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       WASHINGTON: Republicans approved US President Donald Trump’s plan to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting early on Friday morning, vowing it was just the start of broader efforts by Congress to slash the federal budget.

       The cuts achieve only a tiny fraction of the $1 trillion in annual savings that tech billionaire and estranged Trump donor Elon Musk vowed to find before his acrimonious exit in May from a role spearheading federal cost-cutting.

       But Republicans, who recently passed a domestic policy bill expected to add more than $3tr to US debt, said the vote honoured Trump’s election campaign pledge to rein in runaway spending.

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       “President Trump and House Republicans promised fiscal responsibility and government efficiency,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement just after the vote.

       “Today, we’re once again delivering on that promise.” Both chambers of Congress are Republican-controlled, meaning a mostly party-line House of Representatives vote of 216 to 213, moments after Thursday midnight, was sufficient to approve the Senate-passed measure.

       The bill now heads to the White House to be signed by Trump, who praised his backers in the House.

       “Republicans have tried doing this for 40 years, and failed… but no more. This is big!!!” he wrote on Truth Social.

       Most of the cuts target programmes for countries hit by disease, war and natural disasters. But the move also scraps $1.1 billion that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years.

       Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2025