Washington, 18 July 2025 (dpa/MIA) - The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill rolling back billions of dollars in previously allocated funding for foreign aid and public broadcasters, in a win for President Donald Trump.

The Republican-dominated chamber voted 216-213 to pass the bill, which had already been approved by the Senate earlier in the day. The bill heads to Trump's desk next.

The bill provides for spending cuts totalling $9 billion, including $1.1 billion in funding that had already been committed to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

The CPB is responsible for distributing government media funds to US public broadcasters NPR and PBS and their member stations.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that the aim of the bill was to "help restore fiscal sanity" in the country.

NPR and PBS had used federal funds for years to "push a partisan left-wing agenda," Leavitt said.

Democrats, on the other hand, said that the cancellation of funding could hit local stations in rural areas particularly hard and possibly destroy them.

Trump regularly rails against the media, denigrates journalists and takes legal action against reporting.

Photo: EPA archive