President Donald J. Trump’s energy plans to promote oil and gas production can reset the world stage, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is on board. This month he signed into law a bill that prioritizes production of fossil fuels and nuclear power, rather than wind and solar power, in his state.

The new law, Act 462 (formerly HB 692), sponsored by Rep. Jacob Landry (no relation to Gov. Landry), requires the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources to focus on production of domestic fuel, rather than energy sources that rely on foreign countries for materials. The law extends the definition of green energy to nuclear power and natural gas.

This law is so obvious that it is surprising that it needs to be passed at all, especially in Louisiana, which has no requirement to produce electricity from wind and solar power. Rates, at 13 cents per kilowatt hour, are below the U.S. average, but they have risen steadily from 9 cents per kilowatt hour in 2020.

The top 10 states for residential electricity prices (except Alaska, which has few residents spread out over a large geographic area) all have requirements to use wind and solar power to generate electricity. They would do well to copy Louisiana’s new law. Their lower electricity prices would benefit their residents and attract additional manufacturing, generating increased employment.

This month’s Middle Eastern conflict between Israel and Iran shows the wisdom of President Trump’s energy dominance agenda. Energy dominance means producing enough oil and natural gas to replace OPEC countries as the global price setter. The price of oil went up from $65 to $75 a barrel, then back down to $65. No longer is the U.S. at the mercy of OPEC, as it was in the 1970s.

With a U.S. energy dominance agenda, no longer must the U.S.—or the world—depend on corrupt governments as sources of oil, gas, and critical minerals, or renewables and electric vehicles. This has vast geopolitical implications.

Lower U.S. electricity prices will reduce manufacturing costs in America, attracting foreign investment and creating jobs. In emerging economies, more support for fossil fueled power plants will lower energy prices.

The U.S. has approximately 1.7 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil and over 4 quadrillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas resources. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proposed increasing US production by 3 million barrels per year, potentially driving prices below $50 a barrel.

This represents a major change from the policies of President Joe Biden, who discouraged oil production by reducing federal land available for leases and banning offshore development. When he wanted additional oil in 2022, he asked Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to pump more.

With increased output, the North American energy platform, with its heavy crude from Canada and Mexico and its light crude and refineries in the U.S. will be able to set prices.

Sales of U.S. oil and natural gas give U.S. allies an alternative to Russian products and cut into Russian sales. Russian oil and natural gas revenues in 2024, the vast majority from oil, amounted to $120 billion, about 30 per cent of its total revenues, substantially lower than levels of 50 per cent between 2011 and 2014.

This will be even more important when fighting in Ukraine ends, with possible removal of Russian sanctions. President Trump would be able to pressure countries to use American oil rather than Russian oil, potentially using tariffs to encourage buyers.

President Trump is also taking on China, which controls 38 per cent of the reserves of global rare earth elements; 60 per cent of rare earth mining; 85 per cent of rare earth processing, and 90 per cent of rare earth permanent magnet manufacturing. This enables the production of 80 per cent of solar components, global battery production, and cobalt refining capacity.

Similarly, the new Louisiana law specifically calls for “minimizing reliance on foreign nations for critical materials or manufacturing by prioritizing infrastructure necessary to deliver energy to Louisiana customers.”

Cheaper energy caused by additional U.S. production and loans for fossil-fuel power plants would also benefit people in emerging economies, especially Africa and Latin America, without reliable electricity and cheap fuel. Lower oil prices empower countries with poor electricity distribution, lowering costs of diesel generators, used by businesses and households.

The federal government is shifting to energy dominance, but states can still stand in the way. Louisiana’s new law provides a model for other states to follow.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation, directs the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.

When B-2 bombers took off from Missouri to attack targets across Iran, President Trump was leveraging more than America’s military might – America’s energy dominance was on full display.

America’s shale revolution and ascension to the world’s largest oil and natural gas producer has made one fact abundantly clear: energy security is national security. No longer are geopolitical and national security decisions held hostage to the threat of energy price spikes. Because of oil from Texas and natural gas from Appalachia, Americans aren’t facing the energy supply shocks that were once guaranteed to follow rising Middle East tensions.

Home to the nation’s largest natural gas field with the Marcellus and Utica shales, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia produce a third of America’s natural gas. That’s energy that keeps the lights on in our homes, the heat flowing in the winter, and power steady and reliable for factories, hospitals, military bases, and critical infrastructure across America. But it does much more. Appalachian natural gas is a big part of what makes America strong, self-reliant, and free.

Throughout history, energy security has meant physical security. When we have the energy we need, produced right here at home, we reduce our dependence on unstable or hostile nations. We insulate ourselves from supply disruptions and price shocks triggered by global conflicts. And we make sure that in times of crisis, from natural disasters to national emergencies, we have the fuel to respond, rebuild, and defend.

Our abundant, reliable natural gas underpins the strength of our Armed Forces and the resilience of our economy. Employing millions of our own people, energy powers the manufacturing of steel, ammunition, vehicles, and the technologies that support our troops. It safeguards critical operations from cyber and physical threats by ensuring reliable, secure power supplies.

And as artificial intelligence rapidly transforms industries, it’s natural gas that remains the only fuel fully capable of meeting the intense, always-on energy requirements these technologies depend on.

In short, energy security protects American lives and the American way of life.

But here’s the challenge: While we produce more than enough clean-burning, affordable natural gas to meet our needs and support allies overseas, we can’t move enough of it to where it’s needed most. And electrical grid operators face mounting strain as power-hungry technologies accelerate demand.

The missing links? Pipelines and new gas-fired generation. Without more infrastructure to safely and efficiently transport and use domestic energy, we leave ourselves exposed to higher costs, supply vulnerabilities, and reliance on foreign adversaries.

New England is perhaps the most staggering example of energy insecurity here at home, sitting just a few hours drive from the largest gas producing region in the country, yet forced to rely on expensive, unreliable foreign fuel because politics have clouded smart energy policies for decades. Now, those same political leaders are quietly backing down and conceding what we’ve known all along: pipelines from Appalachia are key to their energy security.

Meanwhile, our country’s global competitors and adversaries aren’t waiting. Russia and China – they understand the power of energy in projecting strength and influence. America must do the same, led by the innovators in Appalachia who drove the shale revolution just over 20 years ago.

Now is the time for action. Washington is working to cut the red tape that’s stalled progress, but it’s up to us in the states to unleash the full potential of Appalachian energy. Thank you to those elected leaders who are already leading the charge, but we need all of our policy officials to champion building the natural gas infrastructure that will secure affordable energy for families, strengthen our physical and economic security, and help ensure that America remains the most powerful, resilient, and free nation on the planet.

Let Appalachia’s natural gas power our future and protect the freedoms we hold dear.

In a time when Americans face mounting student debt, stagnant wages and increasing job competition, a little-known government program continues to certify hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs for foreign workers, even when qualified U.S. citizens are available, willing and able.

The labor certification process known as “PERM” (Program Electronic Review Management) allows employers to sponsor foreign nationals for green cards only if no qualified U.S. worker is available. According to federal law, employers must first complete a good-faith test of the U.S. labor market, which includes specific recruitment steps such as two Sunday newspaper ads, internal postings and three additional recruitment methods from a Department of Labor-approved list.

But in practice, employers can exploit the outdated list of approved recruitment methods by avoiding major online platforms and even their own company career sites. Instead, they often use limited-access alternatives such as obscure job boards, local or ethnic newspapers, or short-duration radio ads that technically satisfy the rules on paper, but drastically reduce the chances that qualified U.S. workers will ever see or apply for the position.

In 2024, the Department of Labor processed 116,427 PERM applications to hire foreign workers, approving nearly 88% of them. Only 5.4% (6,364) were denied. This means tens of thousands of U.S. jobs were certified for foreign workers without a transparent or fair recruitment process. The Department of Labor publishes quarterly data on employer applications to sponsor foreign workers, including both H-1B and PERM filings, which offers insight into the hiring and immigration practices of U.S. employers and their immigration attorneys.

An analysis of PERM filings from 2020 to 2024 reveals how major U.S. technology companies use the green card sponsorship process to secure foreign labor for high-paying roles, often without conducting genuine or competitive hiring searches. The data show consistent reliance on minimal recruitment efforts, including outdated tactics like requiring U.S. applicants to submit paper resumes by mail.

These methods, previously flagged by the Department of Justice as barriers to American workers, were often used even by large tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Workday.

For example, PERM-required job ads published in the May 9, 2021, print edition of the Mercury News instructed jobseekers to apply via postal mail, despite the fact that these companies already had digital hiring systems in place.

Similar tactics triggered a high-profile federal investigation involving Facebook – now Meta. In 2021, the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor reached a settlement with Facebook after alleging it had intentionally implemented PERM recruitment in a way to deter U.S. applicants. According to the complaint, Facebook did not post PERM roles on its public careers page and it required submission of resumes by physical mail, methods the DOJ concluded discouraged American workers from applying:

“Facebook created a separate hiring process for PERM positions that intentionally discouraged U.S. workers from applying. For example, while Facebook typically accepts applications online, it required that applications for PERM positions be submitted by mail only.”

“Facebook used recruitment methods for PERM positions that were less effective than those it used for other positions, intentionally deterring U.S. workers from applying to positions that the company sought to fill with temporary visa holders.”

As part of its settlement, Facebook was required to change its PERM practices, posting jobs on its public website, accepting electronic applications and using the same hiring processes for PERM roles as for other jobs. The company also agreed to federal oversight, employee training and regular reporting on its hiring activity.

Since then, industry reports on the platform Blind show that Meta has seen a rise in PERM denials, suggesting that when forced to conduct fair recruitment, companies do in fact encounter qualified American candidates.

The evidence is overwhelming that companies like Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Google and others, despite consistently lobbying for more foreign-worker visas on the basis of a so-called “talent shortage,” are fully capable of finding qualified Americans when they are actually required to recruit them.

Indeed, when employers go to such lengths to avoid recruiting qualified U.S. workers, even under a program like PERM that explicitly requires a good-faith labor market test, their own actions contradict claims of a shortage. The evidence suggests it is not that they can’t find qualified Americans, it’s that they are deliberately avoiding them.

If this is happening in a program like PERM, which includes at least some legal safeguards and penalties, the risks are far greater under programs like H-1B and STEM OPT, which contain no such protections for U.S. workers. Without enforcement or accountability, these visa channels allow companies to bypass the domestic workforce entirely, undermining both the integrity of the labor market and the future of American employment.

Democrat policies and new regulations hiked California’s gas prices on Tuesday, and a slew of green energy initiatives has led to refinery closures and lofty gas prices in the Golden State that may soon spiral into a full-blown crisis.

California is teetering on the brink of a gas crisis due primarily to Democrats’ green energy policies, as multiple major refineries prepare to shutter in the coming years and more stringent regulations on the oil and gas industries take effect. Democratic leadership and regulators enacted adjustments to California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program on Tuesday, resulting in a gas price increase that may be the beginning of further pain at the pump for the state’s consumers.

“Not every Californian is a millionaire like our governor is … and these regulations are bearing down on the average Californian and making California unaffordable,” Republican California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I’m addressing the cost of gasoline in California and trying to do everything I can to repeal the regulations that are causing it to go up, while at the same time alerting Californians of the impending cost of gasoline.”

I just filed a public records request to expose how Newsom’s deceptive 65-cent gas price hike was crafted in secret.

We believe the real goal is to jack up gas prices so high that Californians are forced to buy EVs.

The public deserves the truth. #FixCalifornia pic.twitter.com/UVpzs1Qt7k

— Brian W. Jones (@SenBrianJones) May 21, 2025

California has the highest tax on gasoline in the nation, and its cap-and-trade program for emissions has also been connected to high energy prices in the state. The combination of these stringent regulations and the forthcoming closures of the Phillips 66 and Valero refineries in the state could result in gas shooting up to $8 per gallon as soon as 2026, according to one study from the University of Southern California.

Moreover, state regulators have suggested increasing state involvement in refinery management, including the possibility of what critics have derided as state-owned refineries to address the possible surge in gas prices.

Though gas prices have been hitting a four-year low across the U.S. ahead of Independence Day, Californians paid an average of about $4.57 per gallon as of Thursday, about $1.40 more than the national average, according to AAA gas price data. Prices increased in California by a few cents on Tuesday as adjustments to the state’s LCFS came into effect.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom set a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, and he has fought to enact numerous green energy initiatives in his state, including an aggressive electric vehicle (EV) agenda.

California regulators planned to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in the state and numerous others by 2035 before President Donald Trump signed Congressional resolutions to block the de facto EV mandate. California and ten other Democrat-led states immediately sued the Trump administration after the president terminated the Golden State’s de facto national EV mandate.

“The founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they ever thought the government would be in the business of dictating the type of transportation that Americans can choose,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) told the DCNF previously about California’s EV mandate. “The public is behind President Trump and the effort to preserve our ability to choose the types of cars that best suit our needs as consumers.”

Jones suspects the possible gas crisis is part of a broader effort by some Democrats to steer consumers to ditch conventional cars, noting that his office filled out a records request for emails between Newsom’s administration and the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

“The goal here is to show by their communications that they are purposefully trying to drive up the price of gasoline so that people are forced into EVs, public transportation or bicycles,” Jones told the DCNF.

The records request Jones filed has gone unanswered, the lawmaker told the DCNF, who noted that he has demanded an audit on the LCFS to find out if CARB comprehensively estimated the policy’s economic impacts or “concealed or downplayed costs.” CARB and Newsom’s office did not confirm to the DCNF whether or not they responded to the records request, though Newsom’s office referred the DCNF to several press releases that address some of Jones’ claims and noted that gas prices in the state are at a three-year low for July.

CARB initially cited estimates that the amendments to the LCFS could spike gas prices by 47 cents per gallon in 2024, according to multiple reports. The agency later walked back that projection in June, citing estimations that prices may only experience a per gallon hike of only five or six cents.

Newsom’s office also recently released a statement referencing a gasoline cost increase projection of eight cents per gallon. Jones described this shift in estimates as a “defensive scramble,” and cited a different estimate forecasting that the regulation shift could spike gasoline prices by as much as 65 cents per gallon in the near term.

Jones argued that if California Democrats plan to drive up fuel costs to force consumers to adopt EVs or ditch gasoline vehicles, it would be impossible to implement anyways. The state’s electrical grid is increasingly reliant on green energy technology, and “wind and solar is not going to cut it here in California,” Jones said. Building more EV infrastructure and charging the EVs would take power the state does not have, Jones argued.

“I’m focused on raising awareness and holding Governor Newsom, legislative Democrats, and unelected bureaucrats accountable for these costly and ineffective policies,” Jones said, railing against “unelected” regulators that have implemented strict energy policies that may necessitate a net-zero transition. “They’re out of control.”

Notably, California imports mass amounts of oil despite being “a very oil rich state,” Jones said. “We have plenty of oil in the ground, we just need to extract it,” he continued.

Citing the over 40,000 signatures on his petition to repeal the recent regulation change, Jones argued that he is witnessing an ideological shift in California.

“After Republicans and the media exposed the truth, Californians were outraged … [and they] are waking up. They’re starting to see that the reason for sky-high gas prices is irresponsible policies pushed by the majority party,” Jones said, referencing Newsom’s policies that seem to be driving up gas prices for the sake of “arbitrary climate targets.”

CARB did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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In its last two working days, the Biden administration’s Energy Department signed off on nearly $42 billion for green energy projects – a sum that exceeded the total amount its Loan Programs Office (LPO) had put out in the past decade.

The frenzied activity on Jan. 16 and 17, 2025, capped a spending binge that saw the LPO approve at least $93 billion in current and future disbursements after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election in November, according to documents provided by the department to RealClearInvestigations. It appears that Biden officials were rushing to deploy billions in approved funding in anticipation that the incoming Trump administration would seek to redirect uncommitted money away from clean energy projects.

The agreements were made despite a warning from the department’s inspector general, urging the loan office to suspend operations in December over concerns that post-election loans could present conflicts of interest.

In just a few months, some of the deals have already become dicey, leading to fears that the Biden administration has created multiple Solyndras, the green energy company that went bankrupt after the Obama administration gave it $570 million. These deals include:

• Sunnova, a rooftop solar outfit that thus far had $382 million of its $3.3 billion loan guaranteed, filed for bankruptcy this month. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
• Li-Cycle, a battery recycling facility, had a $445 million loan approved in November, but since then, the company was put up for sale and has filed for bankruptcy. The Energy Department said no money has been disbursed on that deal. Li-Cycle did not respond to a request for comment.
• A $705 million loan was approved on Jan. 17 for Zum Energy, an electric school bus company in California, and its “Project Marigold.” At $350,000 and more, electric school buses currently cost more than twice as much as their diesel counterparts. So far, Zum has received $21.7 million from the government, according to usaspending.gov. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
• A $9.63 billion Blue Oval SK loan on Jan. 16 was the second largest post-election deal, topped only by a $15 billion loan the next day to Pacific Gas & Electric, with most of that for renewables. The Blue Oval project in Kentucky – a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and a South Korean entity – has been dealing with numerous workplace complaints, and construction of a second EV battery manufacturing plant there has been delayed. More than $7 billion has been obligated on that deal, according to the Energy Department. Blue Oval did not respond to a request for comment.

The money and the hasty way in which it was earmarked have drawn the attention of the Trump administration. “It is extremely concerning how many dozens of billions of dollars were rushed out the door without proper due diligence in the final days of the Biden administration,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement to RCI. “DOE is undertaking a thorough review of financial assistance that identifies waste of taxpayer dollars.”

The enormous sums came from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which injected $400 billion into the LPO, a previously sleepy Energy Department branch originally intended to spur nuclear energy projects. That total represented more than 10 times the amount the LPO had ever committed in any fiscal year of its existence. Prior to the post-election blowout, the office’s biggest fiscal year was 2024, when it committed $34.8 billion, records show.

Even with the rush to push billions out the door in its last months, close to $300 billion of the Inflation Reduction Act money remains uncommitted by the LPO. Trump administration officials have already nixed some smaller deals. Secretary Wright recently urged Congress to keep the money in place as the LPO now aims to use it to further the Trump administration’s energy policy, particularly with nuclear projects.

That unprecedented gusher of cash from the LPO echoes the efforts of the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency to push $20 billion out the door before it left office. As RCI has previously reported, the EPA – which had never been a consequential grant-making operation – was tasked with awarding $27 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and Solar For All programs. It did so in less than six months in 2024, including an unorthodox arrangement in which Biden officials parked some $20 billion outside the Treasury’s control. That money was earmarked for a handful of nonprofits, some of which had skimpy assets and were linked with politically connected directors.

The LPO’s post-election bonanza was put together in even less time. The Energy Department deals, however, involve mostly for-profit enterprises, which raises questions about whether the Biden administration was propping up companies that would not have survived in the private marketplace. Should any of the companies hit it big in the future, shareholders could get rich, while taxpayers will receive only the interest on the loan.

“The loan office should not be in the virtual venture business,” said Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center on Energy Analytics. “But in a few cases, it could make sense to serve as a catalyst or backstop for viable and important projects from a national security or policy perspective.”

RCI spoke with several Trump administration officials who declined to comment on the record, given the extensive ongoing review of both the LPO’s post-election arrangements and other Energy Department projects linked to Biden’s climate agenda.

“They wanted to get the billions to companies that probably wouldn’t exist unless they could get money from the government,” one current official said. “The business plans, such as they were, were ‘how do we secure capital from the government?’”

During Biden’s tenure, the office was run by Jigar Shah, who on June 17 was named to the board of directors of the nonprofit Center for Sustainable Energy. Bloomberg News reported last month that Shah “helped select roughly 400 companies with development plans to receive grants and loans upwards of $100 million each.” In response to the Trump administration’s pushback on green subsidies, Bloomberg reported that Shah is working to help some of the companies he bankrolled shift operations to Europe.

The Center relies chiefly on government contracts instead of donations, and it saw that revenue jump from $274.1 million in 2023 to more than $500 million in 2024, according to tax records. The center did not respond to a request to speak with Shah.

Thus far, no entity has received the entire amount of the deals the Biden administration struck since last November, according to the Energy Department and usaspending.gov. In a handful of cases, companies have come to the current administration and opted out of the deals.

Still, millions of taxpayer dollars have already been distributed, in some instances, to deals the department listed as “conditional commitments.”  Wright has said there are “reasons to be worried and suspicious” about the post-election binge, and vowed some of the deals will be scrubbed.

In 2023, the Biden administration made subtle changes to the LPO’s regulations, cutting strings and stipulations that traditionally attach to loans. Consequently, the office cut deals after the election on terms more favorable to the recipient than the taxpayer, and in several cases, making a “conditional commitment” the same as a loan, according to Trump officials. The changes also moved money that a later administration could have cut into “obligated” silos, making the deals harder to cancel, according to the current Energy Department.

“Essentially, they had the Loan Program Office operating like a graveyard energy venture capital fund,” one Trump official told RCI. “This was all tied to the religious fervor for any green energy project in the prior administration, and the goal was not to get the government repaid but to advance the ‘green new deal.’”

The $93 billion under review represents a separate “green bank” from smaller Biden administration deals that the Energy Department has already canceled. Last month, the Government Accounting Office said the department was not on track to “issue loans and guarantees before billions of dollars of new funding expires.”

As part of the review, Wright issued policy guidelines in May that he said offer more protection to taxpayers. The department may now require significantly more information from loan recipients and applicants, such as “a project’s financial health, a project’s technological and engineering viability, market conditions, compliance with award terms and conditions and compliance with legal requirements, including those related to national security.”

The department declined to provide the terms of specific deals, again citing the ongoing review. Trump administration officials claim the business plans for many of these deals were threadbare, that term sheets were essentially tossed out, and the entire process could be described, in the words of a Biden EPA official in December, as “throwing gold bars” off the Titanic “as an insurance policy against Trump winning.”

Despite these dubious outcomes and the alleged removal of taxpayer protections that accompanied the deals, Trump administration officials said they remain committed to the LPO. The office has a valuable role to play in fulfilling energy policy goals, which include nuclear projects, strengthening the nation’s power grid, and limiting the U.S. reliance on Chinese supply chains for key minerals and elements.

“It’s as if you went away and the kids threw a rager in the house,” one official told RCI. “You may need some new furniture and the like, but it’s still a really nice home. The Office can be a critical resource for the manufacturing base of this country, and our goal is not to end the LPO but to improve it.”

The Trump administration could face some of the same financial issues if it rejiggers the LPO along lines that support its energy policy goals, particularly within the nuclear industry. Projects there have been marred by unprofitable plants and massive cost overruns and delays in construction, making federal loans to the section inherently risky.

Prominent voices – and investors –  like Bill Gates have also encouraged the government to back new sources of energy and minerals. Geothermal projects are one such field, and there appears to be bipartisan support in Washington for capital that will shore up U.S. energy independence. On Jan. 15, the Biden administration approved a $1.2 billion “conditional commitment” with a subsidiary of EnergySource Minerals LLC (ESM), which hopes to extract lithium from geothermal brine.

A deal with Pioneer Ltd. appears to match some of the professed goals of the Trump administration, but it has also been plagued by financial setbacks since Biden’s LPO approved it in its final days. The company’s deal grew from an original $700 million “conditional commitment” in 2023, to the $996 million approved on Jan. 17, 2025.”

The Rhyolite Ridge project is a mining and manufacturing center in Nevada to produce lithium and boron. Those elements have implications for defense and national security in addition to energy, according to ioneer Vice President Chad Yeftich.

“Ioneer believes government policy should encourage projects if we want critical minerals developed domestically,” Yeftich said. “Time is the key risk for development as China continues to provide financial support to its critical minerals industry and dump critical minerals into the market thereby depressing the price.”

Yeftich noted Rhyolite Ridge has secured $200 million in private capital, but in February, its chief private equity partner broke ties with the project. Finance professionals familiar with big deals told RCI that such a rupture so close in timing to the loan would likely deep-six the arrangement, but Trump officials said Biden’s LPO stripped such boilerplate language from many of the post-election deals.

Secretary Wright told RCI that these maneuvers suggested the previous administration was more interested in disbursing funds than protecting taxpayers. “Any reputable business would have a process in place for evaluating spending and investments before money goes out the door, and the American people deserve no less from their federal government.”

Correction: This article erroneously reported the amount of money Rhyolite Ridge has secured from private capital, and the timeline of its federal loan. The former figure is $200 million, and the timeline was across two years.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has officially closed, marking “the beginning of a new era of global partnership, peace, investment, and prosperity,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Starting Tuesday, the Department of State will take over the work of USAID.

In March, Rubio announced that 83% of USAID programs were being canceled and the agency’s remaining work would be folded into the State Department.

“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” Rubio said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday.

“Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency,” Rubio said.

USAID was first established in 1961 and viewed as a form of diplomacy, but over time, Rubio says, “USAID marketed its programs as a charity, rather than instruments of American foreign policy intended to advance our national interests.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has sought to implement an “America First” agenda, refocusing foreign aid and tax dollars to serve the primary interests of the U.S. as the Trump administration defines.

“Too often,” Rubio said, the work of USAID “promoted anti-American ideals and groups, from global ‘DEI,’ censorship and regime change operations, to NGOs and international organizations in league with Communist China and other geopolitical adversaries.”

All U.S. aid that is delivered to other countries will now bear the “recognizable symbol” of the American flag, Rubio said. “Recipients deserve to know the assistance provided to them is not a handout from an unknown NGO, but an investment from the American people.”

When the U.S. does provide humanitarian aid to other nations, it will now be “targeted and time limited,” according to the secretary.

“We will favor those nations that have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to help themselves and will target our resources to areas where they can have a multiplier effect and catalyze durable private sector, including American companies, and global investment,” Rubio said.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered a farewell address to USAID employees in a video on Monday, The Associated Press first reported. Singer Bono joined the two former presidents in bidding the workers goodbye with a poem.

“Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” Obama told the USAID workers, adding that “[g]utting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy.”

“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work—and that is your good heart,’’ Bush told USAID staffers, according to The Associated Press. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Thursday that his department will turn its attention to student loan debt after completing its work on trade and tax policy.

President Donald Trump’s second term has largely focused on negotiating new trade deals and extending his 2017 tax cuts, along with fulfilling campaign promises of eliminating certain taxes. Bessent, appearing on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” said his department would prioritize student loan debt next, noting it currently lacks “a solution,” but that he disagreed with former President Joe Biden’s approach to debt forgiveness.

WATCH:

“Once we have finished trade and taxes here at Treasury, we’re going to take on the student loan portfolio,” Bessent said. “We don’t have a solution for what’s going on there, but I do think that just forgiving student debt was unacceptable.”

“I think that there is a firm and humane way to deal with the student debt crisis. And we are going to be focused on that here at Treasury,” he continued. “Because for many young Americans, they’ve started out post-college with the equivalent of a mortgage. So we’re going to be working on that.”

Trump implemented steep reciprocal tariffs on numerous countries starting on April 2 before announcing a 90-day pause that lowered most of them to a 10% baseline while the administration works on cutting new deals.

The House of Representatives sent Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill to his desk for signature on Thursday. It is a tax and immigration bill that enacts a permanent extension of the president’s 2017 tax cuts and delivers on his pledges to remove taxes on tips and overtime pay, along with permanently raising the child tax credit to $2,200.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling that struck down one of Biden’s efforts to forgive student loans in June 2023, the former president repeatedly tried to continue forgiving the loans. The Biden administration boasted in October that it had forgiven $74 billion in student loans for government and public service employees under his tenure.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

“Your journey here ends today.”

That was the message one Microsoft employee said she received when her job was abruptly terminated. Another described the experience as “paralyzing, refreshing emails, staring at the screen, heart racing with every ping.” A third added, “There’s been speculation for a while, but the scale of today’s news still hits hard.”

Across social media and professional networks like LinkedIn, thousands of American workers have shared that they’ve been laid off by Microsoft, marking what has become one of the largest workforce reductions in the company’s history.

But their job titles reveal a deeper pattern: Many of the same roles are now appearing in Microsoft’s filings with the U.S. Department of Labor for H-1B foreign workers.

Earlier this week, WorldNetDaily reported that Microsoft announced major layoffs impacting workers in Washington and California, even as the company continued pursuing thousands of new foreign hires through the H-1B visa program. Since then, the number of layoffs has continued to rise, raising concerns that what began as cost-cutting may now reflect an even broader – and troubling – shift in Microsoft’s labor strategy.

As its new fiscal year began on July 1, Microsoft confirmed an additional 9,000 would be laid off companywide, including 830 cuts in Washington state. Combined with earlier waves in May and June, Microsoft has now laid off more than 15,000 workers since spring, including more than 3,100 in Washington, home to its Redmond headquarters. Although the company previously stated the cuts were meant to “flatten management,” publicly available data shows that only 17% of impacted roles in Redmond were classified as managerial.

Lobbying for immigration reforms during workforce reductions

While those layoffs were unfolding publicly, another lesser-known development was playing out in Washington, D.C.

In April, just weeks before the May layoffs began, Microsoft filed a federal lobbying disclosure, reporting $2.35 million in lobbying expenditures, much of it directed at the federal Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security – the very agencies responsible for overseeing visa certifications and employment eligibility. Among the listed priorities: “high-skilled immigration reforms,” a long-standing policy goal often associated with expanding access to the H-1B visa program.

This is not a new strategy for Microsoft. In 2023, the company filed federal WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices disclosing 3,426 layoffs across its California and Washington offices.

During the same period, Microsoft requested 14,020 H-1B visa workers, plus another 708 through third-party staffing firms.

The company also spent $5.09 million lobbying in 2023, $4.52 million of which was aimed directly at the departments of Labor and Homeland Security on issues related to “High Skilled immigration and Immigration reform.”

Demand for foreign workers vs. job creation

Microsoft has consistently maintained that the U.S. does not issue enough H-1B visas to meet labor market demands. On its lobbying blog, the company states: “The number of H-1B visas remains very limited. Congress sets a limit on the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each year. Demand far exceeds supply.”

While it is accurate that U.S. law caps new H-1B visas at 85,000 per year, Microsoft’s own hiring data offers additional perspective. From 2021 to 2024, the company submitted H-1B requests at a staggering rate of 5.17 for every one net new job it created in the U.S.

Based on this pattern, Microsoft’s claims of a lack of available skilled workers appear less about unmet labor needs and more about the company’s inability to replace its existing workforce at scale due to the legal limits imposed by the H-1B visa cap. This imbalance raises further questions regarding how the program is being applied, whether to support innovation or to enable a deeper transformation of the labor force.

While Microsoft continues to press for expanded visa access, the real-time experiences of its displaced American employees offer a revealing counterpoint.

Skilled Americans replaced in their own country

Across social media, laid-off Microsoft employees are responding with resilience, many beginning to network and apply for new jobs within hours of receiving termination notices. Their profiles show years of experience, advanced degrees and a clear readiness to work.

Microsoft has stated that it hires foreign workers to “bring specially-needed skill sets” to their “U.S. operations and to fill roles when qualified American workers are not available.” However, the juxtaposition of recent massive American layoffs and simultaneous H-1B filings paints a more troubling picture. Indeed, a review of Microsoft’s active labor condition applications reveals that many of the job titles match those previously held by recently displaced U.S. professionals, raising questions as to whether competent American workers were truly unavailable for these roles.

The impact of these layoffs and hiring decisions is showing up in the form of disrupted careers and urgent job searchers on the part of many Americans. The pattern is unmistakable: U.S. citizens are being laid off, followed by active company filings for foreign labor certifications. Whether this reflects isolated restructuring or a deliberate global labor strategy for Microsoft, the consequences are being felt across an entire class of highly skilled U.S. professionals.

Whose interests define U.S. workforce and immigration policy?

Microsoft once posed the question in a pro-immigration blog: “[I]sn’t it in America’s best interests to keep the world’s top talent working here in the U.S., using their skills and ideas to invent the breakthrough products of tomorrow that will drive our economy and create jobs?”

For many of the American workers recently laid off by Microsoft, that question likely strikes a deeply personal chord. After all, they are not foreign talent seeking opportunity; they are citizens of this country, whose home, families and economy they have been working to support. They’ve spent years developing the skills, earning the degrees and contributing to the innovations that built companies like Microsoft into global powerhouses.

To these workers, keeping jobs in the hands of Americans is not just in the nation’s best interest, it’s a matter of basic fairness. The decision to replace them with cheaper foreign labor may serve Microsoft’s profit margins, but most people would seriously question how it serves the American people.

Microsoft’s story is not an outlier. It is part of a broader disturbing trend among multinational tech giants: Lay off Americans, lobby for foreign labor, repeat.

For the employees who received the message, “Your journey here ends today,” the impact is immediate and personal. But the broader question now facing America is whether this ongoing cycle of quiet replacement of Americans will continue unchecked – or whether it will finally be confronted.

Follow WND for breaking exclusives, evidence-based investigations and updates on America First immigration news that the mainstream media won’t touch. You can follow us on X @Worldnetdaily/, sign up for our weekly newsletter and visit wnd.com for the latest reports, whistleblower stories and ways you can take action. Let’s keep America first – always!

“President Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill delivers on the commonsense agenda that nearly 80 million Americans voted for – the largest middle-class tax cut in history, permanent border security, massive military funding, and restoring fiscal sanity,” explained White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“The pro-growth policies within this historic legislation are going to fuel an economic boom like we’ve never seen before. President Trump looks forward to signing the One Big, Beautiful Bill into law to officially usher in the Golden Age of America.”

Her comments came minutes after the House of Representatives passed 218-214 the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

“Again and again, Democrats tried to block historic tax relief, increased border security, higher wages, an expanded Child Tax Credit, No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, No Tax on Social Security, savings accounts for newborns, and so much more — but again and again, President Trump and Republicans fought and won for the American people,” the statement said.

Signing is scheduled for Friday.

A major provision is one that strips “forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.”

“Defunding the abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, marks the greatest pro-life victory since the Dobbs decision. For the first time in history, Congress is halting forced taxpayer funding of Big Abortion in the Medicaid program for one year. This will save lives and strip over $500 million from Big Abortion’s coffers. Combined with last week’s Supreme Court decision empowering states to do the same, this represents tremendous progress toward achieving a decades-long goal that has long proved elusive,” said SBA Pro-Life America chief Marjorie Dannenfelser.

““For decades, Big Abortion has siphoned off billions in tax dollars to prop up a scandal-ridden industry built on abortion and partisan politics. Planned Parenthood alone commits over 400,000 abortions a year while services like cancer screenings continue to plummet — all while pocketing over $2 million every day from taxpayers.”

“The American people should not have to continue subsidizing the abortion industry – and now, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, they won’t be,” said Jennie Bradley Lichter, president of March for Life Action. “We joyfully anticipate President Trump signing this landmark legislation, which ensures that Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars are not being used to prop up an industry whose business model is built on ending human lives, misleading pregnant women into thinking that abortion is their only option, and delivering substandard healthcare that they then charge to the government.

“For years the majority of Americans have said they reject this status quo. Women deserve better – America deserves better – and we thank President Trump, Speaker of the House Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader Thune, as well as all of the other pro-life champions in Congress who brought this bill across the finish line.”

VICTORY: The One Big Beautiful Bill Passes U.S. Congress, Heads to President Trump’s Desk pic.twitter.com/d1nbOlL21G

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 3, 2025

The House of Representatives just officially PASSED the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The largest middle-class tax cut in American history — and so much more — is on its way to President Trump’s desk.

MAGA! pic.twitter.com/V3U8xhenrS

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 3, 2025

Carol Tobias, of National Right to Life, added, “We applaud pro-life members in Congress and pro-life leadership, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, for keeping their promises to the American people and delivering a bill that prevents taxpayer funds from subsidizing the abortion industry. For decades, Americans have made it clear that they do not want their tax dollars funding abortion. Today, Congress delivered.:”

Other organizations and groups had specific comments about how they are affected.

Consumer Energy Alliance President David Holt said, “This legislation unleashes affordable, reliable and cleaner energy for families and small businesses across the country, and gives the U.S. the edge in the global AI race by ensuring that always-on, reliable baseload power like nuclear and natural gas can be developed at speed and scale.

“Critically, this bill ensures offshore lease sales for Gulf of America and Alaska, which were intentionally delayed and drowned in red tape under the Biden Administration. That kept money out of the U.S. Treasury and Gulf States, and impeded the ability for companies to appropriately plan future energy development.”

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said, of the “huge victory, “This legislation addresses many of the legislative priorities that President Trump promised to Americans during his campaign for President. Although the bill is not perfect, as none are, nor does it include several provisions of the original House version, I voted in favor of the largest tax cut in history, ending the Biden-era invasion of our southern border, and reducing wasteful and abusive spending of taxpayer dollars.

“Americans are tired of having a government that they are afraid of, and want a government they can be proud of. This Reconciliation package scales back the size and scope of federal agencies, cuts red-tape, brings more accountability, and cuts fraud, waste, and abuse. This bill is a good start, but Congress still has a lot of work to do; as we must continue to move back to a government that is small in size, limited in scope, and dedicated to preserving the rights and liberties of the American people.

“Last November, voters gave the President and Congress an unprecedented mandate to govern, and to tackle the very challenges that this bill addresses. With this historic legislation, Americans will be keeping more of their hard-earned money and paying less for food and fuel, while enjoying a level of safety not seen in years, as our southern border becomes more secure. With President Trump’s signature, the Big, Beautiful, Bill will usher in the Golden Age of America and put our great country back on the path to prosperity.”

Article III Project founder Mike Davis said, “This is an historic and monumental victory for President Trump—and real Americans in real America. And a major loss for Trump’s opponents and doubters. Trump sealed his standing as one of America’s most consequential presidents. And his second term is just getting started.”

Democrats and other leftists universally blasted it.

“This is a direct attack on the health and well-being of low-income individuals and families,” said Mara Youdelman of the National Health Law Program. “The bill cuts nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid. It will force states to slash eligibility and services, causing individuals to lose coverage and communities to lose the providers they depend on. And all of this is done to fund tax breaks for corporations and the ultrarich.”

Joseph Geevarghese, of Our Revolution, organized originally by leftist Bernie Sanders, claimed, “Republicans have passed the most dangerous legislation of our lifetimes. This bill hands billionaires and corporations a trillion-dollar tax break, paid for by ripping health care from 17 million people, gutting funding for rural hospitals, slashing clean energy investments, and cutting food assistance for millions of children.”

He charged it is the “largest transfer of wealth from working- and middle-class Americans to the ultra-wealthy in our nation’s history.”

The National Nurses United union went to extremes, claiming, “Lawmakers have effectively signed the death warrants for millions today. It will steal money from safety-net community hospitals and reproductive health care clinics, like Planned Parenthood. It will kick people off their health insurance. It will effectively punish people for getting sick or injured, making us all sicker and less healthy.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that lawmakers are “delivering on our promise to make America great again.”

Then the legislators voted 218-214 to adopt Senate changes to President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

It’s a landmark for tax cuts and spending that includes many of Trump’s priorities. The $3.3 trillion measure installs in America budget priorities and spending – or not spending – points adopted by Republicans.

Trump, on social media, said, “The USA is on track to break every record on growth. Go Republicans, beat the Crooked Democrats tonight! Pro-growth tax cuts never fail.”

The nearly 900-page bill, read aloud on demands from Democrats who were trying to delay, and possibly even derail, the plan, extends the president’s 2017 tax cuts and further eliminates taxes on tips and overtime – a marquee promise that the president pledged repeatedly on the campaign trail.

The child tax credit is doubled and Trump’s new plan for $1000 “MAGA account” for new babies is included.

BREAKING – IT’S OFFICIAL: The Big Beautiful Bill has PASSED the House of Representatives

It now heads to President Trump’s desk for tomorrow’s July 4th signing ceremony

CONGRATULATIONS, 47! pic.twitter.com/45gl5JYavP

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 3, 2025

BREAKING: Congress FULLY PASSES President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which will supercharge deportations and launch historic tax cuts.

President Trump supposed to sign it TOMORROW, JULY 4TH.

Talk about a major victory for Trump and MAGA. pic.twitter.com/EnBqoIjjDy

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 3, 2025

The tax cuts alone will cost $4.5 trillion over the next ten years, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office. To offset the massive price tag Republicans included $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, mainly trimming Medicaid.

Lawmakers used a tactic called reconciliation, so the tax and spending bill did not need 60 votes in the Senate, which had approved the plan 51-50 with the tiebreaker from Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday.

The House originally adopted the plan late in May.

The primary component is the permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that would have expired this year.

The plan also exempts pay from overtime and tips from federal income taxes – a fulfillment of one of the Trump’s campaign promises.

According to the Daily Mail, “In addition, the bill allows individuals in high-tax states to deduct up to $40,000 per year for half a decade in state and local taxes (SALT) from their federal taxes – a top priority for conservatives in blue states.”

And, it added, “Border security efforts will also be getting a major cash infusion estimated to be around $150 billion for increased immigration enforcement. It includes $46 billion for Customs and Border Patrol to build border wall and enhanced security measures and around $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Also in the plan is $150 billion for Trump’s “Golden Dome” national defense plan.

Gone are billions of dollars for “green energy” schemes, and cash in federal programs that aided noncitizens.

There also now are work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP plans.

The One Big Beautiful Bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda may not have the devastating impact on the national deficit that some critics claim.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), tasked with providing “objective, nonpartisan information to support the Congressional budget process,” estimated that the Senate version of the GOP’s reconciliation bill would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. The president’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), on the other hand, estimated that the bill could reduce the deficit by $4.5 trillion.

The dramatic discrepancy between the estimates from CBO and the CEA stems largely from differing assumptions about what counts as expected future policy, known as the baseline.

CBO relies on a “current law” baseline, which assumes that key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will expire. In contrast, the Trump administration and some fiscal watchdogs favor a “current policy” baseline, which assumes those tax cuts will be extended, as they often are, and therefore does not treat the extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts as a new cost.

Meanwhile, Democrats and fiscal conservatives in Congress have expressed outrage over the deficit impact projected by CBO, with Sen. Ron Wyden — the top Democrat on the Finance Committee — warning that the reconciliation bill would leave the U.S. “a weaker, sicker and poorer country.”

The fight over the budget baseline came to a head in the Senate, where Democrats tried — and failed — to force the reconciliation bill to be scored under the current law baseline, accusing Republicans of “faking” the math to support their positions. Had the Democrats succeeded, GOP lawmakers would have had to rewrite the tax portion of the bill.

While CBO is statutorily required to use the current law baseline, supporters of the current policy baseline argue that this approach is fundamentally flawed.

“The current policy baseline is a more realistic measure of actual outlays and revenues in the long term because tax cuts typically get extended,” Hayden Dublois, data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “[The current law baseline] assumes that discretionary spending on certain programs will grow even without statutory authority. For instance, they assume Medicare and Social Security will continue at their scheduled levels even when the trust fund balances out and trigger automatic cuts.”

Dublois added that CBO projections should be “taken with a grain of salt” due to its track record of “underestimating the savings from the reforms that reduce the cost of government and underestimating the costs of growing the government.”

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought made a similar argument in a post on X ahead of the bill’s passage in the Senate.

“Remember, those saying that the Senate bill increases deficits are comparing it to a projection where spending is eternal, and tax relief sunsets. That is a Leftist presupposition,” Vought wrote. “This bill reduces deficits over the next ten years, even if you ignore increased revenues from dynamic growth. And importantly, the $1.6 trillion in spending reductions exceeds the bicameral framework agreed to prior to final passage of the budget resolution with Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune.”

Some perspective as we complete Senate passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. The same game is being played by the so-called fiscal watchdogs to mislead the public by not assuming the continuance of current tax law. Remember, those saying that the Senate bill increases deficits…

— Russ Vought (@russvought) July 1, 2025

A spokesperson for CBO declined to comment.

Still, the CEA’s estimates assume that some tax breaks in the bill — such as exemptions for tips and overtime pay — will expire in 2028. Making those breaks permanent would reduce revenues and increase deficits by an additional $1.5 trillion, according to projections from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Beyond baseline disagreements, the White House argues that the CBO is missing the broader impacts of the economic growth that Trump’s policies will create. The CEA estimates that the Big Beautiful Bill will increase the level of Gross Domestic Product by 2.5 % to 2.8%, while CBO projects a much more modest increase of 0.4%.

“Many of the other models focus in on the One Big Beautiful Bill very narrowly and miss that it’s a big part, but only one part, of the overall agenda that obviously worked in the first Trump term and we think will work on an even bigger scale the second term,” a White House official told the DCNF.

The official cited the “cascading effects” from Trump’s energy and trade policies, as well as the administration’s deregulatory efforts, as likely to drive strong growth. The CEA estimates that the reconciliation bill, scored with the current policy baseline and along with the full suite of Trump policies, will ultimately reduce deficits by $8.87 trillion.

CBO has made notable errors in its past assessments of major legislation.

The office initially estimated that former President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act would reduce the deficit by approximately $58.1 billion between 2022 and 2031. However, in its 2024 outlook, the estimate was revised to a $428 billion increase in the cumulative deficit, $224 billion of which they attributed to adjusted projections of the IRA’s electric vehicle tax credits and revenues from gas taxes.

In addition to concerns about its methodology, CBO has faced questions about potential political bias. A recent FGA report found that, of the CBO employees whose voter registration could be identified, 78.9% were Democrats, while only 12.5% were Republicans and 8.6% were independent or unaffiliated.

“I have no confidence that the CBO is going to get it right this time when they’ve gotten it wrong so many times in the past,” Dublois said. “I would trust the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought and CEA over CBO because of its poor track record, not only in estimating static savings of things like Medicaid and food stamps reforms, but also in being perpetually wrong on economic growth assumptions.”

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The House of Representatives passed a rule to bring a massive 10-year budget framework—known as the one big, beautiful bll—to the floor, as Republican leadership attempts to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature by Independence Day.

The bill would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and provide funding for border security and defense.

The rule, which required only a simple majority in the House to pass, passed 219-213. Multiple Republicans initially voted no, but later switched their votes to a yes.

“Largest Tax Cuts in History and a Booming Economy vs. Biggest Tax Increase in History, and a Failed Economy. What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove??? MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” Trump added in another post.

The Republican whip team managed to flip every Republican voting against the rule to a “yea” except for one.

Reps. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Keith Self of Texas, and Andrew Clyde of Georgia all changed their vote.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., however, who represents a swing-district in the Philadelphia suburbs, was unmovable and voted no.

Additionally leadership got every absent lawmaker to return and allow the legislation to proceed—an impressive feat given many of these members’ previous insistence on pushing back the vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., decided to bring the bill to the floor a day after its passage in the Senate despite sharp criticism of it from House fiscal hawks, who argued that it must be amended in order to address Senate changes they saw as backsliding from conservative priorities.

Centrist Republicans were also a worry, as Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., had already threatened to vote against any Senate-designed bill that more aggressively restructured Medicaid than the House’s framework.

The vote followed an entire day of congressional gridlock.

Earlier Wednesday, it came to light that the House Rules Committee made an error in drafting a rule to bring the bill to the floor.

Members of the Rules Committee neglected “to order the previous question” and restrict “intervening motions.”

 More simply put, that means that if Republicans did not end up having the necessary votes when deciding on final passage, they would not be able to delay the vote.

As House Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., explained Wednesday, that means the GOP leadership would not “have an escape hatch if they start it and realize they don’t have the votes.”

This vote stayed open from 2:15 to 9:30 PM, when it was ultimately passed unanimously by Republicans—making it the longest recorded House vote ever.

It was a day of uncertainty, as the House Freedom Caucus circulated a memo alleging that the Senate’s version of the bill “gutted House spending cuts and added new spending to the tune of more than $400 billion.”

While the vote remained open, House leadership and White House staff spoke with House Freedom Caucus members who criticized the Senate’s version of the bill for its higher projected deficit levels.

Shortly after 8 P.M. Eastern, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told reporters that he and his fellow Freedom Caucus members would not be voting on a rule that night. Norman ultimately voted “yes” on the rule.

“We’re advising not to put the rule vote up tonight,” he said. “Don’t keep the staff there… Freedom Caucus isn’t going to vote tonight.”

But shortly afterwards, Trump took to the social media platform X and called for a vote on the bill Wednesday night.

“It looks like the House is ready to vote tonight,” he said. “We had GREAT conversations all day, and the Republican House Majority is UNITED, for the Good of our Country, delivering the Biggest Tax Cuts in History and MASSIVE Growth.”

In an apparent attempt to call the holdouts’ bluff, leadership called the 9:30 vote on the rule.

Watching as some Republicans initially voted against the rule, before several of them changing their vote, Vice President JD Vance wrote on X, “The Big Beautiful Bill gives the president the resources and the power to undo the Biden border invasion. It must pass.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who voted down the bill in the Senate, threw fuel on the fire by saying he would welcome a more fiscally conservative bill from the House.

“Spoke today with House Conservatives, encouraging them to add ‘real savings’ to Big Not So Beautiful Bill. Reaffirmed that I can vote to allow a larger increase in debt ceiling if House attaches immediate REAL spending cuts,” he wrote on X.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

As we prepare to celebrate our nation’s 249th birthday, a good question to ask ourselves is, “Are we really an independent nation in the vision of our Founding Fathers?” Considering that we imported $1.2 trillion worth of goods from other countries more than we exported last year, the answer is unfortunately a solid “no.” We depend heavily on other nations like China for many of our wants and needs.

In light of this fact, there is another question to ask ourselves, and that is, “What can we do to become a more independent nation?” The answer is two-fold. First, we need to buy American whenever possible and practical, and second, we need to support common-sense trade policies like the ones enacted by President Donald J. Trump.

The “Buy American” answer requires the most action, and the good news is that it is easier to do than most people think. And it doesn’t always mean spending more money if you know where to look. For example, only 3 percent of the clothing we buy in America is made in America. But if we arm ourselves with the information to know where to find that 3 percent, we are going to be able to vote with our dollars in the right way. As citizens, we vote in elections once every two or four years. But as consumers, we vote with our wallets or pocketbooks every single day.

But what does it mean to truly buy American? First, it does not mean simply buying a product that is labeled “Made in the USA.” If it did, we would all be satisfied we were buying American if we bought American-made Black Cat fireworks for our July 4th celebrations. Black Cat is owned by Hong Kong-based Li & Fung Limited. Hong Kong, of course, is controlled by China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has severely limited rights there in the areas of free speech and freedom of assembly, as well as political and religious expression. Few people would say we were buying American by purchasing an American-made product owned by a Chinese (or any other foreign-based) company.

Some Black Cat fireworks are assembled in the USA, but the point is, even if we buy products made in or assembled in the USA, we are often still sending our dollars to China and are therefore becoming more interdependent. Our country has a Declaration of Independence, not a declaration of interdependence. Our U.S. Constitution says we are to form a more perfect Union. It does not suggest that we strive to form a more perfect global economy.

The true definition of buying American, in the purest sense of the term, is buying an American-made product from an American-owned company with a high domestic parts content within those products.

Your grocery store is a great place to start buying American. These may be small-ticket items, but since we visit the grocery store frequently, we spend more of our money there than elsewhere on big-ticket items like appliances. Fortunately, many grocery store products are made, canned, or processed in the U.S. The only difference is often the ownership of the company.

Here are a few quick examples:

All brands listed above make many of their products in the USA. Patronizing American-made products helps keep manufacturing and assembly jobs in America, but buying American (owned, made, parts content) products is better. Patronizing the foreign brands above still sends dollars out of the country and rewards foreign owners, foreign investors, and foreign stockholders, who pay taxes to foreign treasuries – not the U.S. Treasury. Only by buying American-owned brands made in the USA can we keep jobs, profits, and tax revenue within our national borders.

We have a vast national debt and will need a lot of revenue to pay it down and keep our country solvent. When we buy an American-owned company’s product (even ones that are made elsewhere) the profits come to or stay in America, and the taxes on those profits are paid to the U.S. Treasury. Alexander Hamilton warned us through his writings in the Federalist Papers that A nation cannot long exist without revenue.

Manufacturing jobs make up about 10 percent of our workforce. The other 90 percent are in positions like engineering, design, research and development (R&D), testing, administration, finance, and advertising. When we buy from an American-owned company, these other jobs will likely be in America.

Although assembled overseas (just like every other cell phone), my iPhone is engineered and designed in the USA. Components like the glass display and audio chips are sourced in America.

You might have seen media reports claiming it would be nearly impossible for Apple to afford to make their phones in the USA without raising prices, but that is not true. I bought a Motorola Moto X phone made in Texas several years ago, and the cost was similar to other cell phones on the market. Despite expectations, Motorola did not command a significant market share and could not take advantage of greater economies of scale (more production results in a lower cost per unit produced). Motorola sold the factory to Chinese-owned Lenovo, which closed the factory in 2014 – yet another example of why we should emphasize supporting American-owned companies.

If a company with the market share of Apple were to produce cell phones in America, it could be profitable at existing prices due to its high sales volume.

Over three-quarters of economic activity is based on consumer spending. Americans can only be as affluent as consumers as they are wage-earners. Consumers must have money in their pockets to be able to spend and keep our economic prosperity going.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, each manufacturing job creates an average of 7.4 other U.S. jobs. Manufacturing jobs in the United States are also high-wage jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average annual wage for a manufacturing employee is $103,000.

It is a complete fallacy that producing in cheaper labor countries will result in lower prices for U.S. consumers. The auto industry provides the evidence. Until 2021, Toyota made its Tacoma truck in the U.S. and Mexico. Did the Mexican-made Tacoma cost less than the U.S.-made version on the dealer lot? Of course not.

We should not be emphasizing the supposed need for products from cheap labor countries. Republican President William McKinley had a few things to say about the word “cheap:”

I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a badge of honor. It is a
symbol of despair. Cheap prices make for cheap goods; cheap goods
make for cheap men; and cheap men make for a cheap country.

We should, therefore, emphasize founding national values like independence, self-sufficiency, and self-reliance. In many cases, trade with foreign countries is simply not necessary.

President Abraham Lincoln once said, I…would continue (trade) where it is necessary, and discontinue it, where it is not. As instance: I would continue commerce so far as it is employed in bringing us coffee, and I would discontinue it so far as it is employed in bringing us cotton goods.

Note that our sixteenth president did not say to avoid trade where it is not necessary. He said to discontinue it.

Free trade and globalization are not only unconstitutional (the term “free trade” is not mentioned in any founding national document), it is also detrimental to our economy. For example, we lost 845,000 American jobs due to the original NAFTA from 1993 to 2014. And after China joined the WTO, we lost another 3.7 million jobs between 2001 and 2018.

American consumers may think they’re saving money on price by buying products made in China and elsewhere, but the true “cost” to our economy is not worth it. Only American workers pay taxes to America. Workers in China and other countries do not pay taxes to America and do nothing, as President William McKinley put it, to contribute to the support, the progress, and the glory of the nation.

We have to be able to pay for the things that “We the People” have demanded from the use of our tax dollars. At least three-quarters of all federal spending goes to Social Security, Medicare, national defense, education, farm subsidies, highways, parks, roads & bridges, and interest payments on the debt. Polls show most Americans do not necessarily favor more government spending but strongly back these programs. This list does not include funding for Medicaid, our military, or public hospitals and libraries.

We cannot buy products made by workers in foreign countries and still expect to fund and benefit from these taxpayer-funded initiatives.

The best way to obtain revenue through our consumer purchases is to buy American-made products from American-owned companies, since American-owned companies pay up to twice as many taxes to America as foreign-owned companies.

The U.S. consumer has the power to steer the global economy in a direction that best benefits America. Knowing how to find and buy American products is the only thing preventing us from doing that. Once we know how to do that, we will possess the power to truly unleash American prosperity with the consumer dollars we are already spending.

Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy said on Tuesday that he cannot currently vote in favor of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Roy stated in a clip obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation on “I’m Right with Jesse Kelly” that the current version of the legislation is continuing to raise the deficit, fund Medicare for illegal immigrants, hand over taxpayer dollars to fund sex changes for children and restrict Planned Parenthood for a year. The congressman, a member of the House Rules Committee, said that himself and many other Republicans are willing to vote against the bill in its current form.

“The swamp is gonna swamp. And if the administration isn’t willing to lean on everybody and say ‘end this craziness,’ then why am I on the hook to vote for a bill just so I can get some tax cuts and border, which is what I want, but I don’t want all the spending,” Roy said. “Here we are.”

WATCH:

The Senate narrowly passed the legislation in a 51-50 vote, with Vice President J.D. Vance breaking the tie. Roy stated that the legislation will likely not pass the House of Representatives without making significant changes.

“I think there’s a significant number of House Republicans who do not believe that they can vote for this bill. I currently am one of those,” Roy said. “I’m reading the bill, I’m looking at the bill while we’re sitting there and trying to see what the changes are. I’m always open to see if there’s something that I’m missing or don’t understand. But, I look at the bill and I say ‘does it increase deficits?’ Will we issue more bonds and more debts as a result of this bill? I think we will.”

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine all voted against Trump’s legislation. Tillis announced his retirement just hours after Trump threatened to back a potential primary challenger as a result of his opposition to the bill.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on May 22 that Trump plans to challenge Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio for voting against the original version of the bill in June.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a massive document calling for changes to implement some of his agenda items, was approved in the U.S. Senate when Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaker in the 51-50 vote.

And while it addressed the spending, or cutting, of hundreds of billions of dollars of Americans’ tax dollars, there’s one key inclusion that is disrupting the longstanding Democrat agenda to fund abortions.

That issue was one of the key planks of Joe Biden’s tenure on the White House, as he promoted abortion for all, anyway, anytime, all around the globe.

BREAKING: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill has officially PASSED the U.S. Senate, with JD Vance breaking the tie

It now heads back to the House for a vote on the changes made.

It COULD still hit Trump’s desk by July 4th. pic.twitter.com/qszGm5sAt3

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 1, 2025

But the new plan contains a provision to cut off federal tax funding for abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood.

National Right to Life praised the move, which would block tax dollars from going to corporations that do or promote abortion.

“This vote is a monumental step forward for unborn children and their mothers. We thank every pro-life senator who stood firm in defense of innocent human life and voted to direct federal tax dollars away from the abortion industry,” said Carol Tobias, president.

“We are especially grateful to Senate leadership for ensuring this life-saving provision remained intact throughout the legislative process. We thank Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Majority Whip John Barrasso and Chief Deputy Whip Mike Crapo for their leadership on this issue. Their resolve reflects the will of millions of Americans who do not want their hard-earned tax dollars used to subsidize the abortion industry. Women deserve compassionate care that supports both mother and child. This bill is a strong affirmation that we can and must build a culture that supports mother and child and rejects abortion.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, chief of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, added, “Today, Congress took a major step toward ending the forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry — a crucial victory in the fight against abortion, America’s leading cause of death, and an industry that endangers women and girls.

“Women deserve real health care options like community health centers that outnumber Planned Parenthood 15 to 1 and provide far more comprehensive, life-affirming care. There’s no justification for forcing taxpayers to bankroll a scandal-ridden industry that prioritizes abortion, gender transitions, and partisan politics over prenatal care, cancer screenings, and other legitimate services, which continue to decline.”

The Supreme Court ruled last week that states are also allowed to defund the abortion industry players.

Congressional Republicans say the plan actually reduces the deficit, despite Democrat complaints, because it’s based on extending current policy, and the White House says economic growth will offset expenses.

The core of the plan extends and makes permanent the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from Trump’s first term. If those are not continued, Americans will see massive tax bills exploding in size starting next year.

Included are limited provisions for tax exemptions for tipped income and auto loan interest, as well as a $6,000 deduction for seniors over the age of 65, part of the effort to end taxes on Social Security benefits.

The plan includes nearly $200 billion to beef up illegal immigration enforcement that has been a major focus of the Trump administration, as well as funding for more border wall, immigration detention centers and surveillance tech.

The bill also strips from non-citizens most benefits from the government, such as Medicaid and food stamps.

And it calls for work requirements for childless, able-bodied adults, in order to obtain benefits.

BREAKING: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill has officially PASSED the U.S. Senate, with JD Vance breaking the tie

It now heads back to the House for a vote on the changes made.

It COULD still hit Trump’s desk by July 4th. pic.twitter.com/qszGm5sAt3

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 1, 2025

It often begins with a last-minute calendar invite – mandatory, with no explanation.

For many workers in the tech industry, this has become a familiar signal. As the video meeting starts, hundreds of employees log in silently. Soon, human resources and legal representatives appear. The message is read. The decision is final.

Employees are informed their positions are being eliminated.

There is no opportunity for dialogue. Years of service are sometimes brought to an end in just a few minutes.

Many of these employees had stayed late, worked weekends, mentored new team members and remained committed through difficult cycles. The meeting typically ends with a bland, impersonal, standard statement of appreciation.

Executives often describe these actions as necessary for business reasons, with public statements citing over-hiring, inflation, economic uncertainty or the need for cost control. Workers are told the decision is not personal – just business.

Still, for those impacted, the effects are significant. Many support families, carry student loans or are primary earners in their households. They return to a job market where opportunities are limited, especially when layoffs affect entire departments or industries at once.

What many laid-off employees don’t realize is that the roles they once held may not have been permanently eliminated. Instead, those positions are sometimes quietly reassigned, reclassified or reopened, often without notice or transparency.

The reassignment pattern: Layoffs followed by visa hiring

While U.S.-based Microsoft workers have faced multiple waves of layoffs, including a new round expected this week targeting the Xbox division, the company has already cut over 10,000 employees across various divisions, including 6,000 in May alone, and hundreds more in June. In its defense, Microsoft claims its 2025 job cuts affect less than 1% of its global workforce.

Between May and June, Microsoft laid off 2,300 employees in Washington alone, including 817 software engineers, according to official WARN Act filings. But during the same period, Microsoft submitted 6,327 H-1B visa requests for software engineer roles matching the same job titles and location as those affected by the layoffs.

In total, the company filed 14,181 Labor Condition Applications, or LCAs – formal applications required to sponsor foreign workers for temporary employment visas, such as the H-1B – allowing them to work in U.S.-based jobs that are typically held by American workers. This made Microsoft the third-largest filer of foreign labor requests in the U.S., behind only NVIDIA and Amazon.

According to U.S. Department of Labor data, nearly 82% of Microsoft’s new foreign workers were tagged at wage levels well below the median salary for those occupations. Howard University professor Ron Hira, a long-time critic of the program, observed that employers frequently pay the minimum they legally have to when utilizing the foreign guest worker program.

“Prevailing wages are set far below the market price, inviting employers to exploit the program. The result is that most of the roughly 600,000 H-1B workers are paid below market price. This is an unfair outcome for U.S. and H-1B workers alike: U.S. workers’ wages are undercut and H-1B workers are underpaid.”

Hira, author of “Outsourcing America,” co-authored an article documenting why “H-1B wage rules need an overhaul.”

In addition to undercutting wages or laying off Americans to bring in more foreign workers, current U.S. law does not require companies to prove they tried to hire Americans first. They also aren’t obligated to notify laid-off employees if the same jobs are reopened through visa programs. Yet these practices are completely legal under existing immigration rules and occur with little oversight, no transparency and no protection for American workers.

Strategic shifts

The bottom line is that behind every announcement of “strategic realignment” is an American now facing uncertain days ahead, and often with no clear path back. For the American employees on the receiving end of layoff notices, the impact is deeply personal. They’re not just losing a paycheck, they’re losing healthcare, retirement contributions and a sense of security. That’s why Microsoft’s actions, while legal, remain anything but transparent. Most employees aren’t told similar jobs are being filled through H-1B visa requests. For those still employed, the silence only adds to their anxiety. With little information about how decisions are made or who might be next, many are left quietly wondering if they’re just one reorg away from losing everything too.

Alongside its growing number of foreign labor filings, Microsoft has continued to expand operations overseas, especially in India. In January 2025, the company announced a $3 billion investment into India’s AI and cloud infrastructure over the next two years, alongside a plan to train 10 million Indian workers in AI-related skills by 2030.

While Microsoft has laid off thousands of employees in the United States, the country where the company was founded and still earns the majority of its revenue, executives offered a different message abroad. In January 2025, the company confirmed that no layoffs were planned in India. “For all of India, more jobs are being created,” said Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, during a January 2025 interview.

As Microsoft expands its commitments to the Indian government and workforce, its 14,181 H-1B visa requests reflect deepening ties with India-based firms. Notably, every single application was filed through Integreon Managed Solutions (INDIA) PVT LTD. This raises serious questions about how many of these roles are being reserved for Indian nationals, especially as American employees are laid off. With little transparency, it becomes increasingly difficult for U.S.-based workers to know whether their jobs are being relocated overseas or quietly filled at the very desks they once occupied.

A shifting workforce

These trends point to a larger shift in how companies like Microsoft manage their workforce. As layoffs hit U.S.-based employees, the company continues to scale up international hiring, infrastructure and talent development, especially in India. At the same time, the number of H-1B visa filings for foreign workers continues to grow, often for roles very similar to those recently cut in the U.S.

All of this remains legal under existing U.S. labor and immigration policies. There are no requirements to prioritize American workers, no obligations to disclose when jobs are offshored and no systems in place to alert laid-off employees that similar roles may be refilled by cheaper foreign workers.

For those affected, the result is a widening gap between where tech jobs are created and where they are lost, between American workers being displaced and foreign labor pipelines quietly expanding. What remains to be seen is whether this pattern will continue unchecked, or if policymakers and the public will reevaluate what it means to protect domestic opportunity in a global economy where American companies are increasingly driven by cost-cutting at any price, quiet partnerships and the abandonment of loyalty to their own countrymen.

Follow WND for breaking exclusives, evidence-based investigations and updates on America First immigration news that the mainstream media won’t touch. You can follow us on X @Worldnetdaily/a>, sign up for our weekly newsletter and visit WND.com for the latest reports, whistleblower stories and ways you can take action. Let’s keep America first – always!

JUST IN: President Trump sends a SCATHING letter to Jerome Powell, in typical Trump style

It highlights all the countries who have interest rates lower than ours

“You are as usual TOO LATE! You have cost the USA a fortune and continue to do so. You should lower the rate by a… pic.twitter.com/x5jY2DCKBp

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 30, 2025

WATCH: Karoline Leavitt holds news briefing as Republicans push to pass Trump’s budget bill

President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was ending trade negotiations with Canada over a new digital services tax imposed by America’s northern neighbor has brought results: The suspension of that tax.

According to an announcement from the Department of Finance Canada, those negotiations had been underway.

“To support those negotiations, the minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” a government statement confirmed.

“Consistent with this action, Prime Minister Carney and President Trump have agreed that parties will resume negotiations with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21, 2025.”

Canada’s statement said, “The DST was announced in 2020 to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians. Canada’s preference has always been a multilateral agreement related to digital services taxation. While Canada was working with international partners, including the United States, on a multilateral agreement that would replace national digital services taxes, the DST was enacted to address the aforementioned taxation gap.”

“In our negotiations on a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States, Canada’s new government will always be guided by the overall contribution of any possible agreement to the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses. Today’s announcement will support a resumption of negotiations toward the July 21, 2025, timeline set out at this month’s G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis,” said Mark Carney, the prime minister.

Government of Canada rescinds digital services tax to advance broader trade negotiations with the United States.

https://t.co/dTb9YDDA7u pic.twitter.com/mdFSMKma6L

— Finance Canada (@FinanceCanada) June 30, 2025

BREAKING: Canada has RESCINDED their digital service tax on Americans in an effort to resume trade talks with President Trump, per Bloomberg

President Trump wins AGAIN pic.twitter.com/jKHKBOjW5V

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 30, 2025

WND had reported only days ago that Trump had halted those negotiations and said a new tariff for Canada would be imposed because of the DST.

.

BREAKING: Trump has just said Canada is about to be slapped with increased tariffs after he learned they’re imposing a new Digital Services Tax on the U.S.

He also CANCELED all ongoing trade talks with Canada. pic.twitter.com/zlRkKULhta

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 27, 2025

“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country,” Trump said at the time on social media. “They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”

Republican Texas Rep. Brandon Gill introduced legislation Thursday that calls for the elimination of a Biden-era office dedicated to green energy projects known as the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED).

The OCED Elimination Act would dissolve the federal office, which is under the Department of Energy (DOE) and initially established under a section of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IJJA), according to the bill text. OCED was Congressionally chartered in 2021 during former President Joe Biden’s tenure and awarded $25 billion to develop green energy projects in line with Biden’s focus on the fight against climate change.

“President Trump has called for an end to the Green New Scam and the globalist climate agenda that has thrived for the past four years under Democrat rule. Now, in the Golden Age, we are unleashing American energy production,” Gill told the DCNF. “OCED is a wasteful, ineffective office that has squandered billions, which is why I’m introducing legislation that would permanently shut it down.”

DOE Secretary Chris Wright announced the termination of 24 awards issued by OCED in May, which amounted to $3.7 billion in taxpayer savings. The cuts were in line with President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut down on costs that burden the American taxpayer, according to Wright.

OCED’s dedication to green energy projects does include advanced nuclear reactors, which President Donald Trump and DOE have championed. However, most of the funds OCED has doled out have gone to hydrogen hubs and carbon capture projects, according to its website.

Those projects and initiatives reflected the sprawling climate agenda of Biden and the Democrats, which Gill and Trump have slammed as a costly “green new scam.”

The legislation calls for the repeal of section 41201 of the Biden-era IIJA, the provision that pertains to OCED.

Trump campaigned against this climate agenda and declared a national energy emergency that promotes conventional energy production upon returning to the Oval Office in January. Since then, Trump has also signed numerous executive orders to clear the path for affordable and reliable energy technology such as nuclear and coal to thrive in the private sector.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

A new tariff is being announced by the White House for Canada.

President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday, “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The move comes after the creation of a digital services tax by Canada on American tech companies.

BREAKING: Trump has just said Canada is about to be slapped with increased tariffs after he learned they’re imposing a new Digital Services Tax on the U.S.

He also CANCELED all ongoing trade talks with Canada. pic.twitter.com/zlRkKULhta

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 27, 2025

A report from the Washington Examiner notes that Trump confirmed he was cutting of trade negotiations with Canada and instituting a new tariff immediately.

“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country,” Trump said on social media.

“They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”

The tariff announcement will be made within a week, he said.

Trump flamboyantly has suggested annexing Canada as the 51st state, and got into a push-and-shove with America’s northern neighbor earlier by announcing a 25% tariff.

Trump later adjusted those tariffs to mostly 10%.

And announcement said at the time, “President Trump will not allow our national security to be compromised by our closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, but recognizes the unique impact that these tariffs could have on American automotive manufacturers.”

The White House said Trump was using tariffs “as a tool to take decisive actions that put Americans’ safety and our national security first.”

He earlier had imposed tariffs to secure the border and stop the flow of dangerous drugs through Canada into the U.S.

Iran is reportedly weighing blocking a key commercial choke point known as the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could drive up energy costs in the U.S. and across the globe, according to energy sector experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Israel began to bombard Iran to eliminate the Islamic Republic’s ability to build a nuclear weapon on June 13, and the U.S. carried out “Operation Midnight Hammer” on Saturday night, bombing three of Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Iran’s parliament has reportedly voted to close the Strait of Hormuz in a retaliatory move to choke the world’s oil supply in response to the American strikes, the U.S. is well-positioned to combat the inevitable energy cost spike that would follow if Iran succeeds, sector experts told the DCNF.

“The escalating conflict between Iran and Israel is already putting upward pressure on oil and natural gas prices—and that pressure will intensify if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked,” Trisha Curtis, an economist at the American Energy Institute, told the DCNF. “This kind of disruption would send global prices higher and tighten supply chains. Fortunately, the U.S. is well-positioned to respond — our domestic production strength and growing export infrastructure make American oil and natural gas increasingly indispensable to global markets.”

Iran does not have the legal authority to halt traffic through the strait, meaning it would need to usurp control through force or the threat of force, according to legal scholars and multiple reports. The Iranian parliament’s reported move to block the Strait on Sunday awaits final approval by Iran’s Supreme Council, according to Iran’s Press TV.

The Strait is only 35 to 60 miles wide and connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, flowing past Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The thoroughfare is vital for global trade, as tankers carried one fifth of the world’s oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz in 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Roughly 20 million barrels of oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis, Curtis noted. Some liquified natural gas (LNG) exports would also be blocked if the Strait of Hormuz were closed, she said.

Iran has reportedly been warning that it could close the strait for weeks, with one Iranian lawmaker and a member of the parliament’s National Security Committee presidium both quoted as saying that Iran could respond to enemy attacks by disturbing the West’s oil supply. Maritime agencies and the U.K. Navy have advised ships to avoid the Strait in recent weeks, given the potential threat.

Other energy experts pointed to how the Russia-Ukraine war led to a worldwide spike in energy costs.

A plan is being developed by a Senate advocate for the Department of Government Efficiency to sell off multiple federal buildings in Washington, D.C., worth an estimated $500 million.

The buildings are underutilized now, and they just are costing taxpayers a pile of money to keep open and maintained.

The new “For Sale Ace” targets six buildings, including the James Forrestal Federal Building that holds the Department of Energy.

Workers still occupying offices in those buildings will be relocated.

It’s part of the DOGE campaign to address the nation’s $36 trillion national debt.

The Forrestal Federal Building, known also as the “Little Pentagon,” and other buildings were listed following reports from the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accountability Office about the millions of dollars in costs in keeping and maintaining buildings where only a few of the offices are occupied.

Across the nation, maintenance for federal buildings costs more than $10 billion a year and ridding the government of some of them offers considerable cast savings.

A report at Fox News explained Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, points out in her planning that no layoffs would be part of the sales, as the workers would move.

Also on the list would be outbuildings for the Agriculture Department, one of which is at 25% capacity and needs nearly $2 billion in upgrades.

The Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. building also is listed. It houses the Department of Health and Human Services. Also the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Theodore Roosevelt Building and Frances Perkins Federal Building.

The report notes that safeguards have been written into the legislation so that no unfriendly entities, like China, would be allowed to purchase. Nor would any group in which a foreign national is a “beneficial owner.”

The OMB previously reported that taxpayers are charged $81 million to maintain underused federal offices.

“About 7,700 federal office spaces are vacant and 2,200 are majority-empty, according to a Congressional Research Service report,” Fox reported.

DOGE already has addressed the sale of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, with 1.2 million square feet of offices and only 72 people.