US House passes Trump bill, which heads to White House for president’s signature

The US House of Representatives passed a massive tax-and-spending bill on Thursday that President Donald Trump has sought since returning to the White House, an initiative that fundamentally revamps government spending and jeopardises dozens of planned clean energy projects with ties to China.

Passing in a 218 to 214 vote, the sprawling One Big Beautiful Bill Act – which would lock in Trump’s priorities on border and defence financing, and make permanent tax cuts that Congress passed at Trump’s behest during his first term in 2017 – is the most significant legislative win of his second term so far.

The final vote in the House followed a session that ran through the night on bringing the legislation to the floor, ending months of wrangling on Capitol Hill.

The bill faced resistance from all Democratic lawmakers as well as different factions of the Republican Party over its deep cuts to Medicaid, the healthcare programme which roughly 70 million low-income, elderly and disabled Americans depend on, and its hikes in federal spending.

On the latter, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected recently that the bill would add at least US$3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.