President Trump has set a radical new course in the U.S.-China rivalry, ceding ground to Beijing in pursuit of a far narrower vision of America's role in the world, Axios' Zachary Basu and Dave Lawler write.

• Why it matters: Six months into office, the Trump administration has hollowed out the machinery of American soft power and retreated from key arenas where the U.S. has sought to blunt China's rise.

Some of it is strategic: an "America First" rejection of the institutions and norms Trump officials view as bloated, failed or captured by a liberal foreign policy establishment.

• But some of it, critics warn, is shortsighted — focused more on scoring domestic political points than sustaining the long-term foundations of American exceptionalism.

Voice of America — the U.S.-funded broadcaster long trusted to reach audiences inside authoritarian regimes — has gone dark in key regions after the Trump administration gutted its parent agency.

• Chinese state media is moving aggressively to fill the vacuum, expanding broadcasts in Nigeria, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries where VOA once saturated the airwaves, The Wall Street Journal reports.
• In a scathing report this week titled "The Price of Retreat," Senate Democrats accused Trump of damaging America's diplomatic toolkit and failing to offer "a viable alternative" to counter Chinese propaganda.

🖼️ The big picture: Across domains where the U.S. once projected influence without military force, the Trump administration is unilaterally disarming.

• Alliances: Trump's tariff threats and bullying have undermined trust among allies critical to countering China's influence, complicating efforts to present a unified front in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Trump officials say the president has been consistent — and successful — in his demand for allies to do more to pay for their own defense.
• Global institutions: Trump has pulled the U.S. out of multilateral bodies he deems hostile or ineffective, such as the World Health Organization and UN Human Rights Council.
• Science: Trump's funding cuts to research and crackdowns on elite universities have triggered fears of a U.S. "brain drain." China is making massive, long-term investments and recruiting top talent in AI, biotech and space — and already leads the U.S. in 57 of 64 advanced technologies tracked by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
• Clean energy: The passage of Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" is poised to kneecap America's renewable energy boom, widening China's already dominant lead in electric vehicles, batteries and clean tech supply chains.

The other side: "The Biden administration oversaw a bloated and waste-ridden operation that doled out billions of dollars annually without oversight and resulted in duplicative or even contradictory foreign policy," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

• "President Trump and Secretary Rubio have made America respected again while ensuring that all actions align with the America First agenda that people voted for."

🧮 By the numbers: A new Pew Research poll of 25 countries found that China — not the U.S. — is now viewed as the world's leading economic power.

• China's favorability in most countries polled by Pew has ticked upward, while America's global favorability has diminished significantly since Trump took office.

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If President Trump fires Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, it would likely bring a period of short-term market volatility — and higher long-term borrowing costs — with the Fed viewed as more subject to a president's whims, Axios' Neil Irwin writes.

• Why it matters: Trump appears to be itching to push out the Fed chief he originally appointed during his first term, perhaps by claiming that an over-budget building renovation constitutes legal cause.

Paired with efforts to staff the Fed with more overtly political loyalists, that could remake what has been a bedrock of U.S. financial assets for decades.

🔎 Zoom in: In the immediate aftermath of a Powell firing, there would be a period of deep uncertainty around who was in charge of the world's most powerful central bank.

• Would Powell be able to stay in his job while pursuing legal challenges?
• And how long would it take those legal challenges to be resolved one way or the other?
• Nobody really knows, because this hasn't happened before.

One scenario: If investors come to believe that any Fed chair who displeases the president will be fired, they could lose confidence that inflation will stay at low levels, driving long-term rates up.

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At 2:30 a.m., the Senate passed President Trump's clawback of $9 billion in federal funding for PBS, NPR and foreign aid programs, Axios' Stephen Neukam and Stef Kight report.

• The GOP's rescissions package takes back money that has already been appropriated by Congress and signed into law by the president.

Why it matters: It's a win for conservative fiscal hawks who wanted to follow on DOGE's work. Democrats fear the victory for the White House opens the door for more rescissions packages negating bipartisan spending deals.

🏛️ The measure passed 51-48 with only Republican support. Two Republicans — Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — voted with Democrats against the bill.

• The package now needs final approval from the House, which is facing a deadline tomorrow to get the measure to Trump.

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This map shows where storms sweeping the country have prompted flash flood warnings this year.

• Why it matters: The National Weather Service has issued more flash flood warnings so far in 2025 than in any other year on record.

Go deeper: Why flash floods like those in Texas and New York are becoming more common.

ICE arrests of people without criminal charges or convictions surged last month, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj write from data compiled by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley School of Law.

• Why it matters: The numbers illustrate a major shift soon after the Trump administration tripled the agency's daily arrests.

Zoom in: People without criminal charges or convictions made up an average of 47% of daily ICE arrests in early June, up from about 21% in early May.

• The spike in non-criminal ICE arrests came despite the Trump administration claiming it wanted to focus on removing criminals living in the country illegally.

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The TSA's long-standing limits on how much liquid passengers can carry onto planes could be the next airport security rule to be changed, Axios' Kelly Tyko writes.

• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said yesterday she's questioning "everything TSA does" and hinted that the TSA's next rule change could target the 3.4-ounce liquid limit.

"The liquids, I'm questioning," Noem said at a summit by The Hill and NewsNation. "So that may be the next big announcement, what size your liquids need to be."

• The TSA's rule was put in place in 2006 after authorities thwarted a plot to use liquid explosives.

Noem's comments came eight days after the agency ended its "shoes off policy."

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There's one niche of a future AI business ecosystem that Elon Musk's xAI fits perfectly: It could end up as the Fox News of the AI infosphere, Axios' Scott Rosenberg writes.

• Why it matters: xAI, even more than rival AI startup leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic, is a cash incinerator with a tricky pathway to building significant revenue.

🔬 Zoom in: The likeliest path for xAI is to continue to cultivate and refine its appeal to the deep red side of America's red-blue split.

• Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic and other startups are all in a race to connect consumers and businesses to AI.
• The key differentiator will be how well they integrate AI with the rest of the tech we use every day — whether that's phones and desktop software, education and medical platforms, or cars and TV sets.

But some potential AI users will also choose based on ideology.

• AI makers who want their chatbots to provide a middle-of-the-road consensus reality may not satisfy such users.
• That opens a lane for Musk's Grok, which can be intentionally provocative and, at one point, was instructed to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect."

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Marrow is hot. Tallow is trending. Bone luges are back. D.C.'s "clean eating" MAHA diners are taking nose-to-tail eating to the next level, Axios D.C.'s Anna Spiegel writes.

• Why it matters: MAHA's passion for unprocessed food is popularizing whole-animal trends and driving sales of odd offerings.

At Butterworth's, Capitol Hill's haute MAGA hangout, chef Bart Hutchins blows through some 500 beef bones a week for best-selling roasted marrow.

• It's a favorite of Steve Bannon, a Butterworth regular. And Hutchins has served it to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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