Reuters World News - Iran midterms impact, Xi in Egypt and Denmark's Greenland conscripts

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Top aides to President Donald Trump want to keep a lid on Iran war escalations ahead of the midterms. Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Egypt for the first time in a decade and makes a play to deepen Beijing's foothold in the region. Trump's pledge to get U.S. finances under control falls flat, creating a looming fiscal crunch. And Denmark deploys conscripts to Greenland for the first time in recent history. 📲 Podcasts, breaking news, and video analysis from the source. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download the Reuters app here.⁠⁠⁠⁠ Listen to the Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. It's Thursday, September 3rd. Today, with the midterms looming, the White House is trying to figure out how to keep a lid on Iran. As Washington weighs its next move, Beijing is making its own in Egypt. Trump came to Washington promising to balance the books,

but the national debt has hit $40 trillion. And Denmark deploys young conscripts to the Arctic for the first time in recent history. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters.

On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Registered today at pmcfwalk.ca. How long will this renewed campaign go for? President Trump fielding questions in the Oval Office on Wednesday after the biggest exchange of fire between the U.S. and Iran since July. Sources tell Reuters the Trump administration is trying to keep the conflict from escalating

as the November midterm elections draw closer. White House officials are weighing whether to avoid a broader military response before voters head to the polls. Republicans are defending narrow majorities in Congress, and public support for the war is weak, with a recent Reuters Ipsos poll, finding that just 31% of Americans approve of the conflict. The administration's strategy to try and contain the war is under regional pressure too. Reuters has learned Tehran is warning Washington it would launch a large-scale attack if Israel moves on a contested ridge in southern Lebanon. According to two officials, Iranian Revolutionary Guard

members, including senior officers, are there alongside Hezbollah fighters. Iran's warning, delivered via Oman last month, appears to have worked for now. One official says U.S. pressure has led Israel to hold off on storming the site. But Lebanese security officials, warn in Israeli operation there, could still come within weeks. While Washington weighs its next move, Beijing is expanding its presence in the region. China's president Xi Jinping has just left Egypt after his first visit in a decade. Egypt remains a key U.S. security partner, but it's also strengthening its ties with Beijing through trade, investment and military cooperation. Reuters Beijing Bureau Chief Ryan Wu says the visit reflects China's growing ambitions in the region.

She's visit is a window through which it can project itself as an alternative to major powers like the United States. It goes beyond geopolitical power. geopolitical status. China is also hoping to gain a bigger footprint economically and trade and investment. If you look at Egypt, for example, Egypt is the most populous Arab nation. Egypt is the controls the Suez Canal where a major conduit of trade in the world. And also, Egypt is one gateway into markets in the Mediterranean. Experts say that Egypt is looking to diversify, really, and not have all its eggs in one basket,

whether it's economically or whether it's geopolitically, and also whether it's about, you know, when it comes to security as well. Back in the US, the Pentagon is issuing mandatory testosterone screening guidelines for all troops over the age of 30. Effective immediately, men face blood tests and women will be screened for fatigue and menstrual irregularities. Medical experts are pushing back, saying there's little scientific evidence that universal screening for low testosterone would improve US combat readiness. The FDA is said to convene its own expert panel on testosterone use later this month. For the second time, a federal judge is blocking President Trump's attempt to limit birthright citizenship.

The latest executive order, signed in August, came after the federal judge. the Supreme Court struck down Trump's original effort. Judge Deborah Bordman ruled a new order is almost certainly unconstitutional, saying the court has already decided that children covered by the case are citizens at birth. And sticking with the courts, Democrats are blocking a Republican push to permanently cap the number of Supreme Court justices at nine. Republicans had pushed the amendment to lock in the court's current 6'3 conservative majority ahead of the midterms. Democrats are proposing expanding the court to 13 justices. A Massachusetts jury told a judge for the second time that it still

can't reach a verdict in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy. The former labour and delivery nurse admits she killed her three young children in 2023, but her lawyers say she was legally insane at the time. The judge has instructed jurors to keep deliberating in an attempt to push for a unanimous verdict. If jurors are unable to reach a verdict and the judge declares a mistrial, prosecutors will be able to retry Clancy. Deliberations resume today. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.

Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free, free, from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. President Donald Trump came back to the White House promising to get the U.S. finances in order, but the national debt crossed a milestone this summer, surging past $40 trillion. Budget experts say tax cuts, higher spending, rising borrowing costs, and the Iran conflict have pushed finances deeper into the red. The White House argues economic growth will ultimately ease the burden. But as reporter Jacob Bowdo With mid-term elections coming and interest costs climbing, tough choices could be ahead. President Trump said he was going to come into office and try to balance the budget and do so

either through economic growth or through cutting spending. Well, the economy's grown, but a lot of the benefits of that have been wiped out by inflation, a lot of that caused by his own tariffs. And then on cost cutting, he rolls out the U.S. Department of Government efficiency or the the U.S. Doge service, but that didn't really accomplish very much. And so what we really have is government operations and government spending that's flat along with tax cuts, and that's made the situation a lot worse. The U.S. cannot continue on this trajectory with the tax rates that it currently has, giving up the benefits on social security and Medicare that it currently does. at the end of the road, there's either going to be much higher taxes, much lower benefits,

or a combination of both. And we've kind of reached the point where you can't get out of this debt spiral without causing pain. And markets are watching that rising debt load closely, particularly in the bond market, where yields have been reflecting investor anxiety about the US fiscal trajectory. For more on what this all means, here's our morning bid host, Mike Dolan. It's been a very disturbing week for world bond markets, that's for sure. But things have calmed down a little today. We did get to the highest borrowing rates for the US government and indeed European governments and Japanese governments

for well over a decade earlier this week. There is concern about rising interest rates this month from all three regions. And there is a growing concern about the amount of debt that's been raised as we get into budget season, particularly in Europe. But for the US, maybe things have calmed because we get a very big update

on the US labour market this week. The US non-farm payrolls for August is due out on Friday. And maybe there's just a holding pattern before we see the update on that because it may be an important ingredient for the Fed's policy meeting later this month. Thanks, Mike.

Remember, you can get morning bid wherever you get your podcasts. To Greenland Now, where the first time in recent history, Danish conscript, have been deployed. It's part of Denmark's attempt to strengthen its presence in the Arctic after US demands to acquire the territory.

The young soldiers are taking part in Arctic endurance, a military exercise near Kangar Lusak, designed to train troops for operations in extreme Arctic conditions. Captain Laurie Jepsen says the goal is to adapt basic military training to the Arctic environment. And now we are here, so we adapt the military training to the Arctic terrain. 20-year-old Conscript Arthur says nothing prepared him for Greenland's landscape. But then we got out of the plane, we're surrounded by it. We're in a valley where the mountains are like 500 meters tall. And you go up and it's steep and you go up top of that mountain, you look over the horizon,

and it's more mountains. It's the same height, even higher, even taller. Children need their teachers and human connection in order to learn and in order to grow. New York City Merzoran Mamdani, announcing what he calls the city's first artificial intelligence policy for public schools. It's a one-year ban on AI that will affect all children in elementary and middle schools for the current school year. Mamdani says technology is increasingly part of daily life, but argues that it doesn't belong

in every setting. A six-year-old child is too young to slice an onion, to fry an egg or to use a stove safely. But once that child is 16, that knowledge becomes something they are made. mature enough to learn. That same principle applies to AI. The move is the most restrictive to date across the US. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out roiders.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your

favorite podcast player. And if you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back later today with our Daily Headline show.