to curb federal judge's powers to block President Trump's order. But confusion is setting in over just what that means,

Starting point is 00:08:42 when it might come into force and who will be impacted. Christina Cook is our National Affairs correspondent. Christina, let's start with today, because a federal judge in Maryland will hear this case again, but in a class action. What does that mean? In the Maryland case, which includes expectant mothers and immigrant advocacy groups,

Starting point is 00:09:03 They're asking the presiding judge to treat the case as a class action. So it would create a class of essentially all babies born in the United States who would be ineligible for birthright citizenship if the executive order takes effect. So that would protect them and block the policy that way. What happens if birthright citizenship is not blocked nationwide? If it isn't blocked nationwide, that means it could go into effect in the 28 states that didn't sue to block it. So we spoke to some experts who said it would be an implementation chaos and create this patchwork of different rules. So would hospitals or doctors have to determine citizenship? Or would someone travel to another state to give birth?

Starting point is 00:09:50 What are people telling you who might be affected? So we spoke with some of the people who potentially might be impacted and they were trying to understand what it could mean for them. I spoke to a Colombian asylum seeker. She's due in September and lives in Texas, which is one of the 28 states that didn't sue. So she said she was pouring over the media reports, but that she couldn't find many details and was confused. She's worried because she doesn't know if she can easily pass on her own Colombian citizenship. And so she's worried her daughter could end up being stateless. And for today's recommended read, the Dalai Lama is set to reveal his succession plan in a move that could

Starting point is 00:10:37 Urk, China. You can find out more about the gathering of Buddhist religious figures he'll address by following the link in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. And don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.

Reuters World News - Canada U-turn, vote-a-rama, ICE raids and birthright

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