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Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Sam Fenwick. Coming up today, President Trump's massive budget bill is moving toward a final vote in the US House of Representatives.
We'll have the latest. A new UN forum aims to bring hope to global South nations burdened with massive debt.
We've got close to half the continent that is experiencing a debt crisis with countries allocating more to debt servicing than they are things like education, health, water and sanitation.
Also today, could Elon Musk's Starlink revive Lebanon's crumbling telecom sector?
So it's something really familiar in Lebanon to have no electricity.
So this makes accessing the internet much harder.
But first today, the US President Donald Trump's huge budget bill is heading for a final vote in the US House of Representatives.
Mr Trump has dubbed it the Big Beautiful Bill.
but the plan has faced delays in Congress over concerns that it will balloon the national debt and lead to cuts or underfunding in key areas like health care.
The two main political parties in the United States have very different opinions about the bill.
In a moment, we'll hear from Democrat Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who opposes it.
But first, let's hear from Republican Congressman Jody Arrington from Texas.
This bill creates the right incentives for historic economic growth, makes unprecedented investments in our military and border security, and implements the largest spending reduction in American history by twofold.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to Donald Trump's one big ugly bill, this disgusting abomination, the GOP tax scam that guts Medicaid, Medicaid rips food from the mouths of children, seniors and veterans and rewards billionaires with massive tax breaks.
Well, let's get the latest on this with Erin Dalmore.
She's the BBC's North America business correspondent.
We heard a clip from Hacking Jeffries, the Democrat congressman.
I can see on my screen here he is still talking.
He's been going for five hours, hasn't he, Erin?
and he is in his fifth hour.
I think the record for anyone speaking is about eight and a half hours.
But this Democrat is kind of standing in the way, isn't he, of the voting getting going?
You know, Hakeem Jeffries is afforded an opportunity to speak on the House floor at this moment.
And he has said, quote, I will take my sweet time.
And that was in reaction to something Speaker Mike Johnson had said about how the House is excited to pass the bill if if Jeffries would stop talking.
This is not quite so unusual.
I mean, we do tend to see this on Capitol Hill, especially when you consider the position that the opposition, in this case, the Democrats find themselves in with a lot of the Republican holdouts crossing the line and saying that they will vote for this bill.
You know, President Trump has exerted pressure on them, as have other parts of the Republican caucus.
And so I'm sure Democrats like Jeffries feel like this This is a last tool that can be used to voice opposition to a very significant bill.
And so Donald Trump has been on social media on his Truth Social site overnight talking about how it was a great night because politicians were up all night debating this, weren't they?
I'm just having a look at it now.
He is saying like 10 hours ago that this is the largest tax cuts in history and that it's going to build growth and be really positive.
But the Democrats, not so sure.
But also members of his party, not so sure.
Yeah. And it's for a few reasons.
You know, when we talk about the deficit that is estimated to increase dramatically over the next 10 years and the U .S. deficit is already extremely high.
And that's something that Republican hardliners have long opposed.
I mean, for decades at this point.
But it's something that they're willing to get over in this case and vote for the bill regardless.
You know, there are some other issues here where economists have estimated that this will end up in a transfer of wealth from the lowest income Americans who will see their food assistance and their health care benefits curtailed while bigger tax breaks will be granted to wealthier individuals in the U .S. And so there are questions here about sustainability of some very basic life needs, health care needs for the lowest income Americans.
And remember that people in Congress represent districts, right?
The president represents the United States as a whole.
Senators represent states and the House of Representatives are much closer to their constituents within municipalities or towns or counties.
And so they are often the most receptive to pressure from individuals.
And, you know, entitlement programs like Medicaid do prove popular among people who use them.
And just very briefly, Erin, when he does eventually stop speaking, how long will the actual vote take?
Do we know that? It usually takes a little while.
I mean, you're looking at, I don't know, maybe upwards of 10, 20, 30 minutes, something like that.
Basically, everybody needs to be called.
And the parliamentarian is, you know, taking account.
And there is a lot of pomp and circumstance around it.
usually what we do if we're not in Washington in the chamber ourselves is queue it up on the network that shows the floor camera and we watch the votes just tick up one by one.
It's a literal tally on the screen that you can watch. I will mention to you, though, that part of why they were up all night last night is because they were aiming to persuade holdouts.
Generally, floor speakers don't want to bring anything to a vote unless they know it will pass.
And so by virtue of going to a vote, we have strong indications on where they think the vote count lies.
I heard Mr. Jeffries saying that a little earlier, trying to really persuade some of those Republicans who might be thinking to vote against it.
Thank you so much. Erin Delmore will be obviously listening and watching to that.
And you can catch her later on the late edition of World Business Report.
Let's talk to Sandhya Galapathy now.
She is the CEO of EDP Renewables at North America.
It generates wind, solar and battery power.
Sandhya, we've got you on the program, because some of the things that will change if this bill goes through are incentives for green energy like yours.
How concerned are you?
Thanks for having me on the show.
Look, the bill is definitely disappointing.
And unfortunately, it's not what America needs at this stage to address our energy needs.
It's a step backward for our energy policy.
Let's remember that we are clearly in a state of energy emergency, you know, all thanks to manufacturing, onshore, industrialization, the electrification, and, of course, the AI race.
And it is absolutely critical that we must work as a nation to harness every available electron that can flow to the grid the fastest. And today, renewables is the fastest that can actually connect to the grid.
Of course, there were some last minute improvements which the Senate made.
However, enacting this bill would set us back in terms of our global competitiveness.
It would have the impact of destabilising our energy future, decimate hundreds of thousands of jobs, skyrocket electric bills for American people.
Yeah, I mean, I suppose the argument that Mr. Trump might use and those in favour of this bill from the Republican Party is that those things won't stop happening.
You know, you won't stop generating renewable energy.
What you will, though, is you'll have to do it on your own two feet.
You won't be able to rely on subsidies of up to, what, 30 percent.
Yeah, but let's remember that, you know, what do we need to address?
I mean, this is not about ideology, right?
There is no Republican or Democratic way of powering the grid.
This is making sure that we as a nation work together to get all forms of energy out there.
And the reality, let's not forget, that renewables is a fastest that can actually connect to the grid just given the stage of development of every other technology out there.
And so we cannot or we should not create, Congress should not create hurdles in the path of deployment of capital and deployment of investments that can actually help our nation grow.
And we have to look at this holistically.
Do you worry about kind of remaining globally competitive?
You mean, you know, American competitiveness in the globe?
Yeah, in this sector, if these subsidies are reduced.
reduced? Absolutely, because look, capital follows policy certainty.
And if you do not have policy certainty, you know, there will be no investment certainty.
And America is always private on, you know, on the fact that we have a fantastic canvas of stable regulatory policy, and this upends the whole thing.
And so when you don't have that certainty, definitely it impacts investment certainty, and it would impact energy certainty.
Wouldn't you have certainty, though, with this big, beautiful bill, because you'd know what it was going forward. It would just be less, presumably.
The point is this is not what we need now.
This is not the desired outcome.
You know, this is not the landing we should have had considering all the energy needs that, you know, that the nation has.
Of course, the Senate has made some improvements, but this is far from what we need now.
Have you been able to lobby in any way and kind of promote your opinion to politicians were voting on this absolutely i think we we all as a as an industry have spent time you know of course making sure that they understand the implications the repercussions of this because this will have repercussions for a long time and it's not just about our repercussions on the sector and what happens to the investment but this is a repercussion on the american economy on the american people and the electricity bills that people have to bear going forward i can sense that this is quite a tense moment for you?
Yes, I think for all of us in the energy space, the last few days have been a roller coaster.
But here we are. And let's see where the house ends today.
Okay, well, I'll let you go and carry on watching this as we all are here in the studio.
Thank you so much for your time.
Sandhya Galapathy, CEO there of EDP Renewables North America, as I said, makes wind turbines, generates wind, solar and battery power.
Now, if you were listening to the programme yesterday, you'll know that the British government bond market took a hit after the UK Finance Minister was seen in tears in the House of Commons.
Well, overnight, it's been a busy overnight, hasn't it?
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced that Rachel Reeves will remain Chancellor through the next election and for many years after.
So has that reassured the market?
So let's have a chat now with Emma Wall.
She's from Hargreaves Lansdowne.
So bonds rallied, I think, after the PM's announcement.
Have they made back some of those losses that we saw yesterday, Emma?
They have indeed, yes, because obviously bond prices and bond yields have inverse relationship with one another.
It means the cost of borrowing has now fallen and bond markets have risen on that reassurance that we're not going to get a new chancellor, which is what they were were pricing in yesterday.
Now, can we also talk about US jobs?
Now, it's remained pretty strong, hasn't it?
Adding 147 ,000 jobs in June, was that expected, that number?
No, it absolutely wasn't.
And neither was the surprise drop in the unemployment rate.
So, it's an expectation that unemployment will come in about 4 .3 % and it's actually coming at 4 .1%.
And the reason why people should care about this is it's a really strong indicator of how robust the US economy is, and therefore what we might expect from the Fed.
So, another bond stories, really.
It means that now the market is pricing an absolutely no chance at all of a July cut.
And in fact, they've reduced the expectation.
I mean, it's still 80%.
So, it's still more likely than not, but they've reduced the expectation of September rate cut as well.
So, really, we are in a higher for longer environment on both sides of the pond.
So, a tricky summer, perhaps.
We've been talking about tariffs, obviously, a lot on the programme.
we've got this looming deadline of when all the tariff deals need to be sorted out by the sort of middle of next week.
The impact of these tariffs, though, has been the price of copper.
It's surged recently, hasn't it?
Explain to us why. Yeah, this has happened with a couple, actually, of trade implementation in terms of, you know, we saw a really, really strong April in terms of trade and then May dropped off.
And basically, it's people rushing to beat a deadline.
And that's what's happened with copper.
So obviously, we've got very nearly this deadline coming up where copper tariffs are going to be hiked.
And in expectation of that, people have been putting orders in earlier than usual.
So sort of bulk buying copper, if you will.
And it means that global reserves of copper have fallen considerably.
So in terms of the London price, it's $10 ,000 a ton, which is a three -month high and actually not that far off its all -time high, which it hit last year, and the lowest reserve levels since 2023.
So we expect this, though, to just be a bringing forward of orders.
So this rally may not continue, but it's certainly one impact of the tariff deadline.
And I just want to ask you one last thing for now about AI and OpenAI has signed a $30 billion deal.
That's a yearly deal with Oracle.
Seems a huge amount of money annually.
What's that for? It's a huge run of money, but it's actually only a tiny bit of the 500 billion that they've promised to spend on AI infrastructure through their Stargate project, which is a project that has partners, including Oracle, but also SoftBank Group.
And it's all to do with data centers, or this part of it is anyway, data center hire.
But this kind of commitment is one that we're seeing from OpenAI, but also from other firms, such as NVIDIA, in terms of global investment in AI infrastructure.
You may remember earlier this year, NVIDIA was in London promising to invest in Bristol in southwest England of all places.
That was only a £1 .5 billion investment, nothing compared to £500 billion.
And this kind of investment we should expect to continue because, you know, the AI innovation can only happen.
It is wholly dependent on things like the infrastructure.
So the data centers, you know, the cables which are needed, and indeed actually the underlying minerals.
So, you know, it goes back to things like copper.
Beautiful circular there for us from Emma Wall.
Emma stay with us we'll come and talk to you in a little while on the program.
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This is World Business Report from the BBC World Service with me, Sam Fennec.
Now, the world's most indebted nations say that they're tired of facing creditors alone.
And they're now getting organised.
A new UN -backed borrowers forum promises to give developing countries a united voice to tackle mounting debt.
But critics warn that this plan doesn't go far enough as debt crises deepen across the global south.
Well, leaders from across the globe have been meeting this week in Seville in Spain to discuss the growth of world debt.
And Jason Braganza from the African Forum and Network of Debt and Development has been there.
The backdrop to this particular conference here in Seville in Spain has been the very deep debt crisis that many developing countries are experiencing, particularly in Africa.
We've got close to half the continent that is experiencing a debt crisis with countries allocating more to debt servicing than they are to things like education, health, water, and sanitation.
they are allocating close to more than 50 percent of their tax revenues towards debt servicing and this is quite an unsustainable way of doing things because you know people's lives are at stake development agendas are at stake with creditors and debt servicing being prioritized so we have a situation here in Sevier the reason we're meeting very urgently is to change that state of affairs.
Yet you have said that actually this Seville agreement has fallen short of what's actually needed?
Yes, it has. I mean, the expectation was that, particularly on debt, that we would have very strong language for changing where debt conversations around restructuring would be conducted.
At the moment, these conversations are taking place under the G20, the IMF, and we wanted this to move away from these two forums that are largely undemocratic and unrepresentative of countries that are experiencing their crisis and we want to move it towards the United Nations and the expectation was that we would have language around a UN framework convention on sovereign debt this was the explicit task by the Africa group and member states of the United Nations as well as the alliance of small island states that are are also very vulnerable and susceptible to climate vulnerabilities and disasters
which exacerbate their health debt situation.
And we've had countries and regional groupings, particularly from the global north, countries that are high polluters.
We have countries that are home to some of the world's largest predators that have blocked the possibility of changing and reforming the debt architecture in this way.
But there are those that are sort of saying that being a bit more positive about the outcome of the conference, Egypt's Minister of Planning and Economic Development says that this isn't just a sort of talking shop.
It is about execution.
Absolutely. And I think it's a document that's negotiated.
It's a consensus document that the member states have arrived at in consultation with different stakeholders like civil society organizations.
And there are elements in the entire document that are progressive and that have avenues for countries to engage in stakeholders like civil society to engage with member states in moving things forward. And I think the case that you have cited from the Republic of Egypt is one of those cases.
The launch of the Debt or Borrowers Forum is a very progressive piece of work that is coming out of Syria.
And whilst the ambition may not have been met, there are elements that member states from the African continent and the Alliance of the Small Island States should be mightily proud of because they showed a lot of resolve to negotiate very hard against certain blockers that didn't want to get us a more progressive agenda on debt.
The president of Kenya has said that there is now a consensus on the need for development -orientated sovereign debt architecture.
Again, these countries are sort of now speaking in one voice, which hasn't happened before.
It hasn't. And I think this is the leadership that the African continent has yet again shown in the United Nations process.
If you recall just two years ago, it was the African group of countries that successfully got us through the United Nations to have a United Nations Convention on International Tax Corporation through a vote in the General Assembly.
And so, yes, there are elements of how progressive the United Nations can be for developing countries.
And that is why the compromiso de Sevilla has, you know, has the opportunity to further show that when we are in a democratic process in a multilateral system, developing country interests can be put in the front and centre of development agenda rather than other spaces that are undemocratic and usually favour wealthier countries over development agendas.
That was Jason Braganza, and he was speaking to me from that conference in Seville a little earlier on.
Now, Lebanon's president, Joseph Aoun, has invited Elon Musk to visit Beirut.
This comes after the world's richest man called him last week to express an interest in investing in the country's struggling telecommunications sector.
But the potential deal is proving controversial because some businesses in Lebanon are voicing concerns that bringing his satellite internet company Starlink would impact the local telecommunication industry.
And they're worried that they would lose out on business.
Ahmed Abdallah is the BBC's Arabic service reporter, and he's been telling me how notoriously unreliable the internet services are in Lebanon because of decades long problem of power cuts.
You know, it's famous about Lebanon that it has power outages since 20, 30 years ago.
And the power outages, they cause the connection to be lost. So it's something really familiar in Lebanon to have like no electricity.
So this makes accessing the Internet much harder, especially comparing the prices that Lebanon have for the Internet.
It's not normal or average cost. No, it's much higher.
And yet, though people are paying too much money, they are not getting a good connection, especially after the latest war that happened here.
And yet, despite all of those problems, the prospect of Elon Musk bringing Starlink to Lebanon is really controversial.
So explain why. Because on paper, Starlink seems like a dream, fast satellite internet being directly to users, potentially bypassing Lebanon's decaying infrastructure.
infrastructure. But when we spoke to the Ministry of Telecommunications, they acknowledged that while the offer is appealing, it can't be treated as a magic fix.
They emphasized that any foreign tech service, especially one dealing with data and communication, must comply with the Lebanese law.
And right now that framework is fragmented at best. At the same time, the private internet companies, they are already struggling in this economy.
And they fear that they will lose their their institutional clients if Starlink enters without regulations.
Some of them already signed a formal letter and it was sent to the president and to the government warning of market disruption.
So while Starlink may offer connectivity, it's also stirring anxiety across the board because it's not just about the internet or about a better internet.
It's about control, it's about profit, and it's about the national oversight.
I can see why the businesses that provide internet services might be concerned about this, but what do consumers think about it?
What do businesses think about it?
Because as you said, Starlink could provide them with a more stable internet connection.
Yes, definitely, definitely.
With the beginning of 7 October and what happened in Lebanon, on the war that deprived rural areas in the south from internet but the consumers are they they have two point of views one point of view that is worried about the cyber security and that the sovereignty of the data might be compromised while others are just pro to this idea because it will provide better connectivity and it will provide better service and so what's What's really standing in its way then presumably is legal red tape as well as these concerns from the internet service providers that say they're going to lose a lot of business.
It's a tangle of many, many, many things together.
It's the legal, the political and the institutional.
Legally, Lebanon's telecom law requires that any new operator get licensed by the telecommunications regulatory authority.
What is the problem?
The problem is that the authority has been inactive in Lebanon since 2012, and because of political deadlock, no replacement was ever appointed.
When we raised this to the Ministry of Telecommunications, they confirmed that in the absence of a functioning regulator, they've been managing telecom affairs directly.
They told us that they're now intensifying meetings with the American side to ensure any deal with Starlink stays within the limit of the Lebanese law, but there's no official file presented yet to the Council of Ministers and no clarity on contractual terms. There's also a deeper issue here, Sam, which is a longstanding tendency to manage strategic sectors without transparency.
Add to that allegations denied by the ministry about potential conflicts of interest involving past businesses to the minister that ties him to sterling distributors, and the whole thing becomes more politically charged than it looks on the surface.
That was the BBC's Ahmed Abidallah speaking to me a little earlier now.
There have been problems flying in Europe today with French air traffic control strike.
It's caused huge cancellations.
Emma Wall is still with us from Hargreaves Lansdowne.
I mean, how big a disruption has it been, Emma?
It's really interesting because there's two of the airlines that are particularly impacted are Ryanair and EasyJet.
So Ryanair's cancelled around 170 flights and EasyJet so far has scrapped more than 270 flights.
So it's sort of 30 ,000 customers plus have been infected.
What's really interesting, though, is EasyJet shares have not been impacted.
And this draws comparisons to around 10 years ago in 2015, where they had similar strikes from French air traffic control, which did actually impact their pre -tax profits and cause a slump of 9 % in the share price.
So what will be interesting is if this continues, we'll then see, is there an impact on the share price?
Interesting. Maybe they've managed to insulate themselves from those strikes.
Thank you so much, Emma Wall from Hargreaves Lansdowne, as ever, for joining us on World Business Report.
And thank you to you for listening.
That was World Business Report.
