Daily News Brief

July 7, 2025

Welcome to CFR’s Daily News Brief. Today we’re covering how the newly passed U.S. spending package affects foreign policy, as well as...

• The BRICS summit in Brazil
• A new timeline for U.S. tariffs
• Israel’s Netanyahu at the White House

Top of the Agenda

Legislation newly signed by U.S. President Donald Trump overhauls U.S. policy on alternative energy and vastly expands resources for immigration enforcement. Trump signed the flagship legislative package into law on Friday after the bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives Thursday, with all but two Republican members supporting it. Funding for tax cuts and the boost in immigration spending will come in part from slashing spending on clean energy and programs such as Medicaid.

Energy policy U-turn. The legislation undoes many funding streams designed to make the United States more competitive in the global energy transition; the bill’s proponents celebrated new steps to bolster the U.S. position as the world’s top producer of oil and gas. Many tax credits were slashed for wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects as well as for electric cars. They were maintained for nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal projects that begin construction by 2033. Reduced subsidies could lead more U.S. solar companies to buy cheaper components from China, an industry association director said, though manufacturers of any kind will be eligible for new tax credits for building facilities in the United States.

Immigration funding. The legislation doubles down on a restrictive approach to immigration that has been a hallmark of Trump’s foreign policy, from bilateral relations to tariffs. It allocates more than $100 billion by September 2029 to border enforcement and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), tripling federal funding for immigrant detention centers. 

Deficit implications. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would add around $3.3 trillion to U.S. deficits by 2040, and opposition by Republican deficit hawks threatened the bill’s passage. Its backers argued that it would spur enough economic growth to pay for itself through new tax revenue.

“No doubt that energy innovation policy in the last four years could have been better focused, but it’s tragic that we will have to wait—probably for years—to rebuild the capacity that is currently being dismantled. It’s a loss to the world as well as to the nation.” 

—CFR expert David M. Hart

Market Effects Since ‘Liberation Day’

Jeenah Moon/Reuters

The fragility of American exceptionalism is just one lesson to be learned from financial markets’ response to Trump’s April 2 tariff announcements, CFR expert Rebecca Patterson writes in this article.

U.S. tariff deadline. Tariffs on goods from countries that do not reach new bilateral trade deals in the coming weeks will jump on August 1 to levels originally announced on April 2, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday. Trump said he would begin notifying countries today of their new tariff rates via letters.

BRICS summit. Trump threatened an additional 10 percent tariff on countries aligned with BRICS policies as leaders from the group met in Rio de Janeiro. Hours earlier, a joint statement from the summit had condemned recent bombings of Iran and called for a more open global trade regime. It also announced plans to issue loan guarantees via its development bank that would aim to speed investment in member countries. 

Netanyahu in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with Trump at the White House today. The visit comes amid talks over a potential Gaza truce and after Israel said it bombed Houthi-held ports in Yemen overnight into this morning. Israel said the ports were used to receive weapons from Iran and that it was broadly responding to Houthi attacks on Israel. Two missiles were launched from Yemen at Israel afterward. 

Suriname’s new leader. The country’s parliament elected Jennifer Geerlings-Simons as Suriname’s first female president yesterday. Her party had narrowly won the most seats in a May parliamentary election and then made a coalition with smaller parties to elect her. She pledged to make revenue from the country’s anticipated oil boom “available to all.”

Syria-UK ties. The United Kingdom (UK) restored full diplomatic ties with Syria during a visit to Damascus by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy over the weekend. Lammy said a stable Syria would reduce irregular migration, ensure chemical weapons were destroyed, and help tackle the threat of terrorism. He also pledged $129 million in humanitarian and economic development support.

Green climate fund. A multilateral climate fund backed by the United Nations approved its largest-ever financing package in a single board meeting despite the U.S. withdrawal of a $4 billion pledge. The fund endorsed more than $1.2 billion for new projects across small island developing states and African countries, among others. 

China-EU restrictions. China will bar companies based in the European Union (EU) from bidding on government contracts for some medical devices, Beijing announced yesterday. The EU issued a similar ban for Chinese firms last month. Chinese sales of medical devices to EU countries more than doubled from 2015 to 2023, according to the European Commission.

OPEC+ output hike. The alliance of oil-producing countries announced plans to increase their global production in August by 548,000 barrels a day, a greater spike in output than in the past three months combined. In the last few months, the real amount of oil hitting the market from OPEC+ countries has been lower than the announced quotas. Saudi Arabia also said it will increase the August price of its flagship crude oil by $1 a barrel for Asian buyers, suggesting it is confident in demand.

A New Era of Kinetic Counterproliferation

Maxar Technologies/Reuters

Recent strikes on Iran have shifted global nonproliferation efforts from a focus on arms control agreements and inspections to include kinetic actions prompted by national intelligence communities, CFR expert Ray Takeyh says in this YouTube Short.

• Today, finance ministers of euro countries meet in Brussels.
• Today, Caribbean Community Heads of Government continue their meeting in Jamaica.
• Tomorrow, an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers meeting begins in Kuala Lumpur.

Trade Barriers Remain Despite Trump’s Tariffs

Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

Trump’s tariffs have done little to reduce foreign barriers and create “fair and reciprocal” trade, CFR expert Edward Alden writes in this article.

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