WSJ What’s News - Congress Cancels $9 Billion in Foreign Aid and Public Broadcasting Funding

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

A.M. Edition for July 18. The House follows the Senate in overcoming Republican opposition to pass measures rescinding public media and foreign aid funding, marking the first time a White House has accomplished clawbacks in more than a quarter-century. Plus, reporter Jenny Strasburg details how De Beers aims to revive its brand as it competes with lab-grown diamonds and a world skeptical that purity is worth the price. And reporter Austin Ramzy unpacks what the U.S. is doing to respond to China's moves to flex its military muscle far beyond its usual patch in the Pacific. Azhar Sukri hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to this year's championship game. This is the big one. With Amex Platinum, you have access to an annual dining credit to some of the hottest restaurants around town. Score! So you can raise the bar on game night. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca slash y-a-m-x. Nine billion dollars slashed from federal funding. The first clawbacks in a quarter century

hit foreign aid and public broadcasting. Plus, diamonds might be forever, but De Beers wants to make sure they're from the ground, not a lab. And China's latest naval manoeuvres are rattling the US defence establishment. It's Friday July 18th, I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. Here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The Republican-controlled Congress has cancelled $9 billion in federal funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

On this vote, the yeas are 216. The nays are 213. The resolution is adopted. That's the sound of the House early this morning, which followed a Senate vote early yesterday. The cuts are the first time a White House has accomplished clawbacks in more than a quarter century, and White House officials made clear that they would pursue additional reductions. The House and Senate passed the administration's plan largely along party lines, with two representatives and two senators voting with the Democrats. The move follows through on President Trump's efforts to defund the programs and overcame democratic opposition and resistance among some Republican lawmakers. Here's Democratic Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico

and Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina. This bill rescinds $9 billion for international aid, public health and public media. It will make America less safe. It will undermine our national security and it will threaten lives across the world and kill children. We are doing what the American people want us to do and that is to let them keep more of their money. Both chambers acted before a Friday deadline,

after which the executive branch would have had to release the funding. President Trump has called for the release of additional documents related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. His call follows the publication of an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about a letter bearing Trump's name that was included in the 2003 birthday album for the disgraced financier. Trump, in a Thursday night social media post,

said he had directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to, quote, produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval, unquote. Bondi wrote on X that she was ready to ask a court Friday to unseal the grand jury transcripts. In a separate social media post on Thursday night, Trump threatened to sue the Wall Street Journal

for publishing the article, calling it quote, false, malicious and defamatory, unquote. The president also said he planned to sue News Corp, the parent company of Dow Jones, which publishes the journal, as well as Rupert Murdoch, the chair emeritus of News Corp. A News Corp spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. immediately respond to a request for comment. We are exclusively reporting that railroad operator Union Pacific is holding talks to buy its smaller rival Norfolk Southern in a deal that could create the largest rail operator in the US, and one that spans the continent. Currently, no railroad operator has a network that runs coast-to-coast in the US. People familiar with the matter say the talks are at an early stage,

and there are no guarantees they will result in any deal or receive regulatory sign-off. Union Pacific has a market value of around $140 billion, while Norfolk is valued at about $60 billion. In other market news, Boeing says it plans to sell up to 18 of its 787 Dreamliner jets to Gulf Air. The Bahrain-based airline said the deal is part of its aim to further expand its international network across markets in Asia, Europe and the US. The companies didn't disclose the terms or price of the deal. President Trump is expected to sign the Genius Act today, a bill laying out standards for stablecoins that the House of Representatives just passed.

And more big names are due to post earnings today, including American Express, Charles Schwab, Schlumberger and 3M. Coming up, we'll look at the US response to what China's navy has been up to in its backyard and much further afield. That story and more after the break. There's regular cold. And then there's the mountains are blue cold. Mountain cold refreshment. Coors light. The chill choice.

Celebrate responsibly. Must be legal drinking age. De Beers is going all out to persuade customers about the virtues of natural diamonds over ones grown in a lab. about the virtues of natural diamonds over ones grown in a lab. Manufactured stones are 100% carbon, have the same hardness and sparkle of an original mined diamond, but have been selling at a fraction of the price. In an interview at the company's London headquarters, De Beers CEO Al Cook has called part of the market for these synthetic diamonds a huge con. He says that many mass-produced stones are masquerading as something special to justify steep markups. With the influx of lab-grown diamonds pushing prices down for both types of stones, journal reporter Jenny Strasberg says De Beers'

future depends on consumers who believe that authenticity can't be made in a lab. Now a lot of people who are against the idea of lab-grown being real diamonds, you know, will say it's not rare and that's partly what defines a diamond. So this is one of the challenges that De Beers faces and Al Cook, the CEO, is working very hard to reiterate the idea that rarity is value and something special is not what you walk into Walmart and buy that was created over three weeks. However, a lot of people say, well, if nobody can tell the difference, it's pretty special to me. So I'm not going to let the industry define what's valuable to me.

And you can hear more about De Beers hopes to revive the iconic brand in an upcoming episode of The Journal podcast. CBS says it's pulling the plug on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May, when Colbert's current contract expires. He took over as host, executive producer and writer in 2015, with the show now the most watched broadcast network show in his time slot, according to data from Nielsen. Colbert has been a regular critic of President Trump, and on Monday criticised CBS parent company Paramount Global for its agreement to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump over a 60-minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paramount executives were concerned about

legal liability from making a deal and the optics of settling the suit while it's trying to close its merger with Skydance Media, which is still awaiting federal approval. CBS said its move was purely a financial decision. China is flexing its military muscle in the Pacific in new ways and in the process raising alarm in Washington. Beijing has long resented what it sees as US interference in its sphere of influence, and now it's asserting itself more aggressively in its backyard and beyond. The Pentagon's top policy official Elbridge Colby has argued to defence secretary Pete Hegseth that Ukraine's requests for American weapons could

further stretch already depleted Pentagon stockpiles and wants to refocus the US military on countering China. I've been looking at more overt displays of China's military. The most obvious is near Taiwan. There's been increasing numbers of patrols that have approached Taiwan across the median line in Taiwan's straight aircraft and ships encircling Taiwan, which is of concern to Taiwanese officials and also officials in the US. That's Hong Kong-based journal reporter Austin Ramsey, who reports that while Beijing's ambitions over Taiwan have factored into the US's calculus for decades, more recent Chinese naval manoeuvres well beyond Taiwan have caught the eye of US defence officials. There were dual aircraft carrier patrols recently with ships in the Western Pacific due south

of Japan with hundreds of launches and landings of aircraft in its areas that they have not operated as frequently before. Some Chinese navy ships circumnavigated Australia in February and March of this year and carried out some live fire exercises in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand that were quite surprising to people in New Zealand and Australia. The American security footprint in Asia includes more than 75,000 US military personnel stationed in South Korea and Japan, including troops on the Japanese island of Okinawa, less than 500 miles from Taiwan. Further east, the US military has beefed up its presence in the American territory of Guam by adding a new base expected to house

5,000 Marines. The Trump administration has also been pushing Asian allies to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP. Some of those countries are pushing back. Japan and Korea and Taiwan are all working to increase defense spending, but they're in sort of 1 to 2 percent range, and so 5 percent is quite a big ask, and there's resistance there at the idea of the US sort of setting their defense spending targets for them. In Singapore in May, Pete Hegseth warned regional officials of quote devastating consequences unquote if Beijing tries to take over Taiwan. Comments China said were inciting confrontation. In a regional conflict, US security officials say China would hope

to dominate what is known as the first island chain of American allies. The US sees China operating further afield, but China also looks out and sees US allies in South Korea, Japan, Philippines, all around it, sees US bases throughout Asia-Pacific. That first island chain idea comes from the Cold War and efforts to contain China and the Soviet Union, so they see this very much as efforts to contain them. And you can find a link to Austin's reporting with visuals showing how China's military is pushing boundaries in the Pacific,

and how the US is seeking to respond. That's over in our show notes. And that's it for What's News this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bullivant. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a great weekend, and thanks for listening.